She knew him better now.  Save on one subject, discussed in the afternoon, he was a dull, narrow, direct man, especially in love.  He had no fancy, no humour, no resilience.  Possibly he worshipped women, as he had said, perhaps devoutly; but his worship of the individual girl tended more to ritualism than to ecstasy.  The Parisian devotee was thrown away on him, and she felt it.  But not with bitterness.  On the contrary, she liked him to be as he was; she liked to be herself unappreciated, neglected, bored.  She thought of the delights which she had renounced in the rich and voluptuous drawing-room of the Albany; she gazed under the reddish illumination at the tedious eternal market-place on which she exposed her wares, and which in Tottenham Court Road went by the name of bedstead; and she gathered nausea and painful longing to her breast as the Virgin gathered the swords of the Dolours at the Oratory, and was mystically happy in the ennui of serving the miraculous envoy of the Virgin.  And when Marthe, uneasy, stole into the sitting-room, Christine, the door being ajar, most faintly transmitted to her a command in French to tranquillise herself and go away.  And outside a boy broke the vast lull of the Sunday night with a shattering cry of victory in the North Sea.

Possibly it was this cry that roused the officer out of his doze.  He sat up, looked unseeing at Christine’s bright smile and at the black gauze that revealed the reality of her youth, and then reached for his tunic which hung at the foot of the bed.

“You asked about my mascot,” he said, drawing from a pocket a small envelope of semi-transparent oilskin.  “Here it is.  Now that is a mascot!”

He had wakened under the spell of his original theme, of his sole genuine subject.  He spoke with assurance, as one inspired.  His eyes, as they masterfully encountered Christine’s eyes, had a strange, violent, religious expression.  Christine’s eyes yielded to his, and her smile vanished in seriousness.  He undid the envelope and displayed an oval piece of red cloth with a picture of Christ, his bleeding heart surrounded by flames and thorns and a great cross in the background.

“That,” said the officer, “will bring anybody safe home again.”  Christine was too awed even to touch the red cloth.  The vision of the dishevelled, inspired man in khaki shirt, collar and tie, holding the magic saviour in his thin, veined, aristocratic hand, powerfully impressed her, and she neither moved nor spoke.

“Have you seen the ‘Touchwood’ mascot?” he asked.  She signified a negative, and then nervously fingered her gauze.  “No?  It’s a well-known mascot.  Sort of tiny imp sort of thing, with a huge head, glittering eyes, a khaki cap of oak, and crossed legs in gold and silver.  I hear that tens of thousands of them are sold.  But there is nothing like my mascot.”

“Where have you got it?” Christine asked in her queer but improving English.