"I care very much," she said quietly. She knew the battle was won, and it was very collectedly that she added the words, "Now, I have your promise, Jervis? You're not to do anything foolish----" Then she saw she had made a mistake. "No, no!" she cried hastily; "I don't mean that--I don't mean that a man who becomes a soldier in time of war is doing anything foolish! But I do think that you ought to wait just a few days. Everything is different now." For the first time she felt that everything was indeed different in England--in this new strange England which was at war. It was odd that Jervis Blake should have brought that knowledge home to her. "Very well," he said slowly. "I'll wait. I can't wait a whole week, but I'll wait till after Sunday." "The Robeys are going to the seaside on Monday, aren't they?" She was speaking now quite composedly, quite like herself. "Yes, and they kindly asked me to stay on till then." He got up. "Well," he said, looking down at her--and she couldn't help telling herself what a big, manly fellow he looked, and what a fine soldier he would make--"well, Rose, so it isn't good-bye, after all?" "No, I'm glad to say it isn't." She gave him a frank, kindly smile. "Surely you'll stay and have some tea?" "No, thank you. Jack Robey is feeling a little above himself to-day. You see it's the fourth day of the holidays. I think I'll just go straight back, and take him out for a walk. I rather want to think over things." As he made his way across the lawn and through the house, feeling somehow that the whole world had changed for the better, though he could not have told you exactly why, Jervis Blake met Mrs. Otway. "Won't you stay and have some tea?" she asked, but she said it in a very different voice from that Rose had used--Rose had meant what she said. "Thanks very much, but I've got to get back. I promised Mrs. Robey I'd be in to tea; the boys are back from school, you know." "Oh, yes, of course! I suppose they are. Well, you must come in some other day before you leave Witanbury." She hurried through into the garden. "I hope Jervis Blake hasn't been here very long, darling," she said fondly. "Of course I know he's your friend, and that you've always liked him. But I'm afraid he would rather jar on one to-day. He's always _so_ disliked the Germans! Poor fellow, how he must feel out of it, now that the war he's always been talking about has actually come!" "Well, mother, Jervis was right after all. The Germans _were_ preparing for war." But Mrs. Otway went on as if she had not heard the interruption. It was a way she had, and sometimes both Rose and old Anna found it rather trying. "This morning Miss Forsyth was saying she thought young Blake would enlist--that she'd enlist if she were in his place! It's odd what nonsense she sometimes talks."