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‘Is that how engaged people kiss?’ she asked, laughing. ‘I like this better.’ She took his face in her palms and touched his mouth briefly and coolly. ‘Now swear you’ll wire your mother at once.’

‘But will you write to me?’

‘Surely. But swear you will go today, in spite of what Gilligan may tell you.’

‘I swear,’ he answered, looking at her mouth. ‘Can’t I kiss you again?’

‘When we are married,’ she said, and he knew he was being dismissed. Thinking, knowing, that she was watching him, he crossed the room with an air, not looking back.

Here were yet Gilligan and the officer. Mahon said:

‘Morning, old chap.’

Gilligan looked at Lowe’s belligerent front from a quizzical reserve of sardonic amusement.

‘Made a conquest, hey, ace?’

‘Go to hell,’ replied Lowe. ‘Where’s that bottle? I’m going home today.’

‘Here she is, General. Drink deep. Going home?’ he repeated. ‘So are we, hey, Loot?’

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Jones, Januarius Jones, born of whom he knew and cared not, becoming Jones alphabetically, January through a conjunction of calendar and biology, Januarius through the perverse conjunction of his own star and the compulsion of food and clothing—Januarius Jones baggy in grey tweed, being lately a fellow of Latin in a small college, leaned upon a gate of iron grill-work breaking a levee of green and embryonically starred honeysuckle, watching April busy in a hyacinth bed. Dew was on the grass and bees broke apple bloom in the morning sun while swallows were like plucked strings against a pale windy sky. A face regarded him across a suspended trowel and the metal clasps of crossed suspenders made a cheerful glittering.