d last night."

He turned to Tabs. "You said that I was the better man. I'm not. It was
your sense of duty that always urged me. I have to thank your Lordship
for the greatest happiness that can befall any man. You made me see it
as my greatest happiness, when I was in danger of becoming a cad. There
was one thing you said to me that sank into my mind. 'You'll never
succeed, however great your courage, unless you start with your honor
solvent.' You saved my honor. I didn't like your methods. But I thank
you with all my heart now. If it hadn't been for you, neither Ann nor I
would have come safely to our journey's end. I think we'd both like to
shake your hand."

XI

It was two hours later. They were finishing their breakfast in the open,
on the balcony of the Hyde Park Hotel. From where they sat they could
watch a lawn-mower traveling slowly back and forth, patterning the sward
with alternate stripes of different colored greenness. They could smell
the acrid juices of newly cut grass. Beyond the islands of flowers and
vivid candelabra of trees, they could see the wild fowl of the
Serpentine rise and drift like phantoms across the sultry stretch of
blueness. Wheels of a water-cart grumbled sleepily against the gravel.
Moving through the sunlit shadows of the Row, riders were returning from
their early morning gallop.

They were still together--just the two of them. They were romantically
self-conscious of the domestic appearance which their twoness caused.
Only married couples or very ardent lovers rise, while the lazy world is
sleeping, to keep each other company at breakfast. They had not had the
heart to disturb the General and Ann in their temporary possession of
the little nest-like house.

Lady Dawn was speaking. "So you've done it again."

"What have I done?"

"What you did for Maisie. How did you put it last night? You've led them
to their kingdom."

He smiled. "I seem to have a faculty for doing that. I do for others
what I can't do for myself."

Still not looking at him, she said: "Perhaps you don't find your own
kingdom because you're too much in love with the search. You don't want
to bring your journey to an end. There are people like that."

"I'm not one of them.--I wish you'd look at me, Lady Dawn. Do you know
what I covet most in all the world? Rest and certainty. I don't mean a
lazy kind of rest, but the rest of a mind at peace with itself--the
certainty we all had while the war was on, wh