Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/179

 tion, is still in a way occupying yourself with your woman But to betray her with a battalion That is against decency, against Nature And for him, Christopher Tietjens, to come down to the level of the men you met here

Tietjens, mooning down the room between tables, had more than his usually aloof air since he had just come out of a telephone box. He slipped, a weary mass, into the polished chair between her and the lieutenant. He said:

"I've got the washing arranged for and Sylvia gave to herself a little hiss between the teeth, of vindictive pleasure! This was indeed betrayal to a battalion. He added: "I shall have to be up in camp before four-thirty to-morrow morning

Sylvia could not resist saying:

"Isn't there a poem Ah me, the dawn, the dawn, it comes too soon said of course by lovers in bed Who was the poet?"

Cowley went visibly red to the roots of his hair and evidently beyond. Tietjens finished his speech to Cowley, who had remonstrated against his going up to the camp so early by saying that he had not been able to get hold of an officer to march the draft. He then said in his leisurely way:

"There were a great many poems with that refrain in the Middle Ages You are probably thinking of an albade by Arnaut Daniel, which someone translated lately An albade was a song to be sung at dawn when, presumably, no one but lovers would be likely to sing

"Will there," Sylvia asked, "be anyone but you singing up in your camp to-morrow at four?"

She could not help it She knew that Tietjens