Iris in bed, Gladys, with her work-basket in the crook of her arm, joined Donald in the drawing-room. He was smoking and deep in a crossword puzzle.

“Do you know your Shakespeare? ‘Arrow of something fortune’? Ten letters.”

“Outrageous!” Gladys spat out the word so venomously that Donald laid down his puzzle and gaped at her. She took a deep breath, trying to control herself, but failed. Sobs shook her. He had never seen her cry before. He loathed a woman to cry. He got up and patted her shoulder.

“I say, what’s up? Cheer up, old thing, you must have been overdoing things. Come on, what’s the trouble?”

She clutched at his hand and covered it with tears and kisses. Horrified, he tried to pull it away, but she held on the tighter.

“I love you! I love you! You can’t hurt me! You can’t!” Donald was disgusted with himself. He longed to explain himself, to get the situation cleared up. The last thing he wanted was to leave Gladys’ declaration, lying between them, unanswered, but he was not easy with words. Everything he thought of seemed cruel. He went on patting her and making soothing sounds, then, for lack of any better way out, he said:

“You go up to bed, old thing. You’re in a bit of a state. We’ll have a talk about all this some other time.”

Gladys went up to her room. She did not light a candle so that she could draw back the curtains. She leant out. The wind suited her mood and gradually her emotion died. “He didn’t say he didn’t love me,” she comforted herself, “and at least now he knows. Is it awful what I’m going to do? It can’t be; nothing’s wrong when you love. He’s all my life and I’ve got to fight for him. He said he’d talk about it some other time. Saturday is my chance and I’ve got to take it.”

Section 14

Donald spent a sleepless night. There was more work the next day than his man could do, and he made this his excuse and lunched off bread and cheese in the fields. After tea he managed to slip down to the village to ask the advice of the shrewdest and most honest man he knew.

“Hullo, Donald!” said the colonel. “Fancy seem’ you! Barbara’s goin’ to ring you up tonight. Young Dick’s comin’ home. Had you heard?”

“No, he said nothing about it in his last letter, but he said he’d had that go of malaria. Is it sick leave?” The colonel nodded. “That’s good. I could do with a sight of his old mug.” He drew up a chair and filled his pipe. “Barbara in?”