t goodness
knows when he'll be fit for duty."

"I want to see Mackay about getting him over here as soon as possible.
May I borrow Suliman, and ride round at once?"

"When you've got outside a fair allowance of tea and sandwiches. Not a
minute sooner!"

"Tea? Rather not. But I'd sell my immortal soul for an iced peg!"

While they talked, Max Richardson had led his friend into the lofty
shadowed drawing-room, that, in spite of a thermometer at 96 degrees,
struck cool as a grotto after the furnace without: and Frank Olliver,
consigning Honor to the largest arm-chair, herself presided at the tray;
apologising, in characteristic fashion, for having temporarily 'taken
over charge.'

"But bossing the show's one of me few talents; an' I'm not for wrapping
it in a napkin. Geoff swears I took over charge of creation before I'd
cut me first tooth! Any way it struck me that perhaps in the hustle of
starting you'd not thought of sending full instructions; so I just came
over this morning, and made free with your linen cupboard, an' your
bazaar account. For I know how it feels to come back to a dead house at
this time of year.--Lord, there's that Theo man off again; incarnate
whirlwind that he is! He'll get Major Wyndham over here to-morrow, sure
as fate; though the good man refused _my_ pressing invitation a week ago.
And 'tis the first time one o' me own brother officers has denied me the
only kind o' Woman's Rights this child's ever likely to clamour for!"

"Hear, hear, Mrs Olliver!" Meredith and Richardson applauded her, as she
held out both hands for their tea-cups; and Lenox smiled amused approval
from the depths of his chair.

When Desmond returned an hour later, he found Lenox's luggage in the
verandah, awaiting removal, and Lenox himself sitting alone in the
drawing-room with Brutus and his pipe. It rested on his knee, held in
place by the finger-tips emerging from his sling; and as Desmond entered
he was scientifically pressing its contents into place with the ball of
his thumb.

Impulsively the other hurried forward, and laid an arresting hand on his
arm.

"Not that again, surely, old chap," he said, a note of anxiety in his
voice. "Do you quite realise how many times you have filled it in the
last thirty-six hours?"

Lenox's fingers closed like a vice upon his treasure.

"Can't say I've troubled to keep count," he answered in a hard voice.
"And I'm damned if I can see what right you have to take me