n up to? You can take me to
him."

When we got to the table we found Jimmy trying to explain to the General
and the two Colonels in execrable French that he didn't know what it was
all about. _He_ hadn't done anything.

Then he saw Viola.

For one second, while he stared at her across the room, he appeared to be
suffering from a violent shock. He was so visibly hit that the two men
who had their backs to us turned round to see what it was that had
affected him. His flush had gone suddenly and he was breathing hard, with
his mouth a little open.

I heard him saying something in French about his wife.

He recovered, however, in a second, and disentangled himself from the
General and the Colonels and from the dinner-table, and came forward.

And as he came, I noticed something odd about him. He limped slightly.
His khaki had a battered look; it was soiled and torn in places, and the
Red Cross brassard on his sleeve was simply filthy.

And he had only been out three days, mind you. He was only three days
ahead of us. But he had lost no time.

As they strolled up to each other and met midway in the big public room,
in the fraction of time that passed before their hands touched I heard
him draw a hard, quivering breath and let it out in a long sigh. That
breath was a suppressed cry of trouble and of acquiescence.

Then (I could have blessed him for it) he twinkled.

Viola said, "What _have_ you been up to?"

And Jimmy, "I say, I like that! What are _you_ doing here? Have you come
to look at the Belfry?"

"No. I've come to look at _you_!" She put her hand on his shoulder.

He said, "That's a jolly rig-out you've got," and that was all.

The General and the two Colonels came forward and were presented to Mrs.
Jevons; and Mr. Walter Furnival ("one of our war-correspondents") was
presented to the General and the two Colonels. They saluted Madame; they
begged Madame to accept their profoundest congratulations; they regretted
that Madame had not been present just now when they were drinking her
husband's health.

And the old General (the one with the white hair and imperial) informed
her that Monsieur her husband had a very poor opinion of the Belgian
Army.

"He has saved the lives of three Belgian officers and I do not know _how_
many Belgian soldiers--and he says that it is nothing!"

And the stout, florid Colonel, who had been trying to look young and
rakish ever since he had turned and caught sight of Viola