; and journalists sleeping the sleep of the just. And over
them all, in the moonlight that thought 'The cursed war!' flapped its
black wings, like an old crow! "If Christ were real," he mused, "He'd
reach that moon down, and go chalking 'Peace' with it on every door of
every house, all over Europe. But Christ's not real, and Hindenburg and
Harmsworth are!" As real they were as two great bulls he had once seen
in South Africa, fighting. He seemed to hear again the stamp and snort
and crash of those thick skulls, to see the beasts recoiling and driving
at each other, and the little red eyes of them. And pulling a letter out
of his pocket, he read it again by the light of the moon:

"15, Camelot Mansions,

"St. John's Wood.

"DEAR MR. FORT, "I came across your Club address to-night, looking at
some old letters. Did you know that I was in London? I left Steenbok
when my husband died, five years ago. I've had a simply terrific time
since. While the German South West campaign was on I was nursing out
there, but came back about a year ago to lend a hand here. It would be
awfully nice to meet you again, if by any chance you are in England.
I'm working in a V. A. D. hospital in these parts, but my evenings are
usually free. Do you remember that moonlit night at grape harvest? The
nights here aren't scented quite like that. Listerine! Oh! This war!
"With all good remembrances,

"LEILA LYNCH."

A terrific time! If he did not mistake, Leila Lynch had always had a
terrific time. And he smiled, seeing again the stoep of an old Dutch
house at High Constantia, and a woman sitting there under the white
flowers of a sweet-scented creeper--a pretty woman, with eyes which
could put a spell on you, a woman he would have got entangled with if
he had not cut and run for it! Ten years ago, and here she was again,
refreshing him out of the past. He sniffed the fragrance of the little
letter. How everybody always managed to work into a letter what they
were doing in the war! If he answered her he would be sure to say:
"Since I got lamed, I've been at the War Office, working on remounts,
and a dull job it is!" Leila Lynch! Women didn't get younger, and he
suspected her of being older than himself. But he remembered agreeably
her white shoulders and that turn of her neck when she looked at you
with those big grey eyes of hers. Only a five-day acquaintanceship, but
they had crowded much into it as one did in a strange land. The episode
ha