THE ROUGH ROAD

by

WILLIAM J. LOCKE

First Edition . .. September 1918

John LaneThe Bodley Head Ltd

TOSHEILA

THIS LITTLE TALE OFTHE GREAT WARAS A MEMORY FOR AFTER YEARS

THE ROUGH ROAD

CHAPTER I

This is the story of Doggie Trevor. It tells of his doings and of agirl in England and a girl in France. Chiefly it is concerned with theinfluences that enabled him to win through the war. Doggie Trevor didnot get the Victoria Cross. He got no cross or distinction whatever. He did not even attain the sorrowful glory of a little white crossabove his grave on the Western Front. Doggie was no hero of romance, ancient or modern. But he went through with it and is alive to tellthe tale. 

The brutal of his acquaintance gave him the name of "Doggie" yearsbefore the war was ever thought of, because he had been brought upfrom babyhood like a toy Pom. The almost freak offspring of elderlyparents, he had the rough world against him from birth. His fatherdied before he had cut a tooth. His mother was old enough to be hisgrandmother. She had the intense maternal instinct and the brain, suchas it is, of an earwig. She wrapped Doggie--his real name was JamesMarmaduke--in cotton-wool, and kept him so until he was almost a grownman. Doggie had never a chance. She brought him up like a toy Pomuntil he was twenty-one--and then she died. Doggie being comfortablyoff, continued the maternal tradition and kept on bringing himself uplike a toy Pom. He did not know what else to do. Then, when he wasfive-and-twenty, he found himself at the edge of the world gazing intimorous starkness down into the abyss of the Great War. Somethingkicked him over the brink and sent him sprawling into the thick of it. 

 * * * * *

That the world knows little of its greatest men is a commonplace amongsilly aphorisms. With far more justice it may be stated that of itsleast men the world knows nothing and cares less. Yet the Doggies ofthe War, who on the cry of "Havoc!" have been let loose, much to theirown and everybody else's stupefaction, deserve the passing tributesometimes, poor fellows, of a sigh, sometimes of a smile, often of acheer. Very few of them--very few, at any rate, of the EnglishDoggies--have tucked their little tails between their legs and runaway. Once a brawny humorist wrote to Doggie Trevor "_Sursum cauda. _"Doggie happened to be at the time in a water-logged front trench inFlanders and the writer basking in the mild sunshine of Simla with hisTerritorial regiment. Doggie, bidden by the Hedonist of circumstanceto up with his tail, felt like a scorpion. 

Such feelings, however, will be more adequately dealt with hereafter. For the moment, it is only essential to obtain a general view of thetype to which Trevor belonged. 

 * * * * *

If there is one spot in England where the present is the past, wherethe future is still more of the past, where the past wraps you andenfolds you in the dreamy mist of Gothic beauty, where the lazymeadows sloping riverward deny the passage of the centuries, where thevery clouds are secular, it is the cathedral town of Durdlebury. Nofactory chimneys defile with their smoke its calm air, or defy itsaugust and heaven-searching spires. No rabble of factory hands shocksits few and sedate streets. Divine Providence, according to thedevout, and the crass stupidity of the local authorities seventy yearsago, according to progressive minds, turned the main line of railwaytwenty miles from the sacred spot. So that to this year of grace it isthe very devil of a business to find out, from Bradshaw, how to get toDurdlebury, and, having found, to get there. As for getting away, Godhelp you! But whoever wanted to get away from Durdlebury, except theBishop? In pre-motor days he used to grumble tremendously and threatenthe House of Lords with Railway Bills and try to blackmail theGovernment with dark hints of resignation, and so he lived andthreatened and made his wearisome diocesan round of visits and died. But now he has his episcopal motor-car, which has deprived him of hisgrievances. 

In the Close of Durdlebury, greenswarded, silent, sentinelled byimmemorial elms that guard the dignified Gothic dwellings of thecathedral dignitaries, was James Marmaduke Trevor born. His father, aman of private fortune, was Canon of Durdlebury. For many years helived in the most commodious canonical house in the Close with hissisters Sophia and Sarah. In the course of time a new Dean, Dr. Conover, was appointed to Durdlebury, and, restless innovator that hewas, underpinned the North Transept and split up Canon Trevor's homeby marrying Sophia. Then Sarah, bitten by the madness, committedabrupt matrimony with the Rev. Vernon Manningtree, Rector ofDurdlebury. Canon Trevor, many years older than his sisters, remainedfor some months in bewildered loneliness, until one day he foundhimself standing in front of the cathedral altar with Miss MathildaJessup, while the Bishop pronounced over them words diabolicallystrange yet ecclesiastically familiar. Miss Jessup, thus transformedinto Mrs. Trevor, was a mature and comfortable maiden lady of amplemeans, the only and orphan daughter of a late Bishop of Durdlebury. Never had there been such a marrying and giving in marriage in thecathedral circle. Children were born in Decanal, Rectorial andCanonical homes. First a son to the Manningtrees, whom they namedOliver. Then a daughter to the Conovers. Then a son, named JamesMarmaduke, after the late Bishop Jessup, was born to the Trevors. Theprofane say that Canon Trevor, a profound patristic theologian and anenthusiastic palæontologist, couldn't make head or tail of it all, and, unable to decide whether James Marmaduke should be attributed toTertullian or the Neolithic period, expired in an agony of dubiety. Atany rate, the poor man died. The widow, of necessity, moved from theClose, in order to make way for the new Canon, and betook herself withher babe to Denby Hall, the comfortable house on the outskirts of thetown in which she had dwelt before her marriage. 

The saturated essence of Durdlebury ran in Marmaduke's blood: anhonourable essence, a proud essence; an essence of all that isstatically beautiful and dignified in English life; but an essencewhich, without admixture of wilder and more fluid elements, is apt torun thick and clog the arteries. Marmaduke was coddled from his birth. The Dean, then a breezy, energetic man, protested. Sarah Manningtreeprotested. But when the Dean's eldest born died of diphtheria, Mrs. Trevor, in her heart, set down the death as a judgment on Sophia forcriminal carelessness; and when young Oliver Manningtree grew up to bean intolerable young Turk and savage, she looked on Marmaduke and, thanking heaven that he was not as other boys were, enfolded him morethan ever beneath her motherly wing. When Oliver went to school in thetown and tore his clothes, and rolled in mud and punched other boys'heads, Marmaduke remained at home under the educational charge of agoverness. Oliver, lean and lanky and swift-eyed, swaggered throughthe streets unattended from the first day they sent him to aneighbouring kindergarten. As the months and years of his childishlife passed, he grew more and more independent and vagabond. He sworeblood brotherhood with a butcher-boy and, unknown to his piousparents, became the leader of a ferocious gang of pirates. Marmaduke, on the other hand, was never allowed to cross the road withoutfeminine escort. Oliver had the profoundest contempt for Marmaduke. Being two years older, he kicked him whenever he had a chance. Marmaduke loathed him. Marmaduke shrank into Miss Gunter, thegoverness's, skirts whenever he saw him. Mrs. Trevor thereforeregarded Oliver as the youthful incarnation of Beelzebub, andquarrelled bitterly with her sister-in-law. 

