n and overslept myself. Meanwhile the O'Farrell faction had got in
its deadly work!

I was angry and disgusted, yet--as usual where that devil of a Puck was
concerned--I had the impulse to laugh. It was as if he'd put his finger
to his nose and chuckled in impish glee: "You hope to get rid of us, do
you, you minx? Well, I'll _show_ you!" But I should be playing his game
if I lost my temper.

"Why do the O'Farrells want you to go with them?" I "camouflaged" my
rage.

"It's Julian who wants me," explained the dear boy. (Oh, it had come to
Christian names!) "It seems Miss O'Farrell has taken it into her head
that none of us likes her, and that we've arranged this way to get rid
of them both--letting them down easily and making some excuse not to
start again together from Paris. O'Farrell thought if I'd offer to go
with them and sit in the back of the car while he drove I could persuade
her----"

"Well, I don't envy any one the task of persuading that girl to believe
a thing she doesn't wish to believe," I exploded. "My private opinion
is, though, that her brother's sister needs no persuading. The two of
them want to show me that they have power----"

Brian broke in with a laugh. "My child, you see things through a
magnifying glass! Is your blind brother a prize worth squabbling over? I
can be of use to the Becketts, it's true, when we travel without a
military escort, or with one young officer who knows more about
seventy-fives than about the romance of history. I can tell them what
I've read and what I've seen. But at Verdun you'll be in the society of
generals; and at Rheims of as many dignitaries as haven't been bombarded
out of town. The Becketts don't need me. Perhaps Miss O'Farrell does."

"Perhaps!" I repeated.

Brian can see twice as much as those who have eyes, but he would not see
my sarcasm. Just then, however, Mrs. Beckett joined us in the hall of
the hotel, where we stood ready to start--all having breakfasted in our
own rooms. She guessed from my face that I was not pleased with Brian's
plan.

"My dear, I'd go myself with poor little Dierdre O'Farrell instead of
Brian!" she said. "Verdun isn't one of Jim's towns. Rheims is--but I'd
have sacrificed it. There can't be much left there to see. Only--_two
whole days_! Father and I haven't been parted so long in our lives since
we were married. I thought yesterday, when you were away in those
trenches, what a coward I'd been not to insist on going, and wh