THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER
Kitty : To-day . . . from her. Go on, Frank.
Frank : Well, I breakfasted when I landed—a remarkably good French breakfast, I must say . . . coffee and omelette . . . really excellent—and then went off to look for the hospital. It’s a big girls’ school, which has been taken over by the Red Cross. I found it quite easily, but they wouldn’t let me see Chris just then. I had an hour to wait, so I went and sat about in the grounds. Some of the wounded soldiers who were around were rather rude because I was not in khaki. I did my best to explain that I was a priest of God, and that the feeling of the bishops was so strongly against the enlistment of the clergy, but . . .
Kitty : Is this necessary?
Jenny : More matter, with less art!
Frank : Jenny, please. . . . Well, anyway, then a nurse came out and took me in to see Chris. He was in a very nice room with three other officers . . . quite decent fellows . . . and he seemed glad to see me—more cordial towards me, I may say, than he had been for some years. He seemed better than I had expected, but somehow not quite himself . . . curiously boisterous, I thought. He talked a little about Harrow Weald and this place, and then, suddenly, after a pause, he made the most extraordinary statement, which, coming as it
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