“I thought I recognized her,” said Thompson, “I went over to her table and had a good look to make sure.” “Don’t pretend you know her,” I said “She certainly didn’t know you.” “I looked at her photograph five times at least last night while you were asleep.” I thought this over for a minute. Then I said: “You don’t mean to tell me that she’s the girl that boy is engaged to be married to?” “The exact same girl,” said Thompson. “I couldn’t be mistaken.” I meditated on the situation. “I hope,” I said, “that he won’t have left the cathedral before she gets there.” “No fear,” said Thompson, “he’s a most conscientious boy. Having started out to do that cathedral he’ll look at every stone of it before he leaves. He’ll be there for hours yet. What I’m afraid of is that she won’t go there.” “She started in the right direction,” I said “I saw her out of the window.” “I did my best anyhow,” said Thompson. “I told her I wasn’t going there. She didn’t like me. I could see that. If I’d let her think I was going to the cathedral she’d have marched straight off to the station and sat in the Ladies’ Waiting-room till her train started.” The girl, it appeared, did visit the cathedral and the boy was there. He was waiting for us on the platform at the railway station at half-past nine. He talked half the night to Thompson about his wonderful stroke of luck. Just as I dropped off to sleep I heard Thompson quoting Shakespeare. It was, to the best of my belief, the only time in his life that Thompson ever did quote Shakespeare. “Journeys end in lovers’ meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know,” he said. VII~~ HIS GIRL There were thirty or forty officers in the lounge of the hotel, all condemned, as I was, to spend the greater part of the day there. Some men have better luck. It was the fourth time I had been held up in this wretched place on my way back to France after leave. Dragged out of our beds at an unreasonable hour, crammed into a train at Victoria, rushed down to an embarkation port as if the fate of the empire depended on our getting there without a minute’s delay, we find, when we get out of the train, that the steamer will not start for three hours, four hours, on this occasion six hours. We are compelled to sit about in an hotel, desolate and disgusted, when we might have been comfortable in London. I looked round to see if there were anyone I wanted to talk to. There were--I had seen them at Victoria--three or four men whom I knew slightly, but I had no particular wish to spend hours with any one of them. I had just decided to go out for a walk by myself when I felt a slap on my shoulder. I turned and saw Daintree. I was uncommonly glad to see him. Daintree and I were friends before the war and I have always found him an amusing companion. He greeted me heartily.