One day, Oliver, with three or four of his piratical friends, metMarmaduke and Miss Gunter and a little toy terrier in the High Street. The toy terrier was attached by a lead to Miss Gunter on the one side, Marmaduke by a hand on the other. Oliver straddled rudely across thepath. 

"Hallo! Look at thet two little doggies!" he cried. He snapped hisfingers at the terrier. "Come along, Tiny!" The terrier yapped. Olivergrinned and turned to Marmaduke. "Come along, Fido, dear littledoggie. "

"You're a nasty, rude, horrid boy, and I shall tell your mother, "declared Miss Gunter indignantly. 

But Oliver and his pirates laughed with the truculence befitting theirvocation, and bowing with ironical politeness, let their victim departto the parody of a popular song: "Good-bye, Doggie, we shall missyou. "

From that day onwards Marmaduke was known as "Doggie" throughout allDurdlebury, save to his mother and Miss Gunter. The Dean himself grewto think of him as "Doggie. " People to this day call him Doggie, without any notion of the origin of the name. 

To preserve him from persecution, Mrs. Trevor jealously guarded himfrom association with other boys. He neither learned nor played anyboyish games. In defiance of the doctor, whom she regarded as a memberof the brutal anti-Marmaduke League, Mrs. Trevor proclaimedMarmaduke's delicacy of constitution. He must not go out into therain, lest he should get damp, nor into the hot sunshine, lest heshould perspire. She kept him like a precious plant in a carefullywarmed conservatory. Doggie, used to it from birth, looked on it ashis natural environment. Under feminine guidance and tuition heembroidered and painted screens and played the piano and the mandolin, and read Miss Charlotte Yonge and learned history from the late Mrs. Markham. Without doubt his life was a happy one. All that he asked forwas sequestration from Oliver and his associates. 

Now and then the cousins were forced to meet--at occasional children'sparties, for instance. A little daughter, Peggy, had been born in theDeanery, replacing the lost firstborn, and festivals--to which camethe extreme youth of Durdlebury--were given in her honour. She likedMarmaduke, who was five years her senior, because he was gentle andclean and wore such beautiful clothes and brushed his hair so nicely;whereas she detested Oliver, who, even at an afternoon party, lookedas if he had just come out of a rabbit-hole. Besides, Marmaduke dancedbeautifully; Oliver couldn't and wouldn't, disdaining such effeminatesports. His great joy was to put out a sly leg and send Doggie and hispartner sprawling. Once the Dean caught him at it, and called him ahorrid little beast, and threatened him with neck and crop expulsionif he ever did it again. Doggie, who had picked himself up andlistened to the rebuke, said:

"I'm very glad to hear you talk to him like that, Uncle. I think hisbehaviour is perfectly detestable. "

The Dean's lips twitched and he turned away abruptly. Oliver glared atDoggie. 

"Oh, my holy aunt!" he whispered hoarsely. "Just you wait till I getyou alone!"

Oliver got him alone, an hour later, in a passage, having lain inambush for him, and after a few busy moments, contemplated a bruisedand bleeding Doggie blubbering in a corner. 

"Do you think my behaviour is detestable now?"

"Yes, " whimpered Doggie. 

"I've a good mind to go on licking you until you say 'no, '" saidOliver. 

"You're a great big bully, " said Doggie. 

Oliver reflected. He did not like to be called a bully. "Look here, "said he, "I'll stick my right arm down inside the back of my trousersand fight you with my left. "

"I don't want to fight. I can't fight, " cried Doggie. 

Oliver put his hands in his pockets. 

"Will you come and play Kiss-in-the-Ring, then?" he askedsarcastically. 

"No, " replied Doggie. 

"Well, don't say I haven't made you generous offers, " said Oliver, andstalked away. 

It was all very well for the Rev. Vernon Manningtree, when discussingthis incident with the Dean, to dismiss Doggie with a contemptuousshrug and call him a little worm without any spirit. The unfortunateDoggie remained a human soul with a human destiny before him. As tohis lack of spirit----

"Where, " said the Dean, a man of wider sympathies, "do you suppose hecould get any from? Look at his parentage. Look at his upbringing bythat idiot woman. "

"If he belonged to me, I'd drown him, " said the Rector. 

"If I had my way with Oliver, " said the Dean, "I'd skin him alive. "

"I'm afraid he's a young devil, " said the Rector, not without paternalpride. "But he has the makings of a man. "

"So has Marmaduke, " replied the Dean. 

"Bosh!" said Mr. Manningtree. 

 * * * * *

When Oliver went to Rugby, happier days than ever dawned forMarmaduke. There were only the holidays to fear. But as time went on, the haughty contempt of Oliver, the public-school boy, for thehome-bred Doggie, forbade him to notice the little creature'sexistence; so that even the holidays lost their gloomy menace andbecame like the normal halcyontide. Meanwhile Doggie grew up. When hereached the age of fourteen, the Dean, by strenuous endeavour, rescuedhim from the unavailing tuition of Miss Gunter. But school forMarmaduke Mrs. Trevor would not hear of. It was brutal of Edward--theDean--to suggest such a thing. Marmaduke--so sensitive anddelicate--school would kill him. It would undo all the results of herunceasing care. It would make him coarse and vulgar, like other horridboys. She would sooner see him dead at her feet than at a publicschool. It was true that he ought to have the education of agentleman. She did not need Edward to point out her duty. She wouldengage a private tutor. 

"All right. I'll get you one, " said the Dean. 

The Master of his old college at Cambridge sent him an excellentyouth, who had just taken his degree--a second class in the ClassicalTripos--an all-round athlete and a gentleman. The first thing he didwas to take Marmaduke on the lazy river that flowed through theDurdlebury meadows, thereby endangering his life, woefully blisteringhis hands, and making him ache all over his poor little body. After aquarter of an hour's interview with Mrs. Trevor, the indignant youngman threw up his post and departed. 

