beautiful woman in England."

"Don't know her. So I shouldn't have placed her if I had seen her."

They made a clear run of it from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall and drew
up quite marvelously before the War Office on the second.

"Done it," said Tabs as he shut off the engine. "It's zero hour
exactly."

But Terry wasn't there to listen to him, as he discovered when his
attention was free and the engine had ceased to throb. Almost before
they had halted, she had nipped out of the car and was hailing a taxi
which was on the point of moving off. His bag was already in process of
being whisked from one vehicle to the other. This indecent haste to be
rid of him roused his obstinacy; he sat still where he was and watched.

She returned a little breathless and self-congratulatory. "There! Wasn't
that clever of me? Taxis are scarce. If I hadn't collared you that one
you might have---- Come on, Tabs, if you're stiff in your lame leg, give
me your hand and I'll----"

At that moment the dingy swing-doors of the War Office flew open and a
red-tabbed, handsome figure of a man, with gold braid on his cap and
crossed swords on his epaulettes, came briskly out on to the steps. He
caught sight of Terry and, throwing her an airy salute, came with an
eager stride towards her. He wasn't the old fogy Tabs had so
persistently imagined. He was young, barely thirty, lean, tall and
swift-moving as an arrow--very much what Tabs had been before he had
spent himself at the war.

"Hulloa, Terry! This is ripping. I didn't expect you---- But what's all
this? An accident! What have you been doing to Prentys?"

The voice was glad and frank, though its habit of command was
unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body.
Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was
written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable
importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet
there was something lacking--a sureness of refinement, a last
considerateness. With the first word he had spoken, Tabs had detected
that he wasn't quite the part.

Terry had hurried forward to meet him. She was saying something in a
voice so subdued that it did not carry. She had so contrived their
grouping--or was it an accident?--that the General's face was hidden.

Tabs waited, then turned to Prentys, "My taxi-man's getting impatient.
Will you give my thanks to the General for his kindness and make th