XXVIII OUTSIDE CHARING X. (2.35 p.m.).

Of course she’s there to see him off— Trust her for that! Tears in her eyes, enough to be becoming, The latest furs, then sympathy, for tea! And if he’s hit, my own, she’ll hear it first. She’ll be the one to fly to France, To bore the Doctor and the Nurse And drive him mad—if he still lives. But I, who love him so my heart grows faint, Who’d gladly bleed to death to save him pain, Must wait and read the news in some blurred list.... Then, ever the grinning mask, day in, day out! While she, hard as a stone, Wears stylish black and tells her lover’s son How “Father died a hero, in the War!”