"Not yet. That's because you don't want me as they did." "Don't I! Don't I!" And she said again: "Not yet." Nicky had had leave for Christmas. He had come and gone. Frances and Anthony were depressed; they were beginning to be frightened. For Nicky had finished his training. He might be sent out any day. Nicky had had some moments of depression. Nothing had been heard of the Moving Fortress. Again, the War Office had given no sign of having received it. It was hard luck, he said, on Drayton. And John was depressed after he had gone. "They'd much better have taken me," he said. "What's the good of sending the best brains in the Army to get pounded? There's Drayton. He ought to have been in the Ordnance. He's killed. "And here's Nicky. Nicky ought to be in the engineers or the gunners or the Royal Flying Corps; but he's got to stand in the trenches and be pounded. "Lot they care about anybody's brains. Drayton could have told Kitchener that we can't win this war without high-explosive shells. So could Nicky. "You bet they've stuck all those plans and models in the sanitary dust-bin behind the War Office back door. It's enough to make Nicky blow his brains out." "Nicky doesn't care, really," Veronica said. "He just leaves things--and goes on." That night, after the others had gone to bed, Michael stayed behind with his father. "It must look to you," he said, "as if I ought to have gone instead of Nicky." "I don't say so, Michael. And I'm sure Nicky wouldn't." "No, but you both think it. You see, if I went I shouldn't be any good at it. Not the same good as Nicky. He wants to go and I don't. Can't you see it's different?" "Yes," said Anthony, "I see. I've seen it for some time." And Michael remembered the night in August when his brother came to him in his room. * * * * * Beauty--the Forlorn Hope of God--if he cared for it supremely, why was he pursued and tormented by the thought of the space between him and Nicky? XXII Michael had gone to Stephen's house. He was no longer at his ease there. It seemed to him that Lawrence's eyes followed him too; not with hatred, but with a curious meditative wonder. To-night Stephen said to him, "Did you know that Réveillaud's killed?" "Killed? Killed? I didn't even know he was fighting." Lawrence laughed. "What did you suppose he was doing?" "No--but how?" "Out with the patrol and shot down. There you are--" He shoved the _Times_ to him, pointing to the extract from _Le Matin_: "It is with regret that we record the death of M. Jules Réveillaud, the brilliant young poet and critic--" Michael stared at the first three lines; something in his mind prevented him from going on to the rest, as if he did not care to read about Réveillaud and know how he died. "It is with regret that we record the death. It is with regret that we record--with regret--" Then he read on, slowly and carefully, to the end. It was a long paragraph.