ately after dinner, and I thought I'd come round and
have a smoke and a drink in your company."

Betty, who had occupied herself by replacing Matthew Arnold's poems in
the bookcase, caught up the box of cigars that lay on the brass tray
table by my side, and offered it to him.

"Here is the smoke," she said.

And when, after a swift, covert glance at her, he had selected a cigar,
she went to the bell-push by the mantelpiece.

"The drinks will be here in a minute."

In order to do something to save this absurd situation, I drew from my
waistcoat pocket a little cigar-cutter attached to my watch-chain, and
clipped the end of his cigar. I also lit a match from my box and handed
it up to him. When he had finished with the match he threw it into the
fireplace and turned to Betty.

"My congratulations are a bit late, but I hope I may offer them."

She said, "Thank you." Waved a hand. "Won't you sit down?"

"Wasn't it rather sudden?" he asked.

"Everything in war time is sudden--except the action of the British
Government. Your own appearance to-night is sudden."

He laughed at her jest and explained, much as he had done to me, his
reasons for wishing to keep his visit to Wellingsford a secret.
Meanwhile Marigold had brought in decanters and syphons. Betty attended
to Boyce's needs with a provoking air of nonchalance. If a notorious
German imbrued in the blood of babes had chanced to be in her hospital,
she would have given him his medicine with just the same air. Although
no one could have specified a lack of courtesy towards a guest--for in
my house she played hostess--there was an indefinable touch of cold
contumely in her attitude. Whether he felt the hostility as acutely as
I did, I cannot say; but he carried it off with a swaggering grace. He
bowed to her over his glass.

"Here's to the fortunate and gallant fellow over there."

I saw her knuckles whiten as, with an inclination of the head, she
acknowledged the toast.

"By the way," said he, "what's his regiment? My good mother told me his
name. Captain Connor, isn't it? But for the rest she is vague. She's
the vaguest old dear in the world. I found out to-day that she thought
there was a long row of cannons, hundreds of them, all in a line, in
front of the English Army, and a long row in front of the German Army,
and, when there was a battle, that they all blazed away. So when I
asked her whether your husband was in the Life Guards or the Army
Service Co