ch dog was
slung a roundish thing that looked like one of the little barrels which
St. Bernard dogs wear round their necks in the pictures. And when these
were loosened and laid on the table Philip was charmed to see that the
roundish things were not barrels but cocoa-nuts.

The soldiers reached down some pewter pots from a high shelf--pierced
the cocoa-nuts with their bayonets and poured out the cocoa-nut milk.
They all had drinks, so the prophecy came true, and what is more they
gave Philip a drink as well. It was delicious, and there was as much of
it as he wanted. I have never had as much cocoa-nut milk as I wanted.
Have you?

Then the hollow cocoa-nuts were tied on to the dogs' necks again and out
they went, slim and beautiful, two by two, wagging their slender tails,
in the most amiable and orderly way.

'They take the cocoa-nuts to the town kitchen,' said the captain, 'to be
made into cocoa-nut ice for the army breakfast; waste not want not, you
know. We don't waste anything here, my boy.' Philip had quite got over
his snubbing. He now felt that the captain was talking with him as man
to man. Helen had gone away and left him; well, he was learning to do
without Helen. And he had got away from the Grange, and Lucy, and that
nurse. He was a man among men. And then, just as he was feeling most
manly and important, and quite equal to facing any number of judges,
there came a little tap at the door of the guard-room, and a very little
voice said:

'Oh, do please let me come in.'

Then the door opened slowly.

'Well, come in, whoever you are,' said the captain. And the person who
came in was--Lucy. Lucy, whom Philip thought he had got rid of--Lucy,
who stood for the new hateful life to which Helen had left him. Lucy, in
her serge skirt and jersey, with her little sleek fair pig-tails, and
that anxious 'I-wish-we-could-be-friends' smile of hers. Philip was
furious. It was too bad.

'And who is this?' the captain was saying kindly.

'It's me--it's Lucy,' she said. 'I came up with _him_.'

She pointed to Philip. 'No manners,' thought Philip in bitterness.

'No, you didn't,' he said shortly.

'I did--I was close behind you when you were climbing the ladder bridge.
And I've been waiting alone ever since, when you were asleep and all. I
_knew_ he'd be cross when he knew I'd come,' she explained to the
soldiers.

'I'm _not_ cross,' said Philip very crossly indeed, but the captain
signed to him to be silent. Th