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So they started another game, this time including David; and as it had been decided that Rory was too good for parlour-billiards, he sat down on the sofa beside Teresa.

They began to talk—about the War, of course: all the old platitudes—the “team-spirit,” for instance. “It’s football, you know, that makes us good fighters. It’s about the only thing we learn at school—the team-spirit. It teaches us to sacrifice stunts and showy play and that sort of thing to the whole.”

Then there was the Horse. “It’s extraordinary how chivalry and ... and ... decent behaviour ... and everything should be taught us by that old creature with his funny, long face—but it’s true all the same. It’s only because we use horses so little in fighting now that ‘frightfulness’ has begun.”

Teresa felt disappointed; but, after all, what had she expected?

“But it was a funny time—the old War. All these tunes—rag-times and Violet Lorraine’s songs—hearing them first at the Coliseum or Murray’s, and then on one’s gramophone in the trenches ... it gave one a feeling ... I don’t know!” and he broke off with a laugh.