ion that the
schoolboy enjoys, sitting in the stalls of dear Old Drury, waiting for the
curtain to rise on the first act of the Autumn Drama. But you've given it
to me--you and our friends out there!" She waved the dry little glittering
hand. "And you can talk in cold blood of marching out--and leaving the
hive--and all the honey you might have had out of it. Sweet danger,
perilous sport, the great Game of War--played as a man like you knows how
to play it in this little sandy world-arena, with all the Powers and
Dominions looking on. Preserve us! Oh, to be in your shoes this minute, if
only for one week! But as I can't, it's you I hope to see riding the
whirlwind and directing the storm. Not only for my own sake and the
wretched paper's--though, mind you, I don't pretend to be anything but a
mercenary, calculating worldly creature ..."

His eyes were very kind.

"Bingo knows better!"

Her laugh did not jangle this time.

"Lady Grasby, that vitriol-tongued water-nymph, as somebody clever once
called her, said that if Bingo got killed by any chance, I should sit down
and write a gossipy descriptive article, dealing with his military career,
married life, and last moments, before I ordered my widow's-weepers.
Horrible things! They've come in again, too! Talking of gossip, which I
know you only pretend to despise, I found the son of a mutual acquaintance
dying in the Hospital here. You know the Bishop of H ...?"

"His eldest son, Major Fraithorn, was my senior when I was Assistant
Military Secretary at Gibraltar in '90. And the Bishop is quite a dear
crony of my mother's."

"The Bishop," she said, "was always a person of excellent good
taste--except when he cut off his second son, Julius, with two hundred a
year for turning Anglican, wearing a soft hat and Roman collars, and
joining the staff at that clerical posture shop in Wendish Street West as
Junior Curate."

"St. Margaret's. I know the church. Often go there when I'm at home."

"It's the Halfway House to Rome, according to the Bishop, who won't be
content with running at every red rag of Ritualism that flutters in his
own diocese, but keeps up the character of belligerent Broad Churchman by
writing pamphlets and asking questions in the House of Lords with
reference to affairs which are the business of other people. According to
him, the red cassocks of the acolytes at St. Margaret's are cut out of the
very skirts of the Woman of Babylon, and Father Turney an