They stood still.
"Do not be frightened," said G.J. with perfect tranquillity.
"But I hear guns," she protested.
He, too, heard the distant sounds of guns, and it occurred to him that
the sounds had begun earlier, while they were talking.
"I expect it's only anti-aircraft practice," he replied. "I seem to
remember seeing a warning in the paper about there being practice one
of these nights."
Christine, increasing the pressure on his arm and apparently trying to
drag him away, complained:
"They ought to give warning of raids. That is elementary. This country
is so bizarre."
"Oh!" said G.J., full of wisdom and standing his ground. "That would
never do. Warnings would make panics, and they wouldn't help in the
least. We are just as safe here as anywhere. Even supposing there
is an air-raid, the chance of any particular spot being hit must be
several million to one against. And I don't think for a moment there
is an air-raid."
"Why?"
"Well, I don't," G.J. answered with calm superiority. The fact was
that he did not know why he thought there was not an air-raid.
To assume that there was not an air-raid, in the absence of proof
positive of the existence of an air-raid, was with him constitutional:
a state of mind precisely as illogical, biased and credulous as the
alarmist mood which he disdained in others.
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