Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
given beasts like that in the army.” And it was the army in everything that he ate or read. Phyllida, as you know, has travelled more than most girls of her age; she wouldn’t like to drop that altogether on marrying; but, if you said “Egypt” to Colonel Butler, it was simply a place where he’d been invalided the first time he was wounded at Gallipoli. The war seems to make some men curiously material. . . You understand I’m not criticizing him as a soldier; I’m sure he did excellent and useful work, but the war is only an episode in our lives. . .
At tea he was so silent that I felt it was all sinking in very deep. At the end he said:
“Lady Ann, may I ask your advice? You are a woman of the world——”
“Goodness me, no!,” I said. “Thirty years ago I may have counted for something there; but now I live under my own little vine and fig-tree; I see no one; I’m out of touch; you’d find me very old-fashioned, I fear.”
“You’ve been very kind to me,” he said, “and I want you to add to your kindness. I’m in love with Phyllida, as you know; and she—I think she quite likes me. Lord Brackenbury and every one here have been simply ripping. Please tell me what you think about it.”
“Do you mean, will she marry you?,” I asked.
41
