on that the prisoner was his, and that if he
chose and could manage to present him to Hilda he might as well do it.

"She's welcome to him," she said.

"He's not my prisoner."

"He is now; I give him to you."

Finding him obdurate, however, she resorted to argument.

"It doesn't invalidate an engagement," she said rather brusquely, "for a
man to borrow the money for an engagement ring. If it did there would be
fewer engagements. If you want to borrow a German prisoner for the same
purpose the principle is the same."

He seemed to be weakening.

"I'd like to do it--if only to see her face," he said slowly. "Not but
what it's a risk. He's a good-looking devil."

In the end, however, he agreed, and the last we saw of them he was
driving the German ahead, with a grenade in one hand and his revolver in
the other, and looking happier than he had looked for days.

Almost immediately after that I felt Tish's hand on my arm. We turned
and went back toward V----.

Military experts have been rather puzzled by our statement that the
Germans did not reenter V---- that night, but remained just outside, and
that we reached the church again without so much as a how-do-you-do from
any of them. I believe the general impression is that they feared a
trap. I think they are rather annoyed to learn that there was a period
of several hours during which they might safely have taken the town; in
fact, the irritable general who was married to the colonel's brother was
most unpleasant about it. When everything was over he came to Paris to
see us, and he was most unpleasant.

"If you wanted to take the damned town, why didn't you say so?" he
roared. "You came in with a long story about a nephew, but it's my plain
conviction, madam, that you were flying for higher game than your nephew
from the start."

Tish merely smiled coldly.

"Perhaps," she said in a cryptic manner. "But, of course, in these days
of war one must be very careful. It is difficult to tell whom to trust."

As he became very red at that she gently reminded him of his blood
pressure, but he only hammered on the table and said:

"Another thing, madam. God knows I don't begrudge you the falderals
they've been pinning on you, but it seems to me more than a coincidence
that your celebrated strategy followed closely the lines of a
memorandum, madam, that was missing from my table after your departure."

"My dear man," Tish replied urbanely, "there is a little military