Day after day Mr. Britling traced the swaying fortunes of the conflict, with impatience, with perplexity, but with no loss of confidence in the ultimate success of Britain.  The country was still swarming with troops, and still under summer sunshine.  A second hay harvest redeemed the scantiness of the first, the wheat crops were wonderful, and the great fig tree at the corner of the Dower House had never borne so bountifully nor such excellent juicy figs....

And one day in early June while those figs were still only a hope, Teddy appeared at the Dower House with Letty, to say good-bye before going to the front.  He was going out in a draft to fill up various gaps and losses; he did not know where.  Essex was doing well but bloodily over there.  Mrs. Britling had tea set out upon the lawn under the blue cedar, and Mr. Britling found himself at a loss for appropriate sayings, and talked in his confusion almost as though Teddy’s departure was of no significance at all.  He was still haunted by that odd sense of responsibility for Teddy.  Teddy was not nearly so animated as he had been in his pre-khaki days; there was a quiet exaltation in his manner rather than a lively excitement.  He knew now what he was in for.  He knew now that war was not a lark, that for him it was to be the gravest experience he had ever had or was likely to have.  There were no more jokes about Letty’s pension, and a general avoidance of the topics of high explosives and asphyxiating gas....

Mr. and Mrs. Britling took the young people to the gate.

“Good luck!” cried Mr. Britling as they receded.

Teddy replied with a wave of the hand.

Mr. Britling stood watching them for some moments as they walked towards the little cottage which was to be the scene of their private parting.

“I don’t like his going,” he said.  “I hope it will be all right with him....  Teddy’s so grave nowadays.  It’s a mean thing, I know, it has none of the Roman touch, but I am glad that this can’t happen with Hugh—­” He computed.  “Not for a year and three months, even if they march him into it upon his very birthday....

“It may all he over by then....”

Section 6

In that computation he reckoned without Hugh.

Within a month Hugh was also saying “Good-bye.”

“But how’s this?” protested Mr. Britling, who had already guessed the answer.  “You’re not nineteen.”

“I’m nineteen enough for this job,” said Hugh.  “In fact, I enlisted as nineteen.”

Mr. Britling said nothing for a little while.  Then he spoke with a catch in his breath.  “I don’t blame you,” he said.  “It was—­the right spirit.”

Drill and responsibilities of non-commissioned rank had imposed a novel manliness upon the bearing of Corporal Britling.  “I always classified a little above my age at Statesminster,” he said as though that cleared up everything.