But it was funny to _talk_ about it. About romance and danger. It made
her hot and shy. She supposed that was because she couldn't take things
in. Her fatheadedness. It was easy not to say things if you didn't feel
them. The more John felt them the more he had to say them. Besides, he
never said them to anybody but her. It was really saying them to himself,
a quiet, secret thinking.

He stood close, close in front of her, tall and strong and handsome in
his tunic, knee breeches and puttees. She could feel the vibration of his
intense, ardent life, of his excitement. And suddenly, before his young
manhood, she had it again, the old feeling, shooting up and running over
her, swamping her brain. She wondered with a sort of terror whether he
would see it in her face, whether if she spoke he would hear it
thickening her throat. He would loathe her if he knew. She would loathe
herself if she thought she was going into the war because of that,
because of him. Women did. She remembered Gibson Herbert. Glasgow.... But
this was different. The sea was in it, magic was in it and romance. And
if she had to choose between John and her wounded it should not be John.
She had sworn that before they started. Standing there close beside him
she swore again, secretly to herself, that it should not be John.

John glanced at Sutton as he passed them.

"I'd give my soul to be a surgeon," he said. "That's what I wanted."

"You wanted to be a soldier."

"It would have been the next best thing.... Did you notice in the lists
the number of Army Medical men killed and missing? Out of all proportion.
That means that they're as much exposed as the combatants. More,