In the old days Aubrey's smile had been his best natural gift.

To win a smile from him in her childhood, Beryl would have done anything--have gone on her knees up the drive, or offered up the only doll she cared for, or gone without jam for a week.

Now when he came home invalided, she had the same craving; but what she craved for came her way very rarely.

He would laugh and talk with her as with other people.

But that exquisite brightness of eye and lip, which seemed to be for one person only, and, when it came, to lift that person to the seventh heaven, she waited for in vain.
Then he went back to France, and in due course came the Somme.
Aubrey Mannering went through the whole five months without a scratch.