'I'm ordered to. But I doubt if I can stand it.'
'Fiend! Are you going already? Cruel girl!'
'I can stand talking to you, Edith. Talking, for hours. But I can't stand your being within a yard of me.'
'Thank you so much,' she said, laughing, and arranging her hat in front of the mirror.
'How often must I tell you? You know perfectly well.'
'I'm very glad you can't. I have no wish for you to kiss _people_.'
'I can't kiss. I don't know how anyone can. I can't do those things.'
She pretended not to hear, looked round the room, took up a book and said:
'Good-bye, darling,' said Aylmer, ringing the bell.
The butler called her a cab, and she drove to Mrs Mitchell's.
When she got to the door she left a message with the footman to say she hadn't been able to see about that matter for Mrs Mitchell yet, but would do it tomorrow.
Just as she was speaking Mr Mitchell came up to the door.
'Hallo, hallo, hallo!' he cried in his cheery, booming voice.
'Why, you ought to know. He's been with you today,' said Edith.
'He seems a bit off colour at the Foreign Office. Won't you all three come and dine with us tomorrow? No party. I'm going to ring up and get Aylmer. It won't hurt him to dine quietly with us.'
Mr Mitchell didn't like to see her go, but as he was longing to tell his wife a hundred things that interested them both, he waved his hand to her, saying:
'Good-bye. The war will be over in six months. Mark my words! And then won't we have a good time!'
'Dear Mr Mitchell!' said Edith to herself as she drove back home in the dark.
Landi was growing rather anxious about his favourite, for it was quite obvious to him that she was daily becoming more and more under the spell. Curious that the first time she should have found the courage to refuse, and that now, after three years' absence and with nothing to complain of particularly on the subject of her husband, she should now be so carried away by this love.
She had developed, no doubt. She was touched also, deeply moved at the long fidelity Aylmer had shown. He was now no longer an impulsive admirer, but a devotee. Even that, however, would not have induced her to think of making such a break in her life if it hadn't been for the war. Yes, Sir Tito put it all down to the war. It had an exciting, thrilling effect on people. It made them reckless. When a woman knows that the man she loves has risked his life, and is only too anxious to risk it again--well, it's natural that she should feel she is also willing to risk something. Valour has always been rewarded by beauty. And then her great sense of responsibility, her conscientiousness about Bruce--no wonder that had been undermined by his own weak conduct. How could Edith help feeling a slight contempt for a husband who not only wouldn't take any chances while he was still within the age, but positively imagined himself ill. True, Bruce had always been a _malade imaginaire_; like many others with the same weakness, his valetudinarianism had been terribly increased by the anxiety and worry of the war. But there was not much sympathy about for it just now. While so much real suffering was going on, imaginary ills were ignored, despised or forgotten.