up the back. I know I feel draughty."
Then, as though she had not remembered that he was expected, "Why,
hullo, Tabs! In a dinner-jacket! You do look peaceful and jolly."

VI

They had taken their places at the square handsome table, illuminated at
each corner by a silver candle-stick, red-shaded and electric-lighted.
Tabs and Terry were seated side by side, so that he saw her always in
profile, except when she turned to him in conversation. He saw the soft
roundness of her shoulder, the satin pallor of her throat and breast,
the quivering gold of her childishly wavy hair.

The General sat isolated, opposite and facing them. Sir Tobias and his
wife sat at either end--had they known it, for all the world like
judges.

Lady Beddow was a proud, unbending woman, gracious to her own sort,
unquestioningly respectful to those above her, tender in a practical way
to those below her and coldly scrutinizing to any one who tapped at her
door claiming to be an equal. Being bred to her finger-tips, she was as
ill-at-ease as her husband in the jostling democracy of the moment.

In the hall Sir Tobias rather huffily had introduced his guests. Tabs
had relieved the tension by smiling quietly at Braithwaite, "The General
and I have met before."

It was an uncomfortable dinner from the moment they sat down. Sir
Tobias, although he had shown no signs of it in the library, seemed to
have developed a resentment at having been kept waiting. No reference
was made to this resentment, but Terry and the General were obviously
the culprits. Sir Tobias was vaguely unhappy and had to blame somebody.
Under the tacitly implied criticism Terry's rebellious spirits rose
higher, but the General's authoritative assurance began to crumble.

Sir Tobias was continuing the conversation which had started in the
library. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it had then concerned the
man who was now present. "You can't make the world afresh with a
catastrophe. Men are like water: in a storm they rise above or sink
below themselves. When the disturbance is ended, they tend to find their
own level. War destroys; it never created anything."

"That's not true, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. You're
speaking without knowledge." Braithwaite uttered himself bluntly as he
would have done in his own Headquarters' mess--this despite the fact
that it was Tabs whom his host had been addressing.

In his astonishment, Sir Tobias nearly gagged himself