A terrific time!  If he did not mistake, Leila Lynch had always had a terrific time.  And he smiled, seeing again the stoep of an old Dutch house at High Constantia, and a woman sitting there under the white flowers of a sweet-scented creeper—­a pretty woman, with eyes which could put a spell on you, a woman he would have got entangled with if he had not cut and run for it!  Ten years ago, and here she was again, refreshing him out of the past.  He sniffed the fragrance of the little letter.  How everybody always managed to work into a letter what they were doing in the war!  If he answered her he would be sure to say:  “Since I got lamed, I’ve been at the War Office, working on remounts, and a dull job it is!” Leila Lynch!  Women didn’t get younger, and he suspected her of being older than himself.  But he remembered agreeably her white shoulders and that turn of her neck when she looked at you with those big grey eyes of hers.  Only a five-day acquaintanceship, but they had crowded much into it as one did in a strange land.  The episode had been a green and dangerous spot, like one of those bright mossy bits of bog when you were snipe-shooting, to set foot on which was to let you down up to the neck, at least.  Well, there was none of that danger now, for her husband was dead-poor chap!  It would be nice, in these dismal days, when nobody spent any time whatever except in the service of the country, to improve his powers of service by a few hours’ recreation in her society.  ‘What humbugs we are!’ he thought:  ’To read the newspapers and the speeches you’d believe everybody thought of nothing but how to get killed for the sake of the future.  Drunk on verbiage!  What heads and mouths we shall all have when we wake up some fine morning with Peace shining in at the window!  Ah!  If only we could; and enjoy ourselves again!’ And he gazed at the moon.  She was dipping already, reeling away into the dawn.  Water carts and street sweepers had come out into the glimmer; sparrows twittered in the eaves.  The city was raising a strange unknown face to the grey light, shuttered and deserted as Babylon.  Jimmy Fort tapped out his pipe, sighed, and got into bed.

2

Coming off duty at that very moment, Leila Lynch decided to have her hour’s walk before she went home.  She was in charge of two wards, and as a rule took the day watches; but some slight upset had given her this extra spell.  She was, therefore, at her worst, or perhaps at her best, after eighteen hours in hospital.  Her cheeks were pale, and about her eyes were little lines, normally in hiding.  There was in this face a puzzling blend of the soft and hard, for the eyes, the rather full lips, and pale cheeks, were naturally soft; but they were hardened by the self-containment which grows on women who have to face life for themselves, and, conscious of beauty, intend to keep it, in spite of age.  Her figure was contradictory, also; its soft modelling a little