Mrs. Trevor determined to select a tutor herself. A scholastic agencysent her a dozen candidates. She went to London and interviewed themall. A woman, even of the most limited intelligence, invariably knowswhat she wants, and invariably gets it. Mrs. Trevor got PhineasMcPhail, M. A. Glasgow, B. A. Cambridge (Third Class MathematicalGreats), reading for Holy Orders. 

"I was training for the ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland, " saidhe, "when I gradually became aware of the error of my ways, and sawthat there could only be salvation in the episcopal form of Churchgovernment. As the daughter of a bishop, Mrs. Trevor, you willappreciate my conscientious position. An open scholarship and theremainder of my little patrimony enabled me to get my Oxford degree. You would have no objection to my continuing my theological studieswhile I undertake the education of your son?"

Phineas McPhail pleased Mrs. Trevor. He had what she called a rugged, honest Scotch face, with a very big nose in the middle of it, andlittle grey eyes overhung by brown and shaggy eyebrows. He spoke withthe mere captivating suggestion of an accent. The son of decayed, proud, and now extinct gentlefolk, he presented personal testimonialsof an unexceptionable quality. 

Phineas McPhail took to Doggie and Durdlebury as a duck to water. Heread for Holy Orders for seven years. When the question of hisordination arose, he would declare impressively that his sacred dutywas the making of Marmaduke into a scholar and a Christian. That dutyaccomplished, he would begin to think of himself. Mrs. Trevoraccounted him the most devoted and selfless friend that woman everhad. He saw eye to eye with her in every detail of Marmaduke'supbringing. He certainly taught the boy, who was naturallyintelligent, a great deal, and repaired the terrible gaps in MissGunter's system of education. McPhail had started life with many eagercuriosities, under the impulse of which he had amassed considerableknowledge of a superficial kind which, lolling in an arm-chair, with apipe in his mouth, he found easy to impart. To the credit side of Mrs. Trevor's queer account it may be put that she did not object tosmoking. The late Canon smoked incessantly. Perhaps the odour oftobacco was the only keen memory of her honeymoon and brief marriedlife. 

During his seven years of soft living, Phineas McPhail scientificallydeveloped an original taste for whisky. He seethed himself in it asthe ancients seethed a kid in its mother's milk. He had the art to dohimself to perfection. Mrs. Trevor beheld in him the mellowest andblandest of men. Never had she the slightest suspicion of evilcourses. To such a pitch of cunning in the observance of theproprieties had he arrived, that the very servants knew not of hisdoings. It was only later--after Mrs. Trevor's death--when a surveyorwas called in by Marmaduke to put the old house in order, that adisused well at the back of the house was found to be half filled withhundreds of whisky bottles secretly thrown in by Phineas McPhail. 

The Dean and Mr. Manningtree, although ignorant of McPhail's habits, agreed in calling him a lazy hound and a parasite on their fondsister-in-law. And they were right. But Mrs. Trevor turned a deaf earto their slanders. They were unworthy to be called Christian men, letalone ministers of the Gospel. Were it not for the sacred associationsof her father and her husband, she would never enter the cathedralagain. Mr. McPhail was exactly the kind of tutor that Marmadukeneeded. Mr. McPhail did not encourage him to play rough games, or takelong walks, or row on the river, because he appreciated hisconstitutional delicacy. He was the only man in the world during herunhappy widowhood who understood Marmaduke. He was a treasure beyondprice. 

When Doggie was sixteen, fate, fortune, chance, or whatever you liketo call it, did him a good turn. It made his mother ill, and sent himaway with her to foreign health resorts. Doggie and McPhail travelledluxuriously, lived in luxurious hotels and visited in luxurious easevarious picture galleries and monuments of historic or æstheticinterest. The boy, artistically inclined and guided by the idle yetwell-informed Phineas, profited greatly. Phineas sought profit to themboth in other ways. 

"Mrs. Trevor, " said he, "don't you think it a sinful shame forMarmaduke to waste his time over Latin and mathematics, and suchthings as he can learn at home, instead of taking advantage of hisresidence in a foreign country to perfect himself in the idiomatic andconversational use of the language?"

Mrs. Trevor, as usual, agreed. So thenceforward, whenever they wereabroad, which was for three or four months of each year, Phineasrevelled in sheer idleness, nicotine, and the skilful consumption ofalcohol, while highly paid professors taught Marmaduke--and, incidentally, himself--French and Italian. 

Of the world, however, and of the facts, grim or seductive, of life, Doggie learned little. Whether by force of some streak of honesty, whether through sheer laziness, whether through canny self-interest, Phineas McPhail conspired with Mrs. Trevor to keep Doggie in darkestignorance. His reading was selected like that of a young girl in aconvent: he was taken only to the most innocent of plays: foreigntheatres, casinos, and such-like wells of delectable depravity, existed almost beyond his ken. Until he was twenty it never occurredto him to sit up after his mother had gone to bed. Of strangegoddesses he knew nothing. His mother saw to that. He had a mildaffection for his cousin Peggy, which his mother encouraged. Sheallowed him to smoke cigarettes, drink fine claret, the remains of thecellar of her father, the bishop, a connoisseur, and _crème dementhe_. And, until she died, that was all poor Doggie knew of thelustiness of life. 

Mrs. Trevor died, and Doggie, as soon as he had recovered from theintensity of his grief, looked out upon a lonely world. Phineas, likeMrs. Micawber, swore he would never desert him. In the perils of Polarexploration or the comforts of Denby Hall, he would find PhineasMcPhail ever by his side. The first half-dozen or so of thesedeclarations consoled Doggie tremendously. He dreaded the Churchswallowing up his only protector and leaving him defenceless. Conscientiously, however, he said:

"I don't want your affection for me to stand in your way, sir. "

"'Sir'?" cried Phineas, "is it not practicable for us to do away withthe old relations of master and pupil, and become as brothers? You arenow a man, and independent. Let us be Pylades and Orestes. Let usshare and share alike. Let us be Marmaduke and Phineas. "

Doggie was touched by such devotion. "But your ambitions to take HolyOrders, which you have sacrificed for my sake?"

"I think it may be argued, " said Phineas, "that the really beautifullife is delight in continued sacrifice. Besides, my dear boy, I am notquite so sure as I was when I was young, that by confining oneselfwithin the narrow limits of a sacerdotal profession, one can retainall one's wider sympathies both with human infirmity and the gladderthings of existence. "

"You're a true friend, Phineas, " said Doggie. 

"I am, " replied Phineas. 

It was just after this that Doggie wrote him a cheque for a thousandpounds on account of a vaguely indicated year's salary. 

