formist conscience must be a comfortable
lodger. But as regards the sacred roof, and the defended table, it's a
question how long both British institutions remain intact, with those big
guns getting into position round us...." She waved her small hand, its
once well-tended nails superbly ignored, its sun-cracks neglected, its
load of South African diamonds coruscating magnificently in the light of
Nixey's electric bulbs, and shrugged her thin, vivacious shoulders.

The entrance of the gentlemen relieved the situation. Lady Hannah jumped
up and rushed at the Colonel. "As if she meant to eat the man," the
Mayoress said afterwards, in the shadow of that threatened roof. But,
impervious to the entreaty of the bright black eyes and the glittering
hand that gesticulated with the urgent fan, he bowed, smiled, said a few
pleasant words to his hostess, and walked "straight across"--as the
Mayoress afterwards confided to the Mayor--to take a seat beside the
large, placid, matronly figure palpitating in purple satin on an imported
Maple sofa.

Pleased and flattered, she made room for him, while Lady Hannah became the
gossip-centre of a knot of Mess uniforms....

"Both babies well?" It would have been unlike him not to have remembered
that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great
friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the
promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia--made
of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods--the most
enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark.
And the Makalaka have a legend about a big flood and a wise old man who
built a house of reeds and skins that floated.... The North American
Indians will tell you that it was a Big Medicine Canoe, and amongst the
tribes of the Nilghiri Hills you find exactly the same story that the
Chaldean scribes wrote on their tablets of clay. To-day in Eastern
Kurdistan they'll point you out the peak on which the Ark grounded. The
Armenians hold it was Ararat.... It's curious how the root-legend crops up
everywhere...."

"But of course it must." Her good, calm eyes showed surprise, and her
broad, white, matronly bosom was a little fluttered. "Doesn't the Bible
teach us that the Deluge covered the whole earth? Even Hammy and Berta can
tell you the whole story about Noah, and the raven--and the dove."

He smoothed his moustache with a palm that wiped the smile o