"I bet he'll be a fine horseman one day," Stephen said, then asked again about her.
Barbara told him how and why she had returned to England to fly bombers for the British. She especially delighted in telling him how she became a boy for over a month.
After hearing her story, he studied her, then summed up what it meant to him. "You're pretty wonderful, you know that? And I like your new look."
She touched the back of her short hair. "It's starting to grow back. You should have seen the look on the Air Transport Command personnel officer when I asked to become an ATA Girl again. He thought I was a boy!"
I could never think that, Stephen thought.
"Now you!" Barbara prompted. "You said I'd laugh at why you're in London."
He brushed a lock of silver hair off his forehead and it reminded her of someone else who had done that with his errant blond locks. Stephen was not bathed in sunlight, but she felt a winter's fireplace glow burning inside her just looking at him and being close to him again, with just a small table between them and, at least for then, nothing or no one else.
"Haven't you seen the posters all over town?" he asked, turning his head to the window. "Look, there's one on that kiosk just outside."
She saw one of the round billboards across the street, in between passing buses, lorries, and crowds of civilians and military. One poster showed a horseman swinging a polo mallet.
"General Patton gave me my choice," Stephen explained as a small, frail, elderly woman served them tea and smiled at them. "Coach a GI boxing team or play polo. I knew you'd object to the boxing, and you love horses, so the choice was easy to make."
Barbara almost laughed. "But polo? In wartime?"
"The Allied brass decided it could be kind of a diversion. The Jerries are wondering when the invasion will begin. They wouldn't expect it, if we're having a sports circus. I'm to be part of the polo 'dog and pony' show."
She did laugh then.
"I told you so," he teased.
Barbara looked at him earnestly. "I don't suppose you can tell me where you've been for the past two years. All I know from your letters... infrequent, I might add... is that you were in North Africa. The censors blacked out so much of what you wrote, I barely knew they were from you."