ll to wall of
the centre space and kept imprisoned there. It seemed that the presiding
genius of the maze was uttering his invocation as the sun went down.
Joan and Harry Luttrell crept stealthily nearer, Harry now openly guided
by a light touch upon his arm as the paths twisted. Words--amazing
words--became distinctly audible; and a familiar voice. They came to the
last screen of hedge and peered through at a spot where the twigs were
thin. In the very middle of the clear space stood Sir Chichester Splay,
one hand leaning upon the pedestal, the other hidden in his bosom, in
the very attitude of the orator; and to the silent spaces of the maze
thus he made his address:

"Ladies and gentlemen! When I entered the tent this afternoon and took
my seat upon the platform, nothing was further from my thoughts than
that I should hear myself proposing a vote of thanks to our
indefatigable chairman!"

Sir Chichester was getting ready for the Chichester Flower Show, at
which, certainly, he was not going to make a speech. Oh dear, no! He
knew better than that.

"In this marvellous collection of flowers, ladies and gentlemen, we can
read, if so we will, a singular instance of co-ordination and
organisation--the Empire's great needs to-day----"

Harry Luttrell and Joan stifled their laughter and stole away out of
hearing.

"We won't breathe a word of it," said Joan.

"No," said Harry.

They had a little secret now between them--that wonderful link--a little
secret; and to be sure they made the most of it. They could look across
the dinner-table at one another with a smile in which no one else could
have a share. If Sir Chichester spoke, it would be just to kindle that
swift glance in lovers' eyes from which the heart takes fire.
Love-making went at a gallop in nineteen hundred and sixteen; it jumped
the barriers; it danced to a lively and violent tune. Maidens, as Sir
Charles Hardiman had pronounced, had become more primeval. Insecurity
had dropped them down upon the bed-rock elemental truths. Men were for
women, women for men, especially for those men who went out with a
cheery song in their mouths to save them from the hideous destiny of
women in ravaged lands. The soldier was here to-day on leave, and God
alone knew where he would be to-morrow, and whether alive, or perhaps a
crippled thing like a child!

Joan Whitworth and Harry Luttrell had been touched by the swift magic of
those days; he, when he had first seen her