ter; they were worse.--But he made his efforts. The
matter of telling her (when he tried in August) that he thought he ought
to join the Army was one, and it came nearest to establishing pleasant
relations. That it revealed a profound difference of sensibility was
nothing. He blamed himself for causing that side to appear.

Her comment when, on the eve of his attempt, he rather diffidently
acquainted her with his intention, was, "Do you really think you ought
to?" This was not enthusiastic; but he went ahead with it and made a
joke, which amused her, about how funny it would be if she had to start
making "comforts" for him at the War Knitting League which she was
attending with great energy at the Garden Home. He found, as they
talked, that it never occurred to her but that it was as an officer that
he would be going, and something warned him not to correct her
assumption. He found with pleased surprise quite a friendly chat afoot
between them. She only began to fall away in interest when he, made
forgetful by this new quality in their contact, allowed his deeper
feelings to find voice. Once started, he was away before he had realised
it, in how one couldn't help feeling about England and how utterly
glorious would be his own sensations if he could actually get into
uniform and feel that England had admitted him to be a part of her.

She looked at the clock.

His face was reddening in its customary signal of his enthusiasm. He
noticed her glance, but was not altogether checked. He went on quickly,
"Well, look here. I must tell you this. I'll tell you what I'll say to
myself first thing if I really do get in. A thing out of the Psalms. By
Jove, an absolutely terrific thing, Mabel. In the Forty-fifth. Has old
Bag--has Boom Bagshaw told you people up at the church what absolutely
magnificent reading the Psalms are just now, in this war?"

She shook her head. "We sing them every Sunday, of course. But I don't
see how the Psalms--you mean the Bible Psalms, don't you?--can have
anything to do with war."

"Oh, but they have. They're absolutely hung full of it. Half of them are
the finest battle chants ever written. You ought to read them, Mabel;
every one ought to be reading them these days. Well, this verse I'm
telling you about. I say, do listen, I won't keep you a minute. It's in
that one where there comes in a magnificent chant to some princess who
was being brought to marriage to some foreign king--"

Mabel's disper