If Phineas had maintained the wily caution which he had exercised forthe past seven years, all might have been well. But there came a timewhen unneedfully he declared once more that he would never desertMarmaduke, and declaring it, hiccoughed so horribly and stared soglassily, that Doggie feared he might be ill. He had just lurched intoDoggie's own peacock-blue and ivory sitting-room when he wasmournfully playing the piano. 

"You're unwell, Phineas. Let me get you something. "

"You're right, laddie, " Phineas agreed, his legs giving wayalarmingly, so that he collapsed on a brocade-covered couch. "It's atouch of the sun, which I would give you to understand, " he continuedwith a self-preservatory flash, for it was an overcast day in June, "is often magnified in power when it is behind a cloud. A wee drop ofwhisky is what I require for a complete recovery. "

Doggie ran into the dining-room and returned with a decanter ofwhisky, glass and siphon--an adjunct to the sideboard since Mrs. Trevor's death. Phineas filled half the tumbler with spirit, tossed itoff, smiled fantastically, tried to rise, and rolled upon the carpet. Doggie, frightened, rang the bell. Peddle, the old butler, appeared. 

"Mr. McPhail is ill. I can't think what can be the matter with him. "

Peddle looked at the happy Phineas with the eyes of experience. 

"If you will allow me to say so, sir, " said he, "the gentleman is deaddrunk. "

And that was the beginning of the end of Phineas. He lost grip ofhimself. He became the scarlet scandal of Durdlebury and the terror ofDoggie's life. The Dean came to the rescue of a grateful nephew. Aswift attack of delirium tremens crowned and ended Phineas McPhail'sDurdlebury career. 

"My boy, " said the Dean on the day of Phineas's expulsion, "I don'twant to rub it in unduly, but I've warned your poor mother for years, and you for months, against this bone-idle, worthless fellow. Neitherof you would listen to me. But you see that I was right. Perhaps nowyou may be more inclined to take my advice. "

"Yes, Uncle, " replied Doggie submissively. 

The Dean, a comfortable florid man in the early sixties, took up hisparable and expounded it for three-quarters of an hour. If ever youngman heard that which was earnestly meant for his welfare, Doggie heardit from his Very Reverend Uncle's lips. 

"And now, my dear boy, " said the Dean by way of peroration, "youcannot but understand that it is your bounden duty to apply yourselfto some serious purpose in life. "

"I do, " said Doggie. "I've been thinking over it for a long time. I'mgoing to gather material for a history of wall-papers. "

CHAPTER II

Thenceforward Doggie, like the late Mr. Matthew Arnold'sfellow-millions, lived alone. He did not complain. There was little tocomplain about. He owned a pleasant old house set in fifteen acres ofgrounds. He had an income of three thousand pounds a year. Old Peddle, the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, saved him from domesticcares. Rising late and retiring early, like the good King of Yvetot, hecheated the hours that might have proved weary. His meals, his toilet, his music, his wall-papers, his drawing and embroidering--specimens ofthe last he exhibited with great success at various shows held by Artsand Crafts Guilds, and such-like high and artistic fellowships--hissweet-peas, his chrysanthemums, his postage stamps, his dilettantereading and his mild social engagements, filled most satisfyingly thehours not claimed by slumber. Now and then appointments with histailor summoned him to London. He stayed at the same mildewed oldfamily hotel in the neighbourhood of Bond Street at which his motherand his grandfather, the bishop, had stayed for uncountable years. There he would lunch and dine stodgily in musty state. In the eveningshe would go to the plays discussed in the less giddy of Durdleburyecclesiastical circles. The play over, it never occurred to him to dootherwise than drive decorously back to Sturrocks's Hotel. Suppers atthe Carlton or the Savoy were outside his sphere of thought oropportunity. His only acquaintance in London were vague elderly femalefriends of his mother, who invited him to chilly semi-suburban teasand entertained him with tepid reminiscence and criticism of theirdivers places of worship. The days in London thus passed drearily, andDoggie was always glad to get home again. 

In Durdlebury he began to feel himself appreciated. The sleepy societyof the place accepted him as a young man of unquestionable birth andirreproachable morals. He could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the clarinet, and sing a very true mild tenor. Assecretary of the Durdlebury Musical Association, he filled animportant position in the town. Dr. Flint--Joshua Flint, Mus. Doc. --organist of the cathedral, scattered broadcast golden opinionsof Doggie. There was once a concert of old English music, which thedramatic critics of the great newspapers attended--and one of themmentioned Doggie--"Mr. Marmaduke Trevor, who played the viol da gambaas to the manner born. " Doggie cut out the notice, framed it, andstuck it up in his peacock and ivory sitting-room. 

Besides music, Doggie had other social accomplishments. He coulddance. He could escort young ladies home of nights. Not a dragon inDurdlebury would not have trusted Doggie with untold daughters. Withwomen, old and young, he had no shynesses. He had been bred amongthem, understood their purely feminine interests, and instinctivelytook their point of view. On his visits to London, he could beentrusted with commissions. He could choose the exact shade of silkfor a drawing-room sofa cushion, and had an unerring taste in theselection of wedding presents. Young men, other than buddingecclesiastical dignitaries, were rare in Durdlebury, and Doggie hadlittle to fear from the competition of coarser masculine natures. In aword, Doggie was popular. 

Although of no mean or revengeful nature, he was human enough to feela little malicious satisfaction when it was proved to Durdlebury thatOliver had gone to the devil. His Aunt Sarah, Mrs. Manningtree, haddied midway in the Phineas McPhail period; Mr. Manningtree a year orso later had accepted a living in the North of England, and died whenDoggie was about four-and-twenty. Meanwhile Oliver, who had beenwithdrawn young from Rugby, where he had been a thorn in the side ofthe authorities, and had been pinned like a cockchafer to a desk in afamily counting-house in Lothbury, E. C. , had broken loose, quarrelledwith his father, gone off with paternal malediction and a maternalheritage of a thousand pounds to California, and was lost to thefamily ken. When a man does not write to his family, what explanationcan there be save that he is ashamed to do so? Oliver was ashamed ofhimself. He had taken to desperate courses. He was an outlaw. He hadgone to the devil. His name was rarely mentioned in Durdlebury--toMarmaduke Trevor's very great and catlike satisfaction. Only to theDean's ripe and kindly wisdom was his name not utterly anathema. 

"My dear, " said he once to his wife, who was deploring her nephew'scharacter and fate--"I have hopes of Oliver even yet. A man must havesomething of the devil in him if he wants to drive the devil out. "

Mrs. Conover was shocked. "My dear Edward!" she cried. 

