had adopted his slow pomposity in order to give the grotesque object at the table with them time to recover from his confusion. She hated him for it. What right had he to make himself appear a pompous ass in order to shield the confusion of anybody?
The second-lieutenant came out of his confusion to exclaim, actually slapping his thigh:
"There you are, madam. . . . Trust the captain to know everything! . . . I don't believe there's a question under the sun you could ask him that he couldn't answer. . . . They say up at the camp. . . " He went on with long stories of all the questions Tietjens had answered up at the camp. . . .
Emotion was going all over Sylvia . . . at the proximity of Tietjens. She said to herself: "Is this to go on for ever?" Her hands were ice-cold. She touched the back of her left hand with the fingers of her right. It was ice-cold. She looked at her hands. They were bloodless. . . . She said to herself: "It's pure sexual passion . . . it's pure sexual passion . . . God! Can't I get over this?" She said: "Father! . . . You used to be fond of Christopher. . . . Get our Lady to get me over this. . . . It's the ruin of him and the ruin of me. But, oh damn, don't! . . . For it's all I have to live for. . . . " She said: "When he came mooning back from the telephone I thought it was all right. . . . I thought what a heavy wooden-horse he looked. . . . For two minutes. . . . Then it's all over me again. . . . I want to swallow my saliva and I can't. My throat won't work. . . . "
She leaned one of her white bare arms on the tablecloth towards the walrus-moustache that was still snuffling gloriously:
"They used to call him Old Sol at school." she said.
