lf from a valet to a
General. _I_ didn't even consciously allure Terry. She fascinates me as
much as I fascinate her: I fought against her fascination at first.--But
to get back to Ann, I let her slip out of my life because I wanted to
spare her. I thought it would be easier for her to believe me dead than
to be told that she was--was discarded. I couldn't be expected to
foresee that she would display this awkward loyalty of hoping. I didn't
know what had happened to her. She's a good-looking girl; I'd pictured
her as married to a man of her own class, until you flung this
bombshell at me. I'm not callous. Don't misapprehend me. I can still
think of her with tenderness. But as for ever treating her again as my
equal---- It would be as impossible for me to resume the old relations
with her as it would be for your Lordship to commence them." He waited
for some word of criticism or encouragement. When Tabs only nodded
non-committally, he proceeded more slowly. "I don't know what I'm going
to do. I'm fully aware, now that the war is ended, that as a has-been
General who rose from the ranks, I have no marketable value. I have no
specialized training to offer to a commercial world which calls for
experts. The only knowledge that I have to sell is the old knowledge
that you used to purchase. My house of cards has collapsed. To be
unwisely frank, my financial resources are limited to little more than
my war-gratuity."

"And yet you're anxious to marry Terry," Tabs suggested; "to marry her
without letting her know about any of these handicaps of which she would
have to share the penalty."

Braithwaite's head went up with a soldierly jerk. The bleak look came
into his eyes. He was "Steely Jack" at that moment. "I have the
confidence to believe," he said proudly, "that I shall go as far in
peace as I did in war. Never to own that you're beaten, never to squeal
when you're hurt, never to retreat from a position when once it has been
captured must count back here for as much as it did out there. In France
I had the reputation for never losing an inch of trench. I don't intend
to lose an inch of trench now. My back is to the wall. For the present
I can't afford to do anything gratuitously charitable; by the smallest
waste of energy I may defeat myself. To hold any correspondence with Ann
at this moment might mean the slamming in my own face of every door of
opportunity. I'll do my stretcher-bearing when I've won; not a second
befor