* *

Vera said to herself: "He didn't. She made that up."

She hated the Red Cross woman who had been with Lawrence and had seen so
much; who had dared to tell her what he meant and to make up messages.

XXIII

Nicholas had applied for a commission, and he had got it, and Frances
was glad.

She had been proud of him because he had chosen the ranks instead of the
Officers' Training Corps; but she persisted in the belief that, when it
came to the trenches, second lieutenants stood a better chance. "For
goodness' sake," Nicholas had said, "don't tell her that they're over
the parapet first."

That was in December. In February he got a week's leave--sudden,
unforeseen and special leave. It had to be broken to her this time that
leave as special as that meant war-leave.

She said, "Well, if it does, I shall have him for six whole days." She
had learned how to handle time, how to prolong the present, drawing it
out minute by minute; thus her happiness, stretched to the snapping
point, vibrated.

She had a sense of its vibration now, as she looked at Nicholas. It was
the evening of the day he had come home, and they were all in the
drawing-room together. He was standing before her, straight and tall, on
the hearthrug, where he had lifted the Persian cat, Timmy, out of his
sleep and was holding him against his breast. Timmy spread himself
there, softly and heavily, hanging on to Nicky's shoulder by his claws;
he butted Nicky's chin with his head, purring.

"I don't know how I'm to tear myself away from Timmy. I should like to
wear him alive as a waistcoat. Or hanging on my shoulder like a cape,
with his tail curled tight round my neck. He'd look uncommonly _chic_
with all his khaki patches."

"Why don't you take him with you?" Anthony said.

"'Cos he's Ronny's cat."

"He isn't. I've given him to you," Veronica said.

"When?"

"Now, this minute. To sleep on your feet and keep you warm."

Frances listened and thought: "What children--what babies they are,
after all." If only this minute could be stretched out farther.

"I mustn't," Nicky said. "I should spend hours in dalliance; and if a
shell got him it would ruin my morale."

Timmy, unhooked from Nicky's shoulder, lay limp in his arms. He lay on
his back, in ecstasy, his legs apart, showing the soft, cream-white fur
of his stomach. Nicky rubbed his face against the soft, cream-white fur.

"I say, what a heavenly death it would be to die--smot