dealing with a mere official detail, submitted for
his approval. "Not because you are a duffer, but because I can't spare
my right-hand man. I'm not an easy chap to work with, as you know.
But we've learnt one another's ways by now, and, unless political work
claims me, we can't do better than run the Battery together till you
get a command--and that's not far off now. As for your urgent need of
a change, if six months at home would suit you, I'll do my best to
square it. We might manage sick-leave, on the strength of your leg,
eh?"

Richardson breathed deeply.

"Thank you, Lenox. It's splendid of you. I'd be awfully glad of the
change."

"That's all right. And I tell you what, Dick," he paused, and smiled
upon his friend. "Hope I'm not taking an infernal liberty! But if you
can afford it--and if you can hit on the right girl--you might do worse
than bring a wife back with you. You're the sort that's bound to marry
some time, and you may take my word for it, thirty's a better age to
start than thirty-five."

Richardson laughed, and coloured again, hotly.

"It takes two to make that sort of start," he said, "And if a fellow
hits on the wrong one, it must be the very devil."

"Yes, by Jove, it must!" Lenox answered feelingly; adding in his own
mind that even with the right one, it could be the very devil, now and
again. "Think of poor Norton. But you'll have better luck, I hope.
About stopping on for the present, of course you must please yourself.
You'd be very welcome; and if you're afraid of taking up too much of my
wife's time, you can easily give me more of your company than you have
done so far. See how you feel about it to-morrow."

"Thanks, I will."

He rose now unhindered; and stood a moment hesitating, fired with a
very human wish to express his gratitude. But Lenox had accepted and
dismissed the whole incident in a fashion at once so impersonal, so
chivalrous, that his aching sense of disloyalty and unworthiness seemed
to have been tacitly wiped out, leaving one only course open to him--to
act as though that culminating hour of madness had never been.

"See you again before I start for mess," he said, as Lenox looked up.
And the dreaded interview--that should have broken up everything, yet
had altered nothing, save his own estimate of life--was over.

Lenox, left alone again, bowed his head upon his hands, and sat a long
time motionless, while the white flame of anger leaped and burned