them out together.'"

"And did they?" Garrett asked.

"They understood me. They knew I wanted to help them. And my husband
encouraged them to come."

"Takes some encouragin', the subaltern of the present day, unless it's
to tennis and two-step," said Colonel West.

"But such dear boys! I felt their mothers would have been so glad.
And our regiment had quite a name for nice subalterns. There is
something so delightful about a subaltern--so care-free."

"By Jove, yes!" said Colonel West. "Doesn't care for anything on
earth--not even the adjutant!"

"Now, Algernon----" But at that moment dinner was announced, and the
rest of the sentence was lost--which was an unusual fate for any
remark of Mrs. West's.

It was Norah's first experience as hostess at her father's
dinner-table--since, in this connexion, Billabong did not seem to
count. No one could ever have been nervous at Billabong. Besides,
there was no butler there: here, Allenby, gravely irreproachable, with
Sarah and Bride as attendant sprites, seemed to intensify the
solemnity of everything. However, no one seemed to notice anything
unusual, and conversation flowed apace. Colonel West did not want to
talk: such cooking as Miss de Lisle's appeared to him to deserve the
compliment of silence, and he ate in an abstraction that left Garrett
free to talk to Norah; while Mrs. West overwhelmed Mr. Linton with a
steady flow of eloquence that began with the soup and lasted until
dessert. Then Norah and Mrs. West withdrew leaving the men to smoke.

"My dear, your cook's a poem," said Mrs. West, as they returned to the
drawing-room. "_Such_ a dinner! That _souffle_--well, words fail
me!"

"I'm so glad you liked it," Norah said.

"It melted in the mouth. And I watched you help it; your face was so
anxious--you insinuated the spoon with such an expression--I couldn't
describe it----"

Norah burst out laughing.

"I could," she said. "The cook was so anxious about that _souffle_,
and she said to do it justice it should be helped with a hot spoon.
So I told Allenby to stand the spoon in a jug of boiling water, and
give it to me at the very last moment. He was holding it in the
napkin he had for drying it, I suppose, and he didn't know that the
handle was nearly red-hot. But I did, when I took it up!"

"My dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. West. "So your expression was due to
agony!"

"Something like it," Norah laughed. "It was just all I could do to