Partly because I think she prevented me so doing
by that skilful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with
an artfulness with which God endows all women, and also partly because
I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would
not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching
for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! how true was this
foreboding in some senses--but I will keep all things in their right
order.
[Illustration: "_The track met our ram_."]
[Illustration: In the flash I caught a glimpse of his conning tower]
Let it only be recorded that when she kissed me good-night (with the
tenderness of a mother) and left me to smoke a final cigar I had said
nothing, and I could only wonder at the strange fate that had placed me
practically alone with a girl whom I had grown to love with a deep
emotion, and who appeared to love me, yet often behaved as if I was her
brother.
The next day we were like two children. The snow was deep on the
ground, and the fir trees stood like thousands of sentinels in grey
uniform round the clearing. Once during the afternoon, as with Zoe's
assistance I was furiously chopping wood for the fire, a droning noise
made me look up, and thousands of metres overhead a small squadron of
aeroplanes, evidently bound for the Western Front, sailed slowly across
the sky. I thought how awkward it would be for them if they experienced
an engine failure whilst over the forest, though they were up so high
that I imagine they could have glided ten kilometres, and as I think
(but I am not certain, and I have pledged myself not to try and find
out) we were in the Forest of Montellan, which is barely fifteen
kilometres broad, I suppose they could have fallen clear of the trees.
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