f a drink was that of most English and Americans--a
decoction of no ascertainable flavour and with the kick of a vicious
horse--even he appreciated to a small degree the body and generous
vintage of the wine brought to their table by a soldier in hospital
dress. He looked round as he drank. There were men of all ranks of the
land and sea forces, clean-shaven and boyish, ferociously moustached and
obscured by short, truculent beards. They played dominoes or cards,
smoked and sipped, or conversed with the grave gestures which are the
heritage of a thousand emotional years. They were not demonstrative.
Indeed, the French Navy is so undemonstrative one might imagine it
recruited entirely from the Englishmen of modern fiction. There is no
doubt that the nature of their profession has left its mark upon them.
For them is no vision of conquest or gigantic death-grapple with a
modern foe, but rather the careful guarding of a remote and insalubrious
colonial empire. It has made them attentive to fussy details, faithful
to fantastic conceptions of honour, partial to pensioned ease and
married life if one escapes the fevers of Cochin China and Algeria.
Among them Plouff was accepted as a weird variant of undeniable home
stock, a creature who led a double life as Englishman and Frenchman, _un
monstre_, a grotesque emblem of the great _Entente_. They stood about
him as he sat, his head far back on his shoulders, his large red mouth
open beneath the great moustache, telling them the story of his
lieutenant's incredible gallantry. They listened in silence, glancing
deferentially towards Mr. Spokesly from time to time, as though he were
acquiring a singular and heroic virtue in their estimation for his
audacity in fumbling with a woman's destiny. But Mr. Spokesly himself
felt neither heroic nor audacious. He was uneasy. He interrupted the
eloquence of his bosun as soon as he had finished his drink. He had a
picture in his mind of Evanthia waiting somewhere, waiting for him with
her amber eyes smouldering and ready to break out into a torrent of
reproaches for his sluggish obedience. She had achieved that ascendancy
over him. He was conscious of a species of mingled terror and delight in
her personality. He rose.

"What's the matter?" demanded Plouff, astonished.

Mr. Spokesly regarded him with considerable impatience.

"How can I stop here?" he inquired. "You ought to have more sense," and
he walked away towards the garden.

Plouff