ing talk. "If you loved a man, and he was
poor, you'd wait," I said, "you'd stick to him. You'd not leave him
just to get married to a richer man."

We prowled talking for a time, and sat upon a seat somewhere near the
Regent's Park canal. I rather think I planned to rescue her from a
fallen life, but somehow we dropped that topic. I know she kissed me. I
have a queer impression that it came into my head to marry her. I put
all my loose money in her hands at last and went away extraordinarily
comforted by her, I know not how, leaving her no doubt wondering
greatly.

I did not go to bed that night at all, nor to the office next morning. I
never showed myself in the office again. Instead I went straight down to
my father, and told him I wanted to go to the war forthwith. I had an
indistinct memory of a promise I had made Mary to stay in England, but I
felt it was altogether unendurable that I should ever meet her again. My
father sat at table over the remains of his lunch, and regarded me with
astonishment, with the beginnings of protest.

"I want to get away," I said, and to my own amazement and shame I burst
into tears.

"My boy!" he gasped, astonished and terrified. "You've--you've not
done--some foolish thing?"

"No," I said, already wiping the tears from my face, "nothing.... But I
want to go away."

"You shall do as you please," he said, and sat for a moment regarding
his only son with unfathomable eyes.

Then he got up with a manner altogether matter-of-fact, came half-way
round the table and mixed me a whisky and soda. "It won't be much of a
war, I'm told," he said with the syphon in his hands, breaking a
silence. "I sometimes wish--I had seen a bit of soldiering. And this
seems to be an almost unavoidable war. Now, at any rate, it's
unavoidable.... Drink this and have a biscuit."

He turned to the mantelshelf, and filled his pipe with his broad back to
me. "Yes," he said, "you---- You'll be interested in the war. I hope----
I hope you'll have a good time there...."

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA

Sec. 1

Mary and I did not meet again for five years, and for nearly all that
time I remained in South Africa. I went from England a boy; I came back
seasoned into manhood. They had been years of crowded experience, rapid
yet complicated growth, disillusionment and thought. Responsibility had
come to me. I had seen death, I had seen suffering, and held the lives
of men in my hands.