id at last, "we've licked 'em in the first round, you and
I. The beastly Boche can't do us out of these three days."

"No. We've been absolutely happy. And we'll never forget it. Never."

"Perhaps it was a bit rough on Dad and Mummy, our carting ourselves up
here, away from them. But, you see, they don't really mind. They're
feeling about it now just as we feel about it. I knew they would."

There had been a letter from Frances saying she was glad they'd gone.
She was so happy thinking how happy they were.

"They're angels, Nicky."

"Aren't they? Simply angels. That's the rotten part of it. I wish--

"I wish I could tell them what I think of them. But you can't, somehow.
It sticks in your throat, that sort of thing."

"You needn't," she said; "they know all right."

She thought: "This is what he wants me to tell them about--afterwards."

"Yes, but--I must have hurt them--hurt them horribly--lots of times. I
wish I hadn't.

"But" he went on, "they're funny, you know. Dad actually thought it
idiotic of us to do this. He said it would only make it harder for us
when I had to go. They don't see that it's just piling it on--going from
one jolly adventure to another.

"I'm afraid, though, what he really meant was it was hard on you;
because the rest of it's all my show."

"But it isn't all your show, Nicky darling. It's mine, and it's
theirs--because we haven't grudged you your adventure."

"That's exactly how I want you to feel about it."

"And they're assuming that I shan't come back. Which, if you come to
think of it, is pretty big cheek. They talk, and they think, as though
nobody ever got through. Whereas I've every intention of getting through
and of coming back. I'm the sort of chap who does get through, who does
come back."

"And even if I wasn't, if they studied statistics they'd see that it's a
thousand chances to one against the Boches getting me--just me out of
all the other chaps. As if I was so jolly important.

"No; don't interrupt. Let's get this thing straight while we can.
Supposing--just supposing I didn't get through--didn't come
back--supposing I was unlike myself and got killed, I want you to think
of _that_, not as a clumsy accident, but just another awfully
interesting thing I'd done.

"Because, you see, you might be going to have a baby; and if you took
the thing as a shock instead of--of what it probably really is, and went
and got cut up about it, you might start the little begga