something decisive. For the time being he felt happier.
"Nothing like getting a thing off your chest!" He took a bath and,
having slipped into his dressing-gown, commenced to shave. Between these
acts he whistled snatches of street-songs to prove to himself his
genuine light-heartedness. It was while he was drying his razor that he
started on the wrong air. Where had he heard it? Oh, yes, the sunlit
street, the children dancing and a voice at his side murmuring the words
of the refrain, "Apres la Guerre, there'll be a good time everywhere."

The old argument commenced again, but with a new justice. "What have I
really got against this chap? To rise from a private to a General is no
crime; it's to his credit. We all had his chance and some of us had more
influence; yet he got there."

He tried to eliminate his own desires and wounded pride from the
problem. For five years he had been nothing and had been glad to be
nothing, that the cause which he believed to be righteous might triumph
by his self-effacement. What sickness of soul had overtaken him that, on
this, his first day of freedom, he had immediately surrendered to this
orgy of outrageous selfishness? It was Terry that mattered and only
Terry. The stronghold of her happiness was threatened by Braithwaite's
lie. There was a kingdom for everybody, his old theory. As for himself,
if he had been mistaken and his kingdom was not Terry, then he must
press on, for it lay further up the road round some newer turning.
Meanwhile, at whatever cost to himself he must rescue Terry's happiness.

His heroic state of mind lasted no longer than it takes to set down. He
was demanding too much of his exhausted capacity for self-abnegation. He
was starving for her. His old hunger to win her swept over him
ravenously. Only by winning her could his lost youth be regained.

III

He had almost completed dressing when there came a tap at the door.
Finishing what he was doing in front of the mirror, he answered, "Yes,
what is it, Ann?"

"Before you go, I should like to speak with your Lordship."

"Is it important? I've not got too much time."

"It's--it's something to do with myself."

"All right. Half a second."

On opening the door, he saw at once that her face was disturbed.

"What is it?"

"It's something to do with him, sir."

"With whom?"

"With Braithwaite."

It was evident that for Ann there was only one _him_ in the world.

"Well, what of him?"

Ann commenc