“Jolly nice bit of fluff,” said Jenks meditatively, staring fixedly across the deck.

“Where?” queried the Major, fumbling for his eyeglass.

“Get on there, please, gentlemen,” called a ship’s official.

“Damn it! mind my leg!”

“Cheerio, old son, here we are again!”

“I say, Tommy, did you get to the Alhambra last night, after all?  What?  Well, I couldn’t see you, anyhow.”

To which accompaniment, Peter pushed his way across the deck.  “Sorry, padre,” said a V.A.D. who blocked the way, bending herself back to let him pass, and smiling.  “Catch hold,” called out Donovan, swinging a couple of chairs at him.  “No, sir, it’s not my chair”—­to a Colonel who was grabbing at one already set out against the rail.

The Colonel collected it and disappeared, Jenks appearing a moment later, red-faced, through the crush.  “You blamed fool,” he whispered, “it’s that girl’s.  I saw her put one here and edged up on it, only some fool got in my way.  Still (hopefully), perhaps she’ll come back.”

Between them they got four chairs into a line and sat down, all, that is, save Jenks, who stood up, in a bland and genial way, as if to survey the crowd impartially.  How impartially soon appeared.  “Damn!” he exploded.  “She’s met some other females, weird and woolly things, and she’s sitting down there.  No, by Jove! she’s looking this way.”

He made a half-start forward, and the Major kicked his shins.  “Blast!” he exploded; “why did you do that, you fool?”

“Don’t be an infant, Jenko, sit down.  You can’t start a flirtation across the blooming deck.  Here, padre, can’t you keep him in order?”

Peter half raised himself from his chair at this, and glanced the way the other was looking.  Through the crush he saw, clearly enough for a minute, a girl of medium height in a nurse’s uniform, sideways on to him.  The next second she half-turned, obviously smiling some remark to her neighbour, and he caught sight of clear brown eyes and a little fringe of dark hair on the forehead of an almost childish face.  The eyes met his.  And then a sailor blundered across his field of vision.

“Topping, isn’t she?” demanded Jenks, who had apparently been pulled down into his chair in the interval.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Graham, and added deliberately:  “Rather ordinary, I thought.”

Jenks stared at him.  “Good Lord, padre,” he said, “where are your eyes?”

Peter heard a little chuckle behind, and glanced round to see Donovan staring at him with amusement written all across his face.  “You’ll do, padre,” he said, taking a pipe from his pocket and beginning to fill it.  Peter smiled and leant back.  Probably for the first time in five years he forgot for a moment what sort of a collar it was around his neck.

Sitting there, he began to enjoy himself.  The sea glittered in the sun and the Lees stretched out opposite him across the shining gulf.  Sea-birds dipped and screamed.  On his left, Major Bevan was talking to a flying man, and Peter glanced up with him to see an aeroplane that came humming high up above the trees on the cliff and flew out to sea.