The hour that was coming had the colour of yesterday.  He would hold her in his arms again till she trembled, and then he would be afraid, and she would be afraid, and he would let her go.

The bell rang, the garden gate swung open; his feet were loud and quick on the flagged path of the terrace.  He came into the room to them, holding himself rather stiffly and very upright.  His eyes shone with excitement.  He laughed the laugh she loved, that narrowed his eyes and jerked his mouth slightly crooked.

They all spoke at once.  “You’ve got leave?” “He’s got it all right.”  “What kept you?” “You have got leave?”

His eyes still shone; his mouth still jerked, laughing.

“Well, no,” he said.  “That’s what I haven’t got.  In fact, I’m lucky to be here at all.”

Nanna came in with the coffee.  He took his cup from her and sat down on the sofa beside Frances, stirring his coffee with his spoon, and smiling as if at something pleasant that he knew, something that he would tell them presently when Nanna left the room.

The door closed softly behind her.  He seemed to be listening intently for the click of the latch.

“Funny chaps,” he said meditatively.  “They keep putting you off till you come and tell them you want to get married to-morrow.  Then they say they’re sorry, but your marching orders are fixed for that day.

“Twelve hours isn’t much notice to give a fellow.”

He had not looked at Dorothy.  He had not spoken to her.  He was speaking to Anthony and John and Frances who were asking questions about trains and boats and his kit and his people.  He looked as if he were not conscious of Dorothy’s eyes fixed on him as he sat, slowly stirring his coffee without drinking it.  The vibration of her nerves made his answers sound muffled and far-off.

She knew that her hour was dwindling slowly, wasting, passing from her minute by minute as they talked.  She had an intolerable longing to be alone with him, to be taken in his arms; to feel what she had felt yesterday.  It was as if her soul stood still there, in yesterday, and refused to move on into to-day.

Yet she was glad of their talking.  It put off the end.  When they stopped talking and got up and left her alone with him, that would be the end.

Suddenly he looked straight at her.  His hands trembled.  The cup he had not drunk from rattled in its saucer.  It seemed to Dorothea that for a moment the whole room was hushed to listen to that small sound.  She saw her mother take the cup from him and set it on the table.

One by one they got up, and slunk out of the room, as if they were guilty, and left her alone with him.

It was not like yesterday.  He did not take her in his arms.  He sat there, looking at her rather anxiously, keeping his distance.  He seemed to be wondering how she was going to take it.

He thought:  “I’ve made a mess of it again.  It wasn’t fair to make her want me—­when I might have known.  I ought to have left it.”