General lay entrenched. This is not the case. There was no question of
attack or siege or any military operation whatever on either side. The
blessed pair just came together like two drops of quicksilver. Each
recognized in the other a generous and somewhat lonely soul; an
appreciation of the major experiences of life and, with that, a craving
for something bigger even than the war, which would give life its greater
meaning. She, born on heights that looked contemptuously down upon a
throne, he born almost in a wayside ditch, their intervening lives a mutual
mystery, they met--so it seemed to me, then, as I mused on the romantical
situation--on some common plane not only of adventurous sympathy but of
a humanity simple and sincere. From what I could gather afterwards, they
never exchanged a word, during this intercourse, of amorous significance.
Nor did they steer the course so dear to modern intellectuals (and so dear
too to the antiquated wanderers through the Land of Tenderness) which led
them into analytical discussions of their respective sentimental states of
being. They talked just concrete war, politics and travel. On their tramps
they scarcely talked at all. They kept in step which maintained the rhythm
of their responsive souls. She would lay an arresting touch on his arm at
the instant in which he pointed his stick at some effect of beauty; and
they would both turn and smile at each other, intimately, conscious of
harmony.

We left the next morning, Lackaday to take over his brigade in France, I to
hang around the War Office for orders to proceed on my further unimportant
employment. Lady Auriol and Charles saw us off at the station.

"It's all very well for your new brigade, sir," said the latter when
the train was just coming into the station. "They're in luck. But the
regiment's in the soup."