on in its funny old way, while the gods laugh, and laugh, and laugh. …
XI
On the boat Draycott hardly realised. For the first week of the three he spent in England he hardly realised—he was too excited. He was going out; that was all that mattered; until one morning his eyes were opened to his personal case. It is easy to see things where others are concerned; but in one's own case. …
He was at home on three days' leave, and the girl was there too.
"Good Lord!" he remarked at breakfast; "Jerry Thornton gone too." His eye was running down the casualty list. "Whole battalion must have taken it in the neck—five officers killed, fourteen wounded. I wish to heaven" He looked up, and the words died away on his lips.
"I didn't realise what war meant to women." His remarks at the Gare de Lyon hit him like a blow. For he had seen the look in the girl's eyes; he had seen the look in his mother's. Blotted out at once, it is true; effaced the instant they had realised he was watching them; but—too late. He had seen.
"Was that Major Thornton, dear?" His mother was speaking. "The one who shot so well?" Her voice was casual; her acting superb. And God! how they can act—these women of ours.
