“I’ve been up against the reality of things, too,” said Betty slowly, “and I’ve learnt how very little money counts.  You’d have known that, if you’d been with the French Army.  That was the difference between the French and the English.  The French poilu had no money at all, and the English Tommy had plenty.  But it made no difference in the big things.”

CHAPTER XVIII

Meanwhile Timmy, upstairs, had performed what was for him quite an elaborate toilet.  He possessed a new Eton suit of which he was secretly proud, for in this as in so many things unlike most little boys, he took great care of his clothes, and had an almost finicking dislike to what was rough or untidy.  His two younger sisters’ untidiness was a perpetual annoyance to him, and he still felt sore and angry at the way Rosamund had upset his toy-box when looking for that old prescription.

To-night he felt queerly excited and above himself.  After-dinner coffee had been made in a way Betty had learnt in France, and she had foolishly allowed him to drink a cup of the strong, potent, delicious fluid.  This had had a curious effect on him, intensifying his already acute perceptions, and making him feel both brave and bold as well as wary—­wary Timmy Tosswill always was.

And now he was eagerly debating within himself whether he could carry out an experiment he had an eager wish to try.  It had filled his mind, subconsciously, ever since he had slipped quickly in front of his brother Jack to open the front door to Mrs. Crofton, a couple of hours ago.

Mrs. Crofton was very much of a town lady, and she had actually been accompanied, during her short progress through the dark village, by her parlourmaid.  When Timmy opened the front door, she had been engaged in giving the girl a few last directions as to how a lighted candle was to be left out for her in her hall, for she had brought her latchkey with her.  After ringing the bell, the lady and her maid had moved away from the door a little way, and Timmy, staring out at the two figures, who stood illumined by the hall light out on the gravel carriage drive, had seen Something Else.

He did not invariably see Mrs. Crofton accompanied or companioned by that of which he had spoken to his mother.  Sometimes days would go by and he would see nothing, though he was a constant, if never a welcome, visitor at The Trellis House.

Then all at once, sometimes when she was in the garden, at other times in the charming little parlour, Timmy would see the wraith of Colonel Crofton, and the wraith of Colonel Crofton’s terrier, Dandy, looking as real as the flesh-and-blood woman beside whom they seemed to stand.  Sometimes they appeared, as it were, intermittently, but now and again they would stay quite a long time.

As long as he could remember, Timmy had been aware of what Nanna expressed by the phrase “things that were not there,” and he was so accustomed to the phenomena that it did not impress his own mind as anything very much out of the way, or strange.