r his lashes. 'All right,' he
thought, 'one to you. I shall have to join--but I'll get back on you
somehow.' And he said with dignity: "I shall be ready."

"We'll meet at the main Recruiting Office, then," said Jolly, "at
twelve o'clock." And, opening the window, he went out on to the terrace,
conforming to the creed which had made him retire when he surprised them
in the hall.

The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for whom he
had paid this sudden price was extreme. The mood of 'showing-off' was
still, however, uppermost. One must do the wretched thing with an air.

"We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway," he said; "that's
one comfort." And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to hear the sigh
which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.

"Oh! the war'll soon be over," he said; "perhaps we shan't even have
to go out. I don't care, except for you." He would be out of the way
of that beastly divorce. It was an ill-wind! He felt her warm hand slip
into his. Jolly thought he had stopped their loving each other, did he?
He held her tightly round the waist, looking at her softly through his
lashes, smiling to cheer her up, promising to come down and see her
soon, feeling somehow six inches taller and much more in command of her
than he had ever dared feel before. Many times he kissed her before he
mounted and rode back to town. So, swiftly, on the least provocation,
does the possessive instinct flourish and grow.

CHAPTER IX--DINNER AT JAMES'

Dinner parties were not now given at James' in Park Lane--to every house
the moment comes when Master or Mistress is no longer 'up to it'; no
more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above twenty fine
white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer wonder why she is
suddenly shut up.

So with something like excitement Emily--who at seventy would still have
liked a little feast and fashion now and then--ordered dinner for six
instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign words on cards, and
arranged the flowers--mimosa from the Riviera, and white Roman hyacinths
not from Rome. There would only be, of course, James and herself,
Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen--but she liked to pretend a little and
dally in imagination with the glory of the past. She so dressed herself
that James remarked:

"What are you putting on that thing for? You'll catch cold."

But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of s