“It has taken us the best part of a year to realise what war means,” Thomson assented. “Even now there are people whom one meets every day who seem to be living in abstractions.”
“Last night’s raid ought to wake a few of them up,” the Admiral grunted. “I should like to have shown those devils where to have dropped a few of their little toys. There are one or two men who were making laws not so long ago, who’d have had a hole in their roofs.”
“I really think that dad feels more bloodthirsty when he talks about some of our politicians than he does about the Germans,” she declared.
“Some of our worst enemies are at home, any way,” Sir Seymour insisted, “and we shall never get on with the war till we’ve weeded them out.”
“Where did the nearest bomb to you drop?” Thomson inquired.
“The corner of St. James’s Street,” Sir Seymour replied. “There were two houses in Berkeley Street alight, and a hole in the roof of a house in Hay Hill. The bomb there didn’t explode, though. Sad thing about young Granet, wasn’t it? He seems to be the only service man who suffered at all.”
“It was perfectly ghastly,” she murmured.
“A very promising young officer, I should think,” the Admiral continued, “and a very sad death. Brings things home to you when you remember that it was only yesterday he was here, poor fellow!”
Geraldine and her mother rose from their places, a few minutes later. The latter looked up at Thomson as he held open the door.
“You won’t be long, will you?” she begged.
“You can take him with you, if you like,” the Admiral declared, also rising to his feet. “He doesn’t drink port and the cigarettes are in your room. I have to take the Chair at a recruiting meeting at Holborn in a quarter of an hour. The car’s waiting now. You’ll excuse me, won’t you, Thomson?”
“Of course,” the latter assented. “I must leave early myself. I have to go back to the War Office.”
Geraldine took his arm and led him into the little morning-room.
“You see, I am carrying you off in the most bare-faced fashion,” she began, motioning him to a seat by her side, “but really you are such an elusive person, and only this morning, in the midst of that awful thunder of bombs, when we stood on the roof and looked at London breaking out into flames, I couldn’t help thinking--remembering, I mean--how short a time it is since you and I were face to face with the other horror and you saved my life. Do you know, I don’t think that I have ever said ‘thank you’--not properly?”