as at this moment that a sound like a pistol-shot occurred. The car
commenced to bump. The girl-driver applied the brakes, guided the car
to the side of the road and jumped out.

"Quite like the Front," Terry cried cheerfully; "I expect you feel at
home when you hear a noise like that."

Tabs looked round. He had been too busy talking to notice where they
were. To the right, through wind-rumpled, tree-dotted meadows ran the
Thames, still intensely silver in the sunshine, but somehow blither and
more young than in London. Clouds flew high; everything was riotously
spacious. Scattered through the vivid stretch of landscape ivy-covered
houses stood squarely in their park-lands. Set down in the level
distance, like children's toys, cattle browsed. The quiet greenness had
become starred as far as eye could carry with a gentle rain of myriad
tinted petals.

"The car's got a sense of beauty," he laughed; "it chooses carefully
when it wants to break down."

"And it's all at the Government's expense," Terry smiled, glancing back
at him across her shoulder as she scrambled out. "So it's a back tire.
How long will it take to put right, Prentys?---- Then we may as well
walk and let you overtake us. I don't think we're more than a mile from
Old Windsor. We'll get something to eat at the little inn by the
riverside. You remember the one I mean? We've been there several times
when the General was with us."

"What General is that?" Tabs asked as they trudged along between the
hedges.

"The General who lent me the car," she replied.

"Oh, your friend at the War Office! I suppose he's one of the dug-outs
who's been there all the time."

"He isn't. He rose from the ranks. He's only been at a desk job since
the Armistice." She spoke defensively, with a certain resentment. Tabs
was quick to detect the sharpness in her voice. "I'm sorry," he
apologized; "I didn't mean anything unkind."

She halted with a sudden gesture of concern. "I _am_ inconsiderate. I
never thought of it. Won't this walking wear you out?"

"She's changing the subject," he told himself. "I wonder why?" Aloud he
said, "Not a bit. But I can't stride along the way we used in the old
days."

Branching off to the right, they came down to a little inn by the
water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had
at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and
held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in