746 A MODERN COMEDY
*' What job have you caught, Val ? "
" Motor lorry—begin to-morrow."
" Fine! "
" This'll knock out racing for a bit."
" But not England."
" England ? Lord—no ! What did you think I "
" Abroad they were saying so."
" Abroad ! " growled Val. " They would ! "
And there was silence at thirty miles an hour.
From his bedroom door Jon said to his sister :
"They say Fleur runs that canteen. Is she really so
old now ? "
" Fleur has a very clear head, my dear. She saw you
there. No second go of measles, Jon."
Jon laughed.
" Aunt Winifred," said Holly," will be delighted to have
Anne here on Friday, she told me to tell you."
" Splendid ! That's awfully good of her."
" Well, good-night; bless you. There's still hot water
m the bath-room."
In his bath Jon lay luxuriously still. Sixty hours away
from his young wife, he was already looking forward with
impatience to her appearance on Friday. And so Fleur
ran that canteen! A fashionable young woman with a
clear and, no doubt, shingled head—he felt a great curiosity
to see her again, but nothing more. Second go of measles !
Not much! He had suffered too severely from the first.
Besides, he was too glad to be back—result of long, half-
acknowledged home-sickness. His mother had been home-
sick for Europe; but he had felt no assuagement in Italy
and France. It was England he had wanted. Something
in the way people walked and talked; in the smell and
the look of everything; some good-humoured, slow,
ironic essence in the air, after the tension of America, the