"My dear Sophia, " said he, with a twinkle in his mild blue eyes thathad puzzled her from the day when he first put a decorous arm roundher waist. "My dear Sophia, if you knew what a ding-dong scrap offiends went on inside me before I could bring myself to vow to be avirtuous milk-and-water parson, your hair, which is as long andbeautiful as ever, would stand up straight on end. "

Mrs. Conover sighed. 

"I give you up. "

"It's too late, " said the Dean. 

 * * * * *

The Manningtrees, father and mother and son, were gone. Doggie borethe triple loss with equanimity. Then Peggy Conover, hitherto underthe eclipse of boarding-schools, finishing schools and foreign travel, swam, at the age of twenty, within his orbit. When first they met, after a year's absence, she very gracefully withered the symptoms ofthe cousinly kiss, to which they had been accustomed all their lives, by stretching out a long, frank, and defensive arm. Perhaps if she hadallowed the salute, there would have been an end of the matter. Butthere came the phenomenon which, unless she was a minx of craft andsubtlety, she did not anticipate; for the first time in his life hewas possessed of a crazy desire to kiss her. Doggie fell in love. Itwas not a wild consuming passion. He slept well, he ate well, and heplayed the flute without a sigh causing him to blow discordantly intothe holes of the instrument. Peggy vowing that she would not marry aparson, he had no rivals. He knew not even the pinpricks of jealousy. Peggy liked him. At first she delighted in him as in a new andanimated toy. She could pull strings and the figure worked amazinglyand amusingly. He proved himself to be a useful toy, too. He was ather beck all day long. He ran on errands, he fetched and carried. Peggy realized blissfully that she owned him. He haunted the Deanery. 

One evening after dinner the Dean said:

"I am going to play the heavy father. How are things between you andPeggy?"

Marmaduke, taken unawares, reddened violently. He murmured that hedidn't know. 

"You ought to, " said the Dean. "When a young man converts himself intoa girl's shadow, even although he is her cousin and has been broughtup with her from childhood, people begin to gossip. They gossip evenwithin the august precincts of a stately cathedral. "

"I'm very sorry, " said Marmaduke. "I've had the very best intentions. "

The Dean smiled. 

"What were they?"

"To make her like me a little, " replied Marmaduke. Then, feeling thatthe Dean was kindly disposed, he blurted out awkwardly: "I hoped thatone day I might ask her to marry me. "

"That's what I wanted to know, " said the Dean. 

"You haven't done it yet?"

"No, " said Marmaduke. 

"Why don't you?"

"It seems taking such a liberty, " replied Marmaduke. 

The Dean laughed. "Well, I'm not going to do it for you. My chiefdesire is to regularize the present situation. I can't have you tworunning about together all day and every day. If you like to askPeggy, you have my permission and her mother's. "

"Thank you, Uncle Edward, " said Marmaduke. 

"Let us join the ladies, " said the Dean. 

In the drawing-room the Dean exchanged glances with his wife. She sawthat he had done as he had been bidden. Marmaduke was not an idealhusband for a brisk, pleasure-loving modern young woman. But where wasanother husband to come from? Peggy had banned the Church. Marmadukewas wealthy, sound in health and free from vice. It was obvious tomaternal eyes that he was in love with Peggy. According to the Dean, if he wasn't, he oughtn't to be for ever at her heels. The young womanherself seemed to take considerable pleasure in his company. If shecared nothing for him, she was acting in a reprehensible manner. Sothe Dean had been deputed to sound Marmaduke. 

Half an hour later the young people were left alone. First the Deanwent to his study. Then Mrs. Conover departed to write letters. Marmaduke advancing across the room from the door which he had opened, met Peggy's mocking eyes as she stood on the hearthrug with her handsbehind her back. Doggie felt very uncomfortable. Never had he said aword to her in betrayal of his feelings. He had a vague idea thatpropriety required a young man to get through some wooing beforeasking a girl to marry him. To ask first and woo afterwards seemedputting the cart before the horse. But how to woo that remarkably cooland collected young person standing there, passed his wit. 

"Well, " she said, "the dear old birds seem very fussy to-night. What'sthe matter?" And as he said nothing, but stood confused with his handsin his pockets, she went on. "You, too, seem rather ruffled. Look atyour hair. "

Doggie, turning to a mirror, perceived that an agitated hand haddisturbed the symmetry of his sleek black hair, brushed without aparting away from the forehead over his head. Hastily he smoothed downthe cockatoo-like crest. 

"I've been talking to your father, Peggy. "

"Have you really?" she said with a laugh. 

Marmaduke summoned his courage. 

"He told me I might ask you to marry me, " he said. 

"Do you want to?"

"Of course I do, " he declared. 

"Then why not do it?"

But before he could answer, she clapped her hands on his shoulders, and shook him, and laughed out loud. 

"Oh, you dear silly old thing! What a way to propose to a girl!"

"I've never done such a thing before, " said Doggie, as soon as he wasreleased. 

She resumed her attitude on the hearthrug. 

"I'm in no great hurry to be married. Are you?"

He said: "I don't know. I've never thought of it. Just whenever youlike. "

"All right, " she returned calmly. "Let it be a year hence. Meanwhile, we can be engaged. It'll please the dear old birds. I know all thetabbies in the town have been mewing about us. Now they can mew aboutsomebody else. "

"That's awfully good of you, Peggy, " said Marmaduke. "I'll go up totown to-morrow and get you the jolliest ring you ever saw. "

She sketched him a curtsy. "That's one thing, at any rate, I can trustyou in--your taste in jewellery. "

He moved nearer to her. "I suppose you know, Peggy dear, I've beenawfully fond of you for quite a long time. "

"The feeling is more or less reciprocated, " she replied lightly. Then, "You can kiss me if you like. I assure you it's quite usual. "

He kissed her somewhat shyly on the lips. 

She whispered: "I do think I care for you, old thing. " Marmadukereplied sententiously: "You have made me a very happy man. " Then theysat down side by side on the sofa, and for all Peggy's mockingaudacity, they could find nothing in particular to say to each other. 

"Let us play patience, " she said at last. 

And when Mrs. Conover appeared awhile later, she found them poringover the cards in a state of unruffled calm. Peggy looked up, smiled, and nodded. 

