Part 23 (1/2)

”I know. Perhaps it's best not to. Besides, you don't want to hear about the war.”

Dodo waved her hands wildly.

”But get on,” she said. ”You speak as if there's something good to be heard. What do you mean? As if I wouldn't give my--my sh.e.l.l-like ears to hear something good. My dear, the number of times I've chucked the paper away because the headlines only said, 'New German offensive.

Slight loss of ground near Parlez-vous.' Go on, Jack, or I shall burst.”

”Well, do you know anything about the position on the west front?” asked he.

”Nothing whatever. I only know it's a beastly front.”

Jack took his stick and drew a long line with two bulges in it on the short turf.

”That lower bulge is the Marne,” he said, ”and the upper one is round about Amiens.”

”Where one has coffee on the way to Paris,” said Dodo breathlessly.

”Yes. They battered away at the Marne bulge, and have now had to go back. Then they battered alternately at the Amiens bulge, and it isn't bulging any worse. There was no earthly reason why the Huns shouldn't have walked straight through to Abbeville, which is there, last week.

They meant to give us a knock-out in one place or the other. But--how shall I explain it?”

”Anyhow,” said Dodo.

Jack clenched his fist and drew back his arm.

”Well, I'm the Hun,” he said, ”and it's a boxing match. Your chin there, darling, is quite defenceless, and I can knock you out, if I have enough weight behind me to give you a good punch. But I haven't; it looks as if I was exhausted. I can just advance my arm like that, but I can't hit.

You're rather done, too, but you can just grin at me, and wait till you get stronger. But I shan't get stronger; I'm fought out.”

Dodo put up her hands to her forehead.

”But ever since March we've been thrust back and back,” she said.

”Yes. And now we're going to begin.”

Dodo made a wild gesticulation in the air.

”I won't think about it,” she said. ”You must remember the idea of the Russian steam-roller, and the Queen Elizabeth steaming up the Dardanelles. Oh, Jack! It's a trick! They're going to break through in Kamkatka or somewhere and I won't think about that either. We've got to go pounding along, and not attend to what is happening. I want a map, though. Do be an angel, and get me an enormous map with plenty of flags and pins and I'll hang it up in the dining-room. One may as well be ready, and you have to order things long before you want them. Jack, if you were obliged to bet when the war would be over, obliged I mean, because I should cut your throat if you refused, when would you say?

Name the day, darling!”

”Can't,” said he.

”Don't be so ridiculous. Name the year then. Or the century.”

”Nineteen hundred and eighteen,” said he.

”Pis.h.!.+”

”Very well, pish,” said Jack.

Suddenly Dodo's mouth began to tremble.