g a pukka soldier, you know," said
Mrs. Ronaldson gaily. "That's why he's only a Major."

I remembered my anticipation long ago that she would marry a soldier.
It was inevitable. She had all the graces of the soldier's wife.
She was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her intimate
conviction that she was not quite as others were. Robert was breezy.

"It's a bit of luck that I should be in London when you turned
up," he said. "I've only got three days' leave."

"He's dying to get back," said his mother.

"Well, I don't mind confessing it, I have a rattling good time
at the front. I've made a lot of good pals. It's a first-rate life.
Of course war's terrible, and all that sort of thing;
but it does bring out the best qualities in a man,
there's no denying that."

Then I told them what I had learned about Charles Strickland
in Tahiti. I thought it unnecessary to say anything of Ata
and her boy, but for the rest I was as accurate as I could be.
When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For a
minute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Strickland
struck a match and lit a cigarette.

"The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,"
he said, somewhat impressively.

Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Ronaldson looked down with a slightly
pious expression which indicated, I felt sure, that they
thought the quotation was from Holy Writ. Indeed, I was
unconvinced that Robert Strickland did not share their illusion.
I do not know why I suddenly thought of Strickland's
son by Ata. They had told me he was a merry,
light-hearted youth. I saw him, with my mind's eye, on the
schooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but a pair of
dungarees; and at night, when the boat sailed along easily
before a light breeze, and the sailors were gathered on the
upper deck, while the captain and the supercargo lolled in
deck-chairs, smoking their pipes, I saw him dance with another lad,
dance wildly, to the wheezy music of the concertina.
Above was the blue sky, and the stars, and all about the
desert of the Pacific Ocean.

A quotation from the Bible came to my lips, but I held my tongue,
for I know that clergymen think it a little blasphemous when the
laity poach upon their preserves. My Uncle Henry, for
twenty-seven years Vicar of Whitstable, was on these occasions in
the habit of saying that the devil could always quote scripture
to his purpose. He remembered the days when you could get
thirte