of her woman's body and soul to protect this immature and
inarticulate being who was faring forth to the peninsula of the "Dead
English" to make his silent sacrifice. The great house seemed to be
listening, hushed, to the sober ticking of the clock on the landing.
Suddenly, with a preliminary shudder, its melodious voice rang out nine
times. The two stole downstairs to the dining-room.

"Nine o'clock. We've missed three courses," whispered Leonard to
Marjorie.

All through dinner he sulked. He could not forgive his Aunt Hortense for
her very considerable bulk, which was situated between him and Marjorie.
He squeezed his mother's hand under the table, till her rings cut into
her flesh, and she had to smile; but toward all the flattering advances
of his aunt, and her effort to ascertain his opinion on every aspect of
the war, he remained dumb with the maddening, imperturbability of a
sulky boy, who refuses to be "pumped."

After dinner he was claimed by his father and remained in the
smoking-room, detained by a certain wistfulness in his father's manner.

"We've missed you these four days, old boy," his father said. "But I
hardly expect you missed us. Can't we have a talk now?"

"Yes, sir; of course," Leonard answered. He felt suddenly contrite. He
noticed for the first time in his life that his father looked old and
little, almost wizened, and there was something deferential in his
manner toward his big son that smote Leonard. It was as if he were
saying, apologetically, "You're the bone and sinew of this country now.
I admire you inordinately, my son. See, I defer to you; but do not treat
me too much like a back number." It was apparent even in the way he
handed Leonard the cigars.

Desperately conscious of the hands on the clock's face, which kept
moving forward, Leonard sat and conversed on the recent drive in France,
the Dardanelles campaign, home politics, held simply by the pathos of
his father's new manner. At every pause in the conversation he listened
for Marjorie's voice in the drawing-room.

And Marjorie, in the drawing-room, was wondering desperately if he knew
how the time was flying as he sat there quietly smoking and holding
forth endlessly about transports and supplies and appropriations, and
all the things which meant nothing to her. More wily than Leonard, she
had escaped from Aunt Hortense, who, in true English fashion, had not
appeared to be aware of her presence until well on toward the middl