“Really rather?”

Queenie backed towards the court.

“Oh, come on, Colin, if you’re coming.”

He went.

“What do you think of Queenie?” Adeline said.

“She’s very handsome.”

“Yes, Anne.  But it isn’t a nice face.  Now, is it?”

Anne couldn’t say it was a nice face.

“It’s awful to think of Colin being married to it.  He’s only twenty-one now, and she’s seven years older.  If it had been anybody but Colin.  If it had been Eliot or Jerrold I shouldn’t have minded so much.  They can look after themselves.  He’ll never stand up against that horrible girl.”

“She does look terribly strong.”

“And cruel, Anne, as if she might hurt him.  I don’t want him to be hurt.  I can’t bear her taking him away from me.  My little Col-Col....I did hope, Anne, that if you wouldn’t have Eliot—­”

“I’d have Colin?  But Auntie, I’m years older than he is.  He’s a baby.”

“If he’s a baby he’ll want somebody older to look after him.”

“Queenie’s even better fitted than I am, then.”

“Do you think, Anne, she proposed to Colin?”

“No.  I shouldn’t think it was necessary.”

“I should say she was capable of anything.  My only hope is they’ll tire each other out before they’re married and break it off.”

All afternoon on the tennis court below Queenie played against Colin.  She played vigorously, excitedly, savagely, to win.  She couldn’t hide her annoyance when he beat her.

“What was I to do?” he said.  “You don’t like it when I beat you.  But if I was beaten you wouldn’t like me.”

ii

Adeline’s only hope was not realized.  They hadn’t had time to tire of each other before the War broke out.  And Colin insisted on marrying before he joined up.  Their engagement had left him nervous and unfit, and his idea was that, once married, he would present a better appearance before the medical examiners.

But after a month of Queenie, Colin was more nervous and unfit than ever.

“I can’t think,” said Adeline, “what that woman does to him.  She’ll wear him out.”

So Colin waited, trying to get fitter, and afraid to volunteer lest he should be rejected.

Everybody around him was moving rapidly.  Queenie had taken up motoring, so that she could drive an ambulance car at the front.  Anne had gone up to London for her Red Cross training.  Eliot had left his practice to his partner at Penang and had come home and joined the Army Medical Corps.

Eliot, home on leave for three days before he went out, tried hard to keep Colin back from the War.  In Eliot’s opinion Colin was not fit and never would be fit to fight.  He was just behaving as he always had behaved, rushing forward, trying insanely to do the thing he never could do.

“Do you mean to say they won’t pass me?” he asked.