'Well, good-bye, Nelly,' she said, when she had put on her things--advancing towards them, while the lieutenant rose to his feet. 'I expect Mrs. Weston will make you comfortable. I ordered in all the things for to-morrow.'
'Everything's _charming_!' said Nelly, as she put her arms round her sister. 'It was awfully good of you to see to it all. Will you come over to lunch to-morrow? We might take you somewhere.'
'Oh, don't bother about me! You won't want me. I'll look in some time. I've got a lot of work to do.'
Nelly withdrew her arms. George Sarratt surveyed his sister-in-law with curiosity.
'Work?' he repeated, with his pleasant, rather puzzled smile.
'What are you doing now, Bridget?' said Nelly, softly, stroking the sleeve of her sister's jacket, but really conscious only of the man beside her.
'Reading some proof-sheets for a friend,' was the rather short reply, as Bridget released herself.
'Something dreadfully difficult?' laughed Nelly.
'I don't know what you mean by difficult,' said Bridget ungraciously, looking for her gloves. 'It's psychology--that's all. Lucy Fenn's bringing out another volume of essays.'
'It sounds awful!' said George Sarratt, laughing. 'I wish I knew what psychology was about. But can't you take a holiday?--just this week?'
He looked at her rather gravely. But Bridget shook her head, and again said good-bye. George Sarratt took her downstairs, and saw her off on her bicycle. Then he returned smiling, to his wife.
'I say, Bridget makes me feel a dunce! Is she really such a learned party?'
Nelly's dark eyes danced a little. 'I suppose she is--but she doesn't stick to anything. It's always something different. A few months ago, it was geology; and we used to go out for walks with a hammer and a bag. Last year it was _the_-ology! Our poor clergyman, Mr. Richardson, was no match for Bridget at all. She could always bowl him over.'
'Somehow all the "ologies" seem very far away--don't they?' murmured Sarratt, after they had laughed together. They were standing at the window again, his arm close round her, her small dark head pressed against him. There was ecstasy in their nearness to each other--in the silver beauty of the lake--in the soft coming of the June evening; and in that stern fact itself that in one short week, he would have left her, would be facing death or mutilation, day after day, in the trenches on the Ypres salient. While he held her, all sorts of images flitted through his mind--of which he would not have told her for the world--horrible facts of bloody war. In eight months he had seen plenty of them. The signs of them were graven on his young face, on his eyes, round which a slight permanent frown, as of perplexity, seemed to have settled, and on his mouth which was no longer naif and boyish, but would always drop with repose into a hard compressed line.