“Can’t I?” He rang for Smith, gave instructions for immediate dispatch of the wire. § 8 Patricia, coming in from her afternoon walk with the children, found a tawny envelope on the hall table. The telegram was addressed “Jameson,” and she opened it casually; felt her heart stop as though two fingers had clutched it; heard Primula’s voice: “What’s the matter, Mummy?” . . . “Nothing’s the matter, dear,” she said calmly. “You and Evelyn had better go upstairs to Nanny.” She watched them, running up the broad stone staircase, out of sight. Then she read the pencilled message again: “_Report for duty 10th Chalkshires Shoreham Camp immediately. Thompson. War Office._” * * * * * “What a fool I am,” she said to herself. “What a selfish unpatriotic fool!” PART SIX PLAYING AT SOLDIERS § 1 Except for the newness of his “Cavalry-cord” tunic and a slight lack of suppleness in the carefully-browned belt, nothing about the quiet gray-eyed young man in the otherwise-empty first-class compartment on the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway betrayed the civilian of a day ago. The battered valise and an old-fashioned Army basin, leather-covered—relics of a trip to the East—did not smack of the newly-joined. Close-cut dark hair, clipped moustaches, correctly-wound puttees and dubbined shooting-boots, completed the illusion. But Peter Jameson’s mind had not yet cast off its old allegiances. Rather, as he whirled Sussexwards, did those discarded problems assume acuter import. One by one he conned over the arrangements made—fortnightly reports from Lime Street, weekly statements and a bi-weekly letter from Bramson, accurate statistics from Reid; wondered if they might have been improved upon. And speculating on these things, Peter began to feel—for the first time—the real pang of parting from Nirvana. It was as though he had cut the main interest out of life; as if the entity of his creating had died. Symbolically, he seemed to see his two flashing signs, as they had been before the new lighting restrictions; “NIRVANA OR NOTHING,” they had blazed. Now, they blazed no more. Nothing! He pulled his “Infantry Training” from his pocket; began to study Battalion Drill. “A battalion in mass. . . .” But the subconscious mind would not visualize battalions either in mass or other formations. The mind returned to its old love, refused to be comforted. The mind did not recall the morning’s partings—with Patricia, careful to display no emotion,—with the children, excited at their first vision of “Daddy in khaki.” Instead, it called up figures from balance-sheets, the factory working at full pressure, that dim-lit back-office in the City: till gradually, came recollection of Mr. “Raymond P. Sellers.” . . .