"We've fixed it up, Mummy; but we're not going to be married for ayear. "

Doggie went home that evening in a tepid glow. It contented him. Hethought himself the luckiest of mortals. A young man with more passionor imagination might have deplored the lack of romance in thebetrothal. He might have desired on the part of the maiden either moreshyness, delicacy, and elusiveness, or more resonant emotion. Thefiner tendrils of his being might have shivered, ready to shrivel, asat a touch of frost, in the cool ironical atmosphere which the girlhad created around her. But Doggie was not such a young man. Suchpassions as heredity had endowed him with had been drugged bytraining. No tales of immortal love had ever fired his blood. Once, somewhere abroad, the unprincipled McPhail found him reading _ManonLescaut_--he had bought a cheap copy haphazard--and taking thedelectable volume out of his hands, asked him what he thought of it. 

"It's like reading about a lunatic, " replied the bewildered Doggie. "Do such people as Des Grieux exist?"

"Ay, laddie, " replied McPhail, greatly relieved. "Your acumen haspierced to the root of the matter. They do exist, but nowadays we putthem into asylums. We must excuse the author for living in thepsychological obscurity of the eighteenth century. It's just a silly, rotten book. "

"I'm glad you're of the same opinion as myself, " said Doggie, andthought no more of the absurd but deathless pair of lovers. Theunprincipled McPhail, not without pawky humour, immediately gave him_Paul et Virginie_, which Doggie, after reading it, thought the truestand most beautiful story in the world. Even in later years, when hisintelligence had ripened and his sphere of reading expanded, he lookedupon the passion of a Romeo or an Othello as a conventional peg onwhich the poet hung his imagery, but having no more relation to reallife as it is lived by human beings than the blood-lust of thehalf-man, half-bull Minotaur, or the uncomfortable riding conversationof the Valkyrie. 

So Doggie Trevor went home perfectly contented with himself, withPeggy Conover, with his Uncle and Aunt, of whom hitherto he had beenjust a little bit afraid, with Fortune, with Fate, with his house, with his peacock and ivory room, with a great clump of typescript anda mass of coloured proof-prints, which represented a third of hisprojected history of wall-papers, with his feather-bed, with Goliath, his almost microscopic Belgian griffon, with a set of Nile-green silkunderwear that had just come from his outfitters in London, with hisnew Rolls-Royce car and his new chauffeur Briggins (parenthetically itmay be remarked that a seven-hour excursion in this vehicle, youth inthe back seat and Briggins at the helm, all ordained by Peggy, hadbeen the final cause of the evening's explanations), with the starryheavens above, with the well-ordered earth beneath them, and with allhuman beings on the earth, including Germans, Turks, Infidels, andHereticks--all save one: and that, as he learned from a letterdelivered by the last post, was a callous, heartless London manicuristwho, giving no reasons, regretted that she would be unable to pay herusual weekly visit to Durdlebury on the morrow. Of all days in theyear: just when it was essential that he should look his best!

"What the deuce am I going to do?" he cried, pitching the letter intothe waste-paper basket. 

He sat down to the piano in the peacock and ivory room and tried toplay the nasty crumpled rose-leaf of a manicurist out of his mind. 

Suddenly he remembered, with a kind of shock, that he had pledgedhimself to go up to London the next day to buy an engagement-ring. Soafter all the manicurist's defection did not matter. All was againwell with the world. 

Then he went to bed and slept the sleep of the just and perfect manliving the just and perfect life in a just and perfect universe. 

And the date of this happening was the fifteenth day of July in theyear of grace one thousand nine hundred and fourteen. 

CHAPTER III

The shadow cast by the great apse of the cathedral slanted over theend of the Deanery garden, leaving the house in the blaze of theafternoon sun, and divided the old red-brick wall into a vividcontrast of tones. The peace of centuries brooded over the place. Nooutside convulsions could ever cause a flutter of her calm wings. Asit was thirty years ago, when the Dean first came to Durdlebury, as itwas three hundred, six hundred years ago, so it was now; and so itwould be hundreds of years hence as long as that majestic pile housingthe Spirit of God should last. 

Thus thought, thus, in some such words, proclaimed the Dean, sittingin the shade, with his hands clasped behind his head. Tea was over. Mrs. Conover, thin and faded, still sat by the little table, wonderingwhether she might now blow out the lamp beneath the silver kettle. SirArchibald Bruce, a neighbouring landowner, and his wife had come, bringing their daughter Dorothy to play tennis. The game had alreadystarted on the court some little distance off--the players beingDorothy, Peggy and a couple of athletic, flannel-clad parsons. Marmaduke Trevor reposed on a chair under the lee of Lady Bruce. Helooked very cool and spick and span in a grey cashmere suit, greyshirt, socks and tie, and grey _suède_ shoes. He had a weak, good-looking little face and a little black moustache turned up at theends. He was discoursing to his neighbour on Palestrina. 

The Dean's proclamation had been elicited by some remark of SirArchibald. 

"I wonder how you have stuck it for so long, " said the latter. He hadbeen a soldier in his youth and an explorer, and had shot big game. 

"I haven't your genius, my dear Bruce, for making myselfuncomfortable, " replied the Dean. 

"You were energetic enough when you first came here, " said SirArchibald. "We all thought you a desperate fellow who was going torebuild the cathedral, turn the Close into industrial dwellings, andgenerally play the deuce. "

The Dean sighed pleasantly. He had snowy hair and a genial, florid, clean-shaven face. 

"I was appointed very young--six-and-thirty--and I thought I couldfight against the centuries. As the years went on I found I couldn't. The grey changelessness of things got hold of me, incorporated me intothem. When I die--for I hope I shan't have to resign through dodderingsenility--my body will be buried there"--he jerked his head slightlytowards the cathedral--"and my dust will become part and parcel of thefabric--like that of many of my predecessors. "

"That's all very well, " said Sir Archibald, "but they ought to havecaught you before this petrification set in, and made you a bishop. "

It was somewhat of an old argument, for the two were intimates. TheDean smiled and shook his head. 

"You know I declined----"

"After you had become petrified. "

"Perhaps so. It is not a place where ambitions can attain a riotousgrowth. "

"I call it a rotten place, " said the elderly worldling. "I wouldn'tlive in it myself for twenty thousand a year. "

"Lots like you said the same in crusading times--Sir Guy de Chevenix, for instance, who was the Lord, perhaps, of your very Manor, and anamazing fire-eater--but--see the gentle irony of it--there his boneslie, at peace for ever, in the rotten place, with his effigy over themcross-legged and his dog at his feet, and his wife by his side. Ithink he must sometimes look out of Heaven's gate down on thecathedral and feel glad, grateful--perhaps a bit wistful--if theattribution of wistfulness, which implies regret, to a spirit inParadise doesn't savour of heresy----"

"I'm going to be cremated, " interrupted Sir Archibald, twirling hiswhite moustache. 

The Dean smiled and did not take up the cue. The talk died. It was adrowsy day. The Dean went off into a little reverie. Perhaps his oldfriend's reproach was just. Dean of a great cathedral at thirty-six, he had the world of dioceses at his feet. Had he used to the full thebrilliant talents with which he started? He had been a good Dean, acapable, business-like Dean. There was not a stone of the cathedralthat he did not know and cherish. Under his care the stability ofevery part of the precious fabric had been assured for a hundredyears. Its financial position, desperate on his appointment, was nowsound. He had come into a scene of petty discords and jealousies; formany years there had been a no more united chapter in any cathedralclose in England. As an administrator he had been a success. Thedevotion of his life to the cathedral had its roots deep in spiritualthings. For the greater glory of God had the vast edifice beenerected, and for the greater glory of God had he, its guardian, reverently seen to its preservation and perfect appointment. Would hehave served God better by pursuing the ambitions of youth? He couldhave had his bishopric; but he knew that the choice lay between himand Chanways, a flaming spirit, eager for power, who hadn't the sacredcharge of a cathedral, and he declined. And now Chanways was a forcein the Church and the country, and was making things hum. If he, Conover, after fifteen years of Durdlebury, had accepted, he wouldhave lost the power to make things hum. He would have made a veryordinary, painstaking bishop, and his successor at Durdlebury mightpossibly have regarded that time-worn wonder of spiritual beautymerely as a stepping-stone to higher sacerdotal things. Such a man, heconsidered, having once come under the holy glamour of the cathedral, would have been guilty of the Unforgivable Sin. He had therefore savedtwo unfortunate situations. 

"You are quite an intelligent man, Bruce, " he said, with a suddenwhimsicality, "but I don't think you would ever understand. "

The set of tennis being over, Peggy, flushed and triumphant, rushedinto the party in the shade. 

"Mr. Petherbridge and I have won--six--three, " she announced. The oldgentlemen smiled and murmured their congratulations. She swung to thetea-table some paces away, and plucked Marmaduke by the sleeve, interrupting him in the middle of an argument. He rose politely. 

"Come and play. "

"My dear, " he said, "I'm such a duffer at games. "

"Never mind; you'll learn in time. "

He drew out a grey silk handkerchief as if ready to perspire at thefirst thought of it. "Tennis makes one so dreadfully hot, " said he. 

Peggy tapped the point of her foot irritably, but she laughed as sheturned to Lady Bruce. 

"What's the good of being engaged to a man if he can't play tenniswith you?"

"There are other things in life besides tennis, my dear, " replied LadyBruce. 

The girl flushed, but being aware that a pert answer turneth awaypleasant invitations, said nothing. She nodded and went off to hergame, and informing Mr. Petherbridge that Lady Bruce was aplatitudinous old tabby, flirted with him up to the nice limits of hisparsonical dignity. But Marmaduke did not mind. 

"Games are childish and somewhat barbaric. Don't you think so, LadyBruce?"

"Most young people seem fond of them, " replied the lady. "Exercisekeeps them in health. "

"It all depends, " he argued. "Often they get exceedingly hot, thenthey sit about and catch their death of cold. "

"That's very true, " said Lady Bruce. "It's what I'm always telling SirArchibald about golf. Only last week he caught a severe chill in thatvery way. I had to rub his chest with camphorated oil. "

"Just as my poor dear mother used to do to me, " said Marmaduke. 

There followed a conversation on ailments and their treatment, inwhich Mrs. Conover joined. Marmaduke was quite happy. He knew that thetwo elderly ladies admired the soundness of his views and talked tohim as to one of themselves. 

"I'm sure, my dear Marmaduke, you're very wise to take care ofyourself, " said Lady Bruce, "especially now, when you have theresponsibilities of married life before you. "

Marmaduke curled himself up comfortably in his chair. If he had been acat, he would have purred. The old butler, grown as grey in theservice of the Deanery as the cathedral itself--he had been page andfootman to Dr. Conover's predecessor--removed the tea-things andbrought out a tray of glasses and lemonade with ice clinkingrefreshingly against the sides of the jug. When the game was over, theplayers came and drank and sat about the lawn. The shadow of the apsehad spread over the garden to the steps of the porch. Anyone lookingover the garden wall would have beheld a scene typical of the heart ofEngland--a scene of peace, ease and perfectly ordered comfort. The twowell-built young men, one a minor canon, the other a curate, loungingin their flannels, clever-faced, honest-eyed, could have been brednowhere but in English public schools and at Oxford or Cambridge. Thetwo elderly ladies were of the fine flower of provincial England; thetwo old men, so different outwardly, one burly, florid, exquisitelyecclesiastical, the other thin, nervous, soldierly, each was anexpression of high English tradition. The two young girls, unerringlycorrect and dainty, for all their modern abandonment of attitude, pretty, flushed of cheek, frank of glance, were two of a hundredthousand flowers of girlhood that could have been picked thatafternoon in lazy English gardens. And Marmaduke's impeccable greycostume struck a harmonizing English note of Bond Street and theBurlington Arcade. The scent of the roses massed in delicate splendouragainst the wall, and breathing now that the cool shade had fallen onthem, crept through the still air to the flying buttresses and thewindow mullions and traceries and the pinnacles of the great Englishcathedral. And in the midst of the shaven lawn gleamed the oldcut-glass jug on its silver tray. 

Some one did look over the wall and survey the scene: a man, apparently supporting himself with tense, straightened arms on thecoping; a man with a lean, bronzed, clean-shaven face, wearing an oldsoft felt hat at a swaggering angle; a man with a smile on his faceand a humorous twinkle in his eyes. By chance he had leisure to surveythe scene for some time unobserved. At last he shouted:

"Hello! Have none of you ever moved for the last ten years?"

At the summons every one was startled. The young men scrambled totheir feet. The Dean rose and glared at the intruder, who sprang overthe wall, recklessly broke through the rose-bushes and advanced withoutstretched hand to meet him. 

"Hello, Uncle Edward!"

"Goodness gracious me!" cried the Dean. "It's Oliver!"

"Right first time, " said the young man, gripping him by the hand. "You're not looking a day older. And Aunt Sophia----" He strode up toMrs. Conover and kissed her. "Do you know, " he went on, holding her atarm's length and looking round at the astonished company, "the lasttime I saw you all you were doing just the same! I peeped over thewall just before I went away, just such a summer afternoon as this, and you were all sitting round drinking the same old lemonade out ofthe same old jug--and, Lady Bruce, you were here, and you, SirArchibald"--he shook hands with them rapidly. "You haven't changed abit. And you--good Lord! Is this Peggy?" He put his hand on the Dean'sshoulder and pointed at the girl. 

"That's Peggy, " said the Dean. 

"You're the only thing that's grown. I used to gallop with you on myshoulders all round the lawn. I suppose you remember? How do you do?"

And without waiting for an answer he kissed her soundly. It was alldone with whirlwind suddenness. The tempestuous young man hadscattered every one's wits. All stared at him. Releasing Peggy----

"My holy aunt!" he cried, "there's another of 'em. It's Doggie! Youwere in the old picture, and I'm blessed if you weren't wearing thesame beautiful grey suit. How do, Doggie?"

He gripped Doggie's hand. Doggie's lips grew white. 

"I'm glad to welcome you back, Oliver, " he said. "But I would have youto know that my name is Marmaduke. "

"Sooner be called Doggie myself, old chap, " said Oliver. 

He stepped back, smiling at them all--a handsome devil-may-carefellow, tall, tough and supple, his hands in the pockets of asun-stained double-breasted blue jacket. 

"We're indeed glad to see you, my dear boy, " said the Dean, recoveringequanimity; "but what have you been doing all this time? And where onearth have you come from?"

"I've just come from the South Seas. Arrived in London last evening. This morning I thought I'd come and look you up. "

"But if you had let us know you were coming, we should have met you atthe station with the car. Where's your luggage?"

He jerked a hand. "In the road. My man's sitting on it. Oh, don'tworry about him, " he cried airily to the protesting Dean. "He's welltrained. He'll go on sitting on it all night. "

"You've brought a man--a valet?" asked Peggy. 

"It seems so. "

"Then you must be getting on. "

"I don't think he turns you out very well, " said Doggie. 

"You must really let one of the servants see about your things, Oliver, " said Mrs. Conover, moving towards the porch. "What willpeople say?"

He strode after her, and kissed her. "Oh, you dear old DurdleburyAunt! Now I know I'm in England again. I haven't heard those words foryears!"

Mrs. Conover's hospitable intentions were anticipated by the oldbutler, who advanced to meet them with the news that Sir Archibald'scar had been brought round. As soon as he recognized Oliver he startedback, mouth agape. 

"Yes, it's me all right, Burford, " laughed Oliver. "How did I gethere? I dropped from the moon. "

He shook hands with Burford, of whose life he had been the plagueduring his childhood, proclaimed him as hardy and unchanging as agargoyle, and instructed him where to find man and luggage. 

The Bruces and the two clerical tennis players departed. Marmaduke wasfor taking his leave too. All his old loathing of Oliver had suddenlyreturned. His cousin stood for everything he detested--swagger, arrogance, self-assurance. He hated the shabby rakishness of hisattire, the self-assertive aquiline beak of a nose which he hadinherited from his father, the Rector. He dreaded his aggressivemasculinity. He had come back with the same insulting speech on hislips. His finger-nails were dreadful. Marmaduke desired as little aspossible of his odious company. But his Aunt Sophia cried out:

"You'll surely dine with us to-night, Marmaduke, to celebrate Oliver'sreturn?"

And Oliver chimed in, "Do! And don't worry about changing, " as Doggiebegan to murmur excuses, "I can't. I've no evening togs. My old onesfell to bits when I was trying to put them on, on board the steamer, and I had to chuck 'em overboard. They turned up a shark, who went for'em. So don't you worry, Doggie, old chap. You look as pretty as paintas you are. Doesn't he, Peggy?"

Peggy, with a slight flush on her cheek, came to the rescue and linkedher arm in Marmaduke's. 

"You haven't had time to learn everything yet, Oliver; but I think youought to know that we are engaged. "

"Holy Gee! Is that so? My compliments. " He swept them a low bow. "Godbless you, my children!"

"Of course he'll stay to dinner, " said Peggy; and she looked at Oliveras who should say, "Touch him at your peril: he belongs to me. "

So Doggie had to yield. Mrs. Conover went into the house to arrangefor Oliver's comfort, and the others strolled round the garden. 

"Well, my boy, " said the Dean, "so you're back in the old country?"

"Turned up again like a bad penny. "

The Dean's kindly face clouded. "I hope you'll soon be able to findsomething to do. "

"It's money I want, not work, " said Oliver. 

"Ah!" said the Dean, in a tone so thoughtful as just to suggest a lackof sympathy. 

Oliver looked over his shoulder--the Dean and himself were precedingMarmaduke and Peggy on the trim gravel path. "Do you care to lend me afew thousands, Doggie?"

"Certainly not, " replied Marmaduke. 

"There's family affection for you, Uncle Edward! I've come half-wayround the earth to see him, and--say, will you lend me a fiver?"

"If you need it, " said Marmaduke in a dignified way, "I shall be veryhappy to advance you five pounds. "

Oliver brought the little party to a halt and burst into laughter. 

"I believe you good people think I've come back broke to the world. The black sheep returned like a wolf to the fold. Only Peggy drew acorrect inference from the valet--wait till you see him! As Peggysaid, I've been getting on. " He laid a light hand on the Dean'sshoulder. "While all you folks in Durdlebury, especially my dearDoggie, for the last ten years have been durdling, I've been doing. I've not come all this way to tap relations for five-pound notes. I'mswaggering into the City of London for Capital--with a great big C. "

Marmaduke twirled his little moustache. "You've taken to companypromoting, " he remarked acidly. 

"I have. And a damn--I beg your pardon, Uncle Edward--we poor PacificIslanders lisp in damns for want of deans to hold us up--and a jollygood company too. We--that's I and another man--that's all the companyas yet--two's company, you know--own a trading fleet. "

"You own ships?" cried Peggy. 

"Rather. Own 'em, sail 'em, navigate 'em, stoke 'em, clean out theboilers, sit on the safety valves when we want to make speed, do everyold thing----"

"And what do you trade in?" asked the Dean. 

"Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl----"

"Mother-of-pearl! How awfully romantic!" cried Peggy. 

"We've got a fishery. At any rate, the concession. To work it properlywe require capital. That's why I'm here--to turn the concern into alimited company. "

"And where is this wonderful place?" asked the Dean. 

"Huaheine. "

"What a beautiful word!"

"Isn't it?" said Oliver. "Like the sigh of a girl in her sleep. "

The old Dean shot a swift glance at his nephew; then took his arm andwalked on, and looked at the vast mass of the cathedral and at thequiet English garden in its evening shadow. 

"