t were a game.'

'My dear chap,' said the Englishman, with a slightly embarrassed smile,
'there again we leave it to the fellows higher up. Naturally, if Britain
goes to war, it isn't up to her army to question it one way or another.
Of course, back in our heads we like to feel that she is in the
right--but, then, I don't think Britain would ever do the rotten thing;
do you?'

'N--no, I suppose not.'

'You see, a chap can't help looking at it a bit like a game, for there's
Belgium doing an absolutely sporting thing, and there isn't one of us
that isn't straining at the bit to get over and give them a hand.'

With a slight blush at this admission of fervour, the Englishman grasped
his collie-dog by the forepaws and rolled him on his back.

'But,' said Selwyn, unwilling to let the bone of discussion drop while
there was one shred of knowledge clinging to it, 'supposing that Britain
were in the wrong and you fellows knew it, yet you were ordered to
war--what then?'

His companion laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets.

'Oh, we'd fight anyway; and after we had knocked the other chap out we'd
tell him how sorry we were, then go back and hang the bounders who had
brought the thing on. But then, you see, you're riding the wrong horse,
because soldiering's my job, and I was always an awful muff when it came
to jawing on matters I don't know anything about. You had better get
hold of some of our politician johnnies; they've always got ideas on
things.'

V.

A little later the Honourable Malcolm Durwent left Roselawn in a
motor-car.

As it rounded the curve in the drive he turned and waved at the little
group who were standing in the courtyard, and then he was lost to sight.
And in the hearts of each of the three there was a poignant grief. Lord
Durwent's head was bowed with regret that at Britain's call he had been
able to give one only of his two sons. Dry-eyed, but with aching heart,
Elise stood with an overwhelming remorse that she had never really known
her elder brother. And Lady Durwent, free of all theatricalism, was dumb
with the mother's pain of losing her first-born.

And as the heir to Roselawn went to war, so did the sons of every old
family in the Island Kingdom. In something of the spirit of sport, yet
carrying beneath their cheeriness the high purpose of ageless chivalry,
the blue-eyed youth of Britain went out with a smile upon their lips to
play their little parts in the great jest o