look.

'Come on, Joe!' the corporal urged sharply one day. 'What're you doing,
boy? Looking for beetles on the bank?'

Joe turned round swiftly, almost menacing, to work.

'He's a different fellow these days, Miss Stokes,' said Albert to the
young woman. 'What's got him? Is it Monkey nuts that don't suit him, do
you think?'

'Choked with chaff, more like,' she retorted. 'It's as bad as feeding a
threshing machine, to have to listen to some folks.'

'As bad as what?' said Albert. 'You don't mean me, do you, Miss Stokes?'

'No,' she cried. 'I don't mean you.'

Joe's face became dark red during these sallies, but he said nothing. He
would eye the young woman curiously, as she swung so easily at the work,
and he had some of the look of a dog which is going to bite.

Albert, with his nerves on edge, began to find the strain rather severe.
The next Saturday evening, when Joe came in more black-browed than ever,
he watched him, determined to have it out with him.

When the boy went upstairs to bed, the corporal followed him. He closed
the door behind him carefully, sat on the bed and watched the younger man
undressing. And for once he spoke in a natural voice, neither chaffing
nor commanding.