eady had changed his views. The draft act had not then been
passed, yet it was realised that some such act would be passed, and
generally it was assumed that among the exempt would be men with wives
dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that
would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a
possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a
clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done.
Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these
preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a
possible bride prolonged. That was distinctly annoying and a moment
later, when he had the chance, he vented the annoyance on Lennox.

"You got my note?" Mrs. Austen was asking.

"Yes," he replied, "and I will come with pleasure. Meanwhile, if my
sympathy is not indiscreet, please convey it to your daughter." The kick
followed. "Though, to be sure, Lennox is a loose fish."

"He is?" Mrs. Austen unguardedly exclaimed. Not for a moment had she
suspected it and, in her surprise, her esteem for him jumped. Good
heavens! she thought. How I have maligned him!

In the exclamation and the expression which her eyes took on, Paliser
divined some mental somersault, divined too that behind it was something
obscure, something that she was keeping back. Warily he backed.

"Oh, as for that, loose fish may mean anything. It is a term that has
been applied to me and I dare say very correctly. If I did not live like
a monk, I should be jailed for my sins."

He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and
absently asked: "How is he?"

"Lennox? I haven't an idea."

"I mean your father."

"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head."

"At his age? Surely----"

"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever
and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me
to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry."

Austerely, this pleasant woman grabbed it. "It is your duty!"

That was too much for Paliser, who, knowing as well as she did what she
was driving at, wanted to laugh. Like the yawn, he suppressed it.

The priestess's austerity faded. A very fair mimic of exaltation
replaced it. "Whoever she is, how proud she will be! A war-bride!"

But Paliser, who had his fill, was rising and, abandoning histrionics,
she resumed: "The 24th at eight; don't forget!"