rather contemptuously.

"We might want to 'grab' as you term it, a share in putting the madmen
of Europe into chains," he said. "I thought you were pro-British,
Chris."

"Only as to clothes, women and filet of sole," Chris returned
flippantly. Then, seeing Graham glowering at him across the table, he
dropped his affectation of frivolity. "What's the use of our going in
now?" he argued. "This Somme push is the biggest thing yet. They're
going through the Germans like a hay cutter through a field. German
losses half a million already."

"And what about the Allies? Have they lost nothing?" This was Clayton's
attorney, an Irishman named Denis Nolan. There had been two n's in
the Denis, originally, but although he had disposed of a part of his
birthright, he was still belligerently Irish. "What about Rumania? What
about the Russians at Lemberg? What about Saloniki?"

"You Irish!" said the rector, genially. "Always fighting the world and
each other. Tell me, Nolan, why is it that you always have individual
humor and collective ill-humor?"

He felt that that was rather neat. But Nolan was regarding him
acrimoniously, and Clayton apparently had not heard at all.

The dispute went on, Chris Valentine alternately flippant and earnest,
the rector conciliatory, Graham glowering and silent. Nolan had started
on the Irish question, and Rodney baited him with the prospect of
conscription there. Nolan's voice, full and mellow and strangely sweet,
dominated the room.

But Clayton was not listening. He had heard Nolan air his views before.
He was a trifle acid, was Nolan. He needed mellowing, a woman in his
life. But Nolan had loved once, and the girl had died. With the curious
constancy of the Irish, he had remained determinedly celibate.

"Strange race," Clayton reflected idly, as Nolan's voice sang on. "Don't
know what they want, but want it like the devil. One-woman men, too.
Curious!"

It occurred to him then that his own reflection was as odd as the
fidelity of the Irish. He had been faithful to his wife. He had never
thought of being anything else.

He did not pursue that line of thought. He sat back and resumed his
nervous tapping of the cloth, not listening, hardly thinking, but
conscious of a discontent that was beyond analysis.

Clayton had been aware, since his return from the continent and England
days before, of a change in himself. He had not recognized it until he
reached home. And he was angry with himself