I've got some, of
course, and Rachel has a little. I daresay we'll manage. It can't last
long. A couple of months, perhaps!..."

"I can't see how it can last longer. It's too big, and ... oh, it can't
last longer!"

"Kitchener says three years!..."

"He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose, but my God, three years of
... of that!..."

2

Rachel got up suddenly. "You haven't seen my baby yet," she said.

"So we haven't," Gilbert exclaimed. "Where is it?"

"She's upstairs asleep. You must come quietly!..."

"It's a girl, then?" said Henry.

Rachel nodded, and led the way upstairs to the bedroom where the baby
lay in her cot.

"Isn't she a darling?" she said, bending over the child.

They did not answer, afraid, as men are in the presence of a sleeping
child, that they might disturb her; and while they stood looking at the
cot, Rachel bent closer to her baby, and lightly kissed her cheek.

They moved away on tiptoe.

"What do you call her?" Henry whispered to Roger, as they left the
bedroom.

"Eleanor," he answered. "That was my mother's name. Jolly little kid,
isn't she?"

Gilbert turned and went back to the bedroom. Rachel was still bending
over the baby, and she looked up at him warningly. He went up to the cot
and, leaning towards Rachel, whispered, "Do you mind if I kiss her, too,
Rachel? I'm going to enlist to-morrow, and perhaps I won't get so good a
chance as this!..."

She stood up quickly and put her arms round him. "Oh, Gilbert!" she
said, and then she drew him down, so that he could kiss the baby easily.

3

Henry told Roger of Gilbert's intention, while Rachel and Gilbert were
in the bedroom with the baby.

"Enlist?" said Roger.

Henry nodded his head.

"Well, of course!..." Roger began, and then he stopped. "I suppose so,"
he said, moving towards the tray which Rachel had brought into the room
earlier in the evening. "Whisky?" he said.

"No, thanks, Roger!" Henry answered. "He's going down to-morrow!"

"He'd better wait a few days. There's been a hell of a scrum already to
join. Queues and queues of chaps, standing outside Scotland Yard all
day. He'd better wait 'til the rush is over...."

"I think he'd rather like to be in the rush," Henry said.

Then Rachel came into the room, followed by Gilbert.

"Roger," she said, "Gilbert's going to enlist!..."

"So Quinny's just been telling me. Have a whisky, Gilbert?"

"No, thanks, old chap," said Gilbert, "but if you hav