They came to a grassy bank. Tom sat down. He was feeling unutterably
tired.

'Tom!'

He looked up. His mind was working dizzily.

'You're going to marry me,' he muttered.

She sat down beside him.

'I know,' she said. 'Tom, dear, lay your head on my lap and go to
sleep.'

If this story proves anything (beyond the advantage of being in good
training when you fight), it proves that you cannot get away from the
moving pictures even in a place like Millbourne; for as Sally sat
there, nursing Tom, it suddenly struck her that this was the very
situation with which that 'Romance of the Middle Ages' film ended. You
know the one I mean. Sir Percival Ye Something (which has slipped my
memory for the moment) goes out after the Holy Grail; meets damsel in
distress; overcomes her persecutors; rescues her; gets wounded, and is
nursed back to life in her arms. Sally had seen it a dozen times. And
every time she had reflected that the days of romance are dead, and
that that sort of thing can't happen nowadays.




DEEP WATERS