the financial aspect of any possible developments of the Christine
adventure. He had a very clear and undeniable sensation of positive
happiness.

Chapter 7

FOR THE EMPIRE

Mrs. Braiding came into the drawing-room, and he wondered, paternally,
why she was so fidgety and why her tranquillising mate had not
appeared. To the careless observer she was a cheerful woman, but the
temple of her brightness was reared over a dark and frightful crypt
in which the demons of doubt, anxiety, and despair year after year
dragged at their chains, intimidating hope. Slender, small, and neat,
she passed her life in bravely fronting the shapes of disaster with an
earnest, vivacious, upturned face. She was thirty-five, and her aspect
recalled the pretty, respected lady's-maid which she had been before
Braiding got her and knocked some nonsense out of her and turned her
into a wife.

G.J., still paternally, but firmly, took her up at once.

"I say, Mrs. Braiding, what about this dish-cover?"

He lifted the article, of which the copper was beginning to show
through the Sheffield plating.

"Yes sir. It does look rather impoverished, doesn't it?"

"But I told Braiding to use the new toast-dish I bought last week but
one."

"Did you, sir? I was very happy about the new one as soon as I saw
it, but Braiding never gave me your instructions in regard to it." She
glanced at the cabinet in which the new toast-dish reposed with other
antique metal-work. "Braiding's been rather upset this last few days,
sir."

"What about?"

"This recruiting, sir. Of course, you are aware he's decided on it."

"I'm not aware of anything of the sort," said G.J. rather roughly,
perhaps to hide his sudden emotion, perhaps to express his irritation
at Mrs. Braiding's strange habit of pretending that the most startling
pieces of news were matters of common knowledge.

"Well, sir, of course you were out most of yesterday, and you dined at
the club. Braiding attended at a recruiting office yesterday, sir.
He stood three hours in the crowd outside because there was no room
inside, and then he stood over two hours in a passage inside before
his turn came, and nothing to eat all day, or drink either. And when
his turn came and they asked him his age, he said 'thirty-six,' and
the person was very angry and said he hadn't any time to waste, and
Braiding had better go outside again and consider whether he hadn't
made a mistake about his age. So Braiding