The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason

Ethne had entirely forgotten even Colonel Durrance's existence. From the moment when Captain Willoughby had put that little soiled feather which had once been white, and was now yellow, into her hand, she had had no thought for any one but Harry Feversham. She had carried Willoughby into that enclosure, and his story had absorbed her and kept her memory on the rack, as she filled out with this or that recollected detail of Harry's gestures, or voice, or looks, the deficiencies in her companion's narrative. She had been swept away from that August garden of sunlight and coloured flowers; and those five most weary years, during which she had held her head high and greeted the world with a smile of courage, were blotted from her experience. How weary they had been perhaps she never knew, until she raised her head and saw Durrance at the entrance in the hedge.

"Hush!" she said to Willoughby, and her face paled and her eyes shut tight for a moment with a spasm of pain. But she had no time to spare for any indulgence of her feelings. Her few minutes' talk with Captain Willoughby had been a holiday, but the holiday was over. She must take up again the responsibilities with which those five years had charged her, and at once. If she could not accomplish that hard task of forgetting -- and she now knew very well that she never would accomplish it -- she must do the next best thing, and give no sign that she had not forgotten. Durrance must continue to believe that she brought more than friendship into the marriage account.