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‘I hate your feeling it in that way, father.’

‘I don’t say it is a palatable draught, but when the war is over we shall all shake down to the new conditions. No fear of my being sarcastic to you then, Roger. I’ll have to be jolly respectful.’

‘Shut up, father!’

‘You’ve begun, you see. Don’t worry, Roger. Any rawness I might feel in having missed the chance of seeing whether I was a man–like Coxon, confound him!–is swallowed up in the pride of giving the chance to you. I’m in a shiver about you, but–It’s all true, Roger, what your mother said about 2nd Lieutenants. Till the other day we were so little of a military nation that most of us didn’t know there were 2nd Lieutenants. And now, in thousands of homes we feel that there is nothing else. 2nd Lieutenant! It is like a new word to us–one, I daresay, of many that the war will add to our language. We have taken to it, Roger. If a son of mine were to tarnish it–‘

‘I’ll try not to,’ Roger growls.

‘If you did, I should just know that there had been something wrong about me.’

Gruffly, ‘You’re all right.’

‘If I am, you are.’ It is a winning face that Mr. Torrance turns on his son. ‘I suppose you have been asking yourself of late, what if you were to turn out to be a funk!’

‘Father, how did you know?’

‘I know because you are me. Because ever since there was talk of this commission I have been thinking and thinking what were you thinking–so as to help you.’

This itself is a help. Roger’s hand–but he withdraws it hurriedly.

‘They all seem to be so frightfully brave, father,’ he says wistfully.

‘I expect, Roger, that the best of them had the same qualms as you before their first engagement.’

‘I–I kind of think, father, that I won’t be a funk.’

‘I kind of think so too, Roger.’ Mr. Torrance forgets himself. ‘Mind you don’t be rash, my boy; and for God’s sake, keep your head down in the trenches.’

Roger has caught him out. He points a gay finger at his anxious father.

‘You know you laughed at mother for saying that!’

‘Did I? Roger, your mother thinks that I have an unfortunate manner with you.’

The magnanimous Roger says, ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the father-and-son complication.’

‘That is really all it is. But she thinks I should show my affection for you more openly.’

Roger wriggles again. Earnestly, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Nicely, ‘Of course for this once–but in a general way I wouldn’t do that. We know, you and I.’

‘As long as we know, it’s no one else’s affair, is it?’

‘That’s the ticket, father.’

‘Still–‘ It is to be feared that Mr. Torrance is now taking advantage of his superior slyness. ‘Still, before your mother–to please her–eh?’

Faltering, ‘I suppose it would.’

‘Well, what do you say?’

‘I know she would like it.’

‘Of course you and I know that display of that sort is all bunkum–repellent even to our natures.’

‘Lord, yes!’

‘But to gratify her.’

‘I should be so conscious.’

Mr. Torrance is here quite as sincere as his son. ‘So should I.’

Roger considers it. ‘How far would you go?’

‘Oh, not far. Suppose I called you “Old Rogie”? There’s not much in that.’

‘It all depends on the way one says these things.’

‘I should be quite casual.’

‘Hum. What would you like me to call you?’

Severely, ‘It isn’t what would I like. But I daresay your mother would beam if you called me “dear father”‘

‘I don’t think so?’

‘You know quite well that you think so, Roger.’

‘It’s so effeminate.’

‘Not if you say it casually.’

With something very like a snort Roger asks, ‘How does one say a thing like that casually?’

‘Well, for instance, you could whistle while you said it–or anything of that sort.’

‘Hum. Of course you–if we were to–be like that, you wouldn’t do anything.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You wouldn’t paw me?’

‘Roger,’ with some natural indignation, ‘you forget yourself.’ But apparently it is for him to continue. ‘That reminds me of a story I heard the other day of a French general. He had asked for volunteers from his airmen for some specially dangerous job–and they all stepped forward. Pretty good that. Then three were chosen and got their orders and saluted, and were starting off when he stopped them. “Since when,” he said, “have brave boys departing to the post of danger omitted to embrace their father?” They did it then. Good story?’