‘’ullo, Bourne! Goin’ square-pushin’?’ one of his acquaintances asked him with a grin.

Bourne only looked at him, and moved a little closer to the girl, a combative feeling rising in him. After all, if the girl were not beautiful, she had poise and character. She ignored all those eyes, which were filled with desire, and furtive innuendo, and provocative challenge; as though indifferent to the tribute which all men pay, one way or another, to the mystery she embodied. With women of her race, it was still a mystery. It gave her the air of saying that she could choose for herself as she pleased, her own will being all that mattered. Even Captain Malet, as Bourne passed on the other side of the street with a correct if perfunctory salute, glanced up at them with a fleeting interest.

‘So that’s the way he spends his money, is it?’ he murmured, half to himself and half to the quartermaster-sergeant; though the two witnesses, all ears and attention, naturally overheard him.

As soon as they had turned the corner she spoke to Bourne, opening out quite frankly. She had two brothers, who had been at the front, but were now working in a mine. They were apparently on a kind of indefinite leave, but were liable to be recalled at any moment to the colours. Then, others, who had also earned a rest from trench life, would take their place. C’est dure, la guerre. But all the same she felt about it as did so many of them, to whom war seemed as natural and as inevitable as a flood or an earthquake. Bourne had noticed very much the same feeling among peasants close to the line. They would plough, sow, and wait for their harvest, taking the chance that battle might flow like lava over their fields, very much as they took the chance of a wet season or of a drought. If the worst happened, then the ruin of their crops might seem mere wanton mischief on the part of a few irresponsible generals; and whether it were a German or a British army which ravaged their fields and shattered their homesteads, did not affect their point of view very materially. On the whole, however, their pessimism was equal to the occasion.

‘C’est la guerre,’ they would say, with resignation that was almost apathy: for all sensible people know that war is one of the blind forces of nature, which can neither be foreseen nor controlled. Their attitude, in all its simplicity, was sane. There is nothing in war which is not in human nature; but the violence and passions of men become, in the aggregate, an impersonal and incalculable force, a blind and irrational movement of the collective will, which one cannot control, which one cannot understand, which one can only endure as these peasants, in their bitterness and resignation, endured it. C’est la guerre.

The demure little person hurrying beside him with her basket realized that the war made life more precarious, chiefly because it resulted in a scarcity of provisions, and a rise, if only a restricted rise, in prices. There was something always a little disconcerting to the soldier in the prudence, foresight, and practical sense of the civilian mind. It is impossible to reconcile the point of view, which argues that everything is so scarce, with that opposed point of view, which argues that time is so short. She was amazed at his extravagance, as she bought under his supervision chickens and beef and eggs and potatoes and onions, and then four bottles of wine. Salad and beans her mother’s garden could provide; but as an afterthought, when buying the red currants in syrup, he bought some cream cheese. Then, their shopping completed, they turned back. She touched him lightly on the arm once, and asked him why he had no stripes on his sleeve.