had nothing whatever in common. As they stood there, lost and
desolate on the grimy platform of the Finland station, this same thought
must have been paramount in their minds: "Thank God we shan't have to
talk to one another any longer. Whatever else may happen in this
strange place that at least we're spared." They were probably quite
unconscious of the contrast they presented, unconscious because, at this
time, young Bohun never, I should imagine, visualised himself as
anything more definite than absolutely "right," and Lawrence simply
never thought about himself at all. But they were perfectly aware of
their mutual dissatisfaction, although they were of course absolutely
polite. I heard of it afterwards from both sides, and I will say quite
frankly that my sympathy was all with Lawrence. Young Bohun can have
been no fun as a travelling companion at that time. If you had looked at
him there standing on the Finland station platform and staring haughtily
about for porters you must have thought him the most self-satisfied of
mortals. "That fellow wants kicking," you would have said. Good-looking,
thin, tall, large black eyes, black eyelashes, clean and neat and
"right" at the end of his journey as he had been at the beginning of it,
just foreign-looking enough with his black hair and pallor to make him
interesting--he was certainly arresting. But it was the
self-satisfaction that would have struck any one. And he had reason; he
was at that very moment experiencing the most triumphant moment of his
life.

He was only twenty-three, and was already as it seemed to the youthfully
limited circle of his vision, famous. Before the war he had been, as he
quite frankly admitted to myself and all his friends, nothing but
ambitious. "Of course I edited the _Granta_ for a year," he would say,
"and I don't think I did it badly.... But that wasn't very much."

No, it really wasn't a great deal, and we couldn't tell him that it was.
He had always intended, however, to be a great man; the _Granta_ was
simply a stepping-stone. He was already, during his second year at
Cambridge, casting about as to the best way to penetrate, swiftly and
securely, the fastnesses of London journalism. Then the war came, and he
had an impulse of perfectly honest and selfless patriotism..., not
quite selfless perhaps, because he certainly saw himself as a mighty
hero, winning V.C.'s and saving forlorn hopes, finally received by his
native village under an a