Claude lay flat in bed, his head and face so smothered in surgical cotton that only his eyes and the tip of his nose were visible. The brown paste with which his features were smeared oozed out at the edges of the gauze and made his dressings look untidy. Enid took in these details at a glance.
“Does the light hurt your eyes? Let me put up one of the blinds for a moment, because I want you to see these flowers. I’ve brought you my first sweet peas.”
Claude blinked at the bunch of bright colours she held out before him. She put them up to his face and asked him if he could smell them through his medicines. In a moment he ceased to feel embarrassed. His mother brought a glass bowl, and Enid arranged the flowers on the little table beside him.
“Now, do you want me to darken the room again?”
“Not yet. Sit down for a minute and talk to me. I can’t say much because my face is stiff.”
“I should think it would be! I met Leonard Dawson on the road yesterday, and he told me how you worked in the field after you were cut. I would like to scold you hard, Claude.”
“Do. It might make me feel better.” He took her hand and kept her beside him a moment. “Are those the sweet peas you were planting that day when I came back from the West?”
“Yes. Haven’t they done well to blossom so early?”
“Less than two months. That’s strange,” he sighed.
“Strange? What?”
“Oh, that a handful of seeds can make anything so pretty in a few weeks, and it takes a man so long to do anything—and then it’s not much account.”
“That’s not the way to look at things,” she said reprovingly.
Enid sat prim and straight on a chair at the foot of his bed. Her flowered organdie dress was very much like the bouquet
