o bed
now. I'll be off early in the morning, and we'll have a cook back by
lunch-time."

"Indeed you won't!" She faced him squarely. "I know you mean very kindly,
Godfrey--I know exactly how you feel. I've often felt like that myself;
you feel that

"'Sympathy without relief
Is like mustard without beef.'

"That's the organ-grinder's motto, and a very good motto, too. But we're
the exception which proves the rule. We're grateful for your sympathy,
but we don't want your relief."

As he gazed at her, both dismayed and very exasperated, she went on,
speaking a little wildly:--"Mustard's a very good thing. I think I needed
a little mustard just now to binge me up!"

"But that's perfectly absurd!" he exclaimed. "Why not have the beef as
well as the mustard? And look here. I don't think it's fair to me." He
stood, looking straight at her, his face aglow with feeling. And again
it was as if the old Godfrey of long ago, the Godfrey that had been
impetuous, hot-tempered, unreasonable, and yet so infinitely dear to her,
who stood there, so near to her that had she moved, he must have touched
her. She sat down, and unseen by him, she put her two hands on the edge
of the well-scrubbed table, and pressed her fingers down tightly. Then
she smiled up at him, and shook her head.

"You're treating me like a stranger," he protested doggedly; "however
badly I've behaved, I've not deserved that."

He was looking down at her hair, the lovely fair hair which had always
been her greatest beauty--the one beauty she now shared with Rosamund. He
wondered if it would ever grow long again. And yet now he told himself
that he did not want to see her different from what she had become.

"Treating you like a stranger? You're the first visitor we've had to stay
at Old Place since the Armistice."

As he said nothing, she went on, a little breathlessly, "D'you remember
what a lot of people used to come and go in the old days? That was one of
the nice things about Janet. She loved to entertain our friends, even
our acquaintances. But now we never have anybody. It shows how we feel
about you that we are having you here, like this. But we can only do it
if you'll take us as we are."

"Of course I take you as you are," he said aggrieved, "but I don't see
why I shouldn't do my little bit, when it's so easy for me to do it.
People talk such rot about money! They'll take anything in the world but
money from those who--" he hesitated, and