'You're too soft-hearted, that's where it is, boy. You want your mettle
dipping in cold water, to temper it. You're too soft-hearted--'

He laid his arm affectionately across the shoulders of the younger man.
Joe seemed to yield a little towards him.

'When are you going to see her again?' Albert asked. For a long time
there was no answer.

'When is it, boy?' persisted the softened voice of the corporal.

'Tomorrow,' confessed Joe.

'Then let me go,' said Albert. 'Let me go, will you?'

The morrow was Sunday, a sunny day, but a cold evening. The sky was grey,
the new foliage very green, but the air was chill and depressing. Albert
walked briskly down the white road towards Beeley. He crossed a larch
plantation, and followed a narrow by-road, where blue speedwell flowers
fell from the banks into the dust. He walked swinging his cane, with
mixed sensations. Then having gone a certain length, he turned and began
to walk in the opposite direction.

So he saw a young woman approaching him. She was wearing a wide hat of
grey straw, and a loose, swinging dress of nigger-grey velvet. She walked
with slow inevitability. Albert faltered a little as he approached her.
Then he saluted her, and his roguish, slightly withered skin flushed. She
was staring straight into his face.

He fell in by her side, saying impudently: