As Patricia paced up and down the cold, scarce-lit platform, the great vault of Victoria Station seemed like a tomb. Already the leave-train from France had been announced. But it was half-past two on Christmas morning; and, except for herself and two ordered taxis, none waited. England had not yet troubled to organize any reception for her weary fighting-men. They would arrive, as Patricia and a few voluntary motor-drivers had so often seen them arrive, cheerlessly, unfed, unwelcomed, to sleep the night as best they might in fireless waiting-rooms, or tramp the streets till dawn.

“Didn’t expect to see you here tonight, mum,” said a porter who knew her of old, touching his cap.

She told him she was waiting for her husband; and he bustled off in search of information.

“Another five minutes, mum. They must have had a bad crossing. She didn’t get to Folkestone till nearly one o’clock.”

A bell clanged; she saw the glow of smoke and sparks; the train slid alongside the platform, stopped, began to disgorge its khaki. She had met that train so often; knew so exactly what to expect; but always before, she had watched the third-class carriages. Now, she had eyes only for the Pullman. Excitedly, she scrutinized the descending officers. ... Last of them all, very calm, cigar-butt between his lips, coat-collar pulled up to the eyes, cane under his arm, came Peter.

Obviously, he did not expect her. She let him saunter a yard or two along the platform; noticed the cleanliness of his boots, the sheen of his spurs. Then she touched him on the arm, said: “Taxi, sir?”

He turned round; began to say something; recognized her; burst out, “Good God, Pat, what on earth are you doing here?”

“Meeting lonely soldiers,” she laughed: and put up her lips to be kissed. He took her in his arms....

“But you ought to be in bed,” he protested, as they made way arm-in-arm along the crowded platform.

“My dear, if I can drive Tommies home four nights a week, surely I can devote one to meeting my own husband. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Rather. And a bath at Boulogne. And a cabin to myself on the boat. It’s quite a comfortable journey if only one knows the ropes. I say, what are these poor devils going to do?” He looked at the crowd of men, mud-stained, kit-loaded.

“Sleep in the waiting-rooms till the trains start running.”

He let go her arm; stood still. “Supposing I weren’t here,” he said, “what would you do?”

“Oh, we usually try and find two or three who live fairly close, not more than five miles out. Then we drive them home.”

Husband and wife looked at each other; then Peter said: “Damn it all, Pat....”

“As you like, dear,” she answered: but the heart grew heavy within her. She wanted him to herself, to herself: and he was away from her already, striding here and there among the men.

“Any of you men live in London?” asked P.J.

“Yes, sir. I do, sir. So do I, sir,” a dozen voices answered the question.

“West London? Marylebone? Regent’s Park?”

“Albany Street, sir.” A heavy-laden infantryman detached himself from the crowd; looked up expectantly.

“Right. I’ll drive you home. Any one else live that way?”

“My mate was coming ’ome with me. Could you take ’im too, sir?” asked the infantryman.

“Very well. Hurry up, though.” Peter turned to the crowd; said: “Sorry you chaps. I can’t manage more than two. Merry Christmas to you all.”

“Merry Christmas, sir,” answered a dozen voices....

“I’ve got a brace,” he told her, “and they both want to go to Albany Street. It’s hardly out of our way at all.”

The two men followed them under the gloomy archway into the blue-lit gloom without; climbed stolidly to the rear seat of the open cabriolet. Pat took the wheel; Peter cranked up; and the Crossley crawled out into the dark canyon of Grosvenor Gardens. She was a very different car now from the royal-blue garnished plaything which Peter had hurled along the Bath Road in August 1914: countless muddy boots had left their mark on her varnish; countless accoutrements had torn her gray cord lining: but the engine still purred sweetly as of old, bore them smoothly past the dark bulk of Hyde Park Corner, up Park Lane, homewards.

As she drove, Patricia’s momentary spasm of discontent vanished. They were so pathetically grateful, the comments she caught from the passengers behind; and when she stopped the car at a shuttered house in Albany Street; when there came—from the mysterious lower regions—a woman who said, “Why, Alf, is it really you? I’ve been waiting up just on the off chance you might get home tonight”; when—with a grateful “Merry Christmas to you, sir”—the two weary men stumbled down the steps out of sight; it seemed to her as though, by parting with those few moments of her own selfish happiness, she had somehow earned the right to enjoy every moment of the seven days during which Peter would be hers.

Peter’s comment, as they sat over the little supper prepared for them in her father’s library, is characteristic. “I hated doing it,” he said, “but somehow one feels one ought to do all one can for them. Compared with us, the men have a pretty thin time.” ...