he would hesitate perplexedly as if at the thought of something that she did not understand, or act suddenly in response to an overwhelming flood of impulse whose spring was beyond her control or even her surmise.  Women mother all their men because men are on the whole such big babies, but from a generation of babies is born occasionally the master.  Women get so used to the rule that they forget the exception.  When he comes, then, they are troubled.

But this was not all Hilda’s religion.  For some mysterious reason this product of a highly civilised community had the elemental in her.  Men and women both have got to eliminate all trace of sex before they can altogether escape that.  In other words, because in her lay latent the power of birth, in which moment she would be cloistered alone in a dark and silent room with infinity, she clung unreasonably and all but unconsciously to certain superstitions which she shared with primitive savages and fetish-worshippers.  All of which seems a far cry from the War Intercession Services at wealthy and fashionable St. John’s, but it was nothing more or less than this which was causing her to kneel on a high hassock, elbows comfortably on the prayer-rail, and her face in her hands, on a certain Friday evening in the week after Peter’s arrival in France, while the senior curate (after suitable pauses, during which her mind was uncontrollably busy with an infinite number of things, ranging from the doings of Peter in France to the increasing difficulty of obtaining silk stockings), intoned the excellent stately English of the Prayers set forth by Authority in Time of War.

Two pews ahead of her knelt Sir Robert Doyle, in uniform.  That simple soldier was a bigger child than most men, and was, therefore, still conscious of a number of unfathomable things about him, for the which Hilda, his godchild, adored and loved him as a mother will adore her child who sits in a field of buttercups and sees, not minted, nor botanical, but heavenly gold.  He was all the more lovable, because he conceived that he was much bigger and stronger than she, and perfectly capable of looking after her.  In that, he was like a plucky boy who gets up from his buttercups to tell his mother not to be frightened when a cow comes into the field.

They went out together, and greeted each other in the porch.  “Good-evening, child,” said the soldier, with a smile.  “And how’s Peter?”

Hilda smiled back, but after a rather wintry fashion, which the man was quick to note.  “I couldn’t have told you fresh news yesterday,” she said, “but I had a letter this morning all about his first Sunday.  He’s at Rouen at a rest camp for the present, though he thinks he’s likely to be moved almost at once; and he’s quite well.”

“And then?” queried the other affectionately.

“Oh, he doesn’t know at all, but he says he doesn’t think there’s any chance of his getting up the line.  He’ll be sent to another part where there is likely to be a shortage of chaplains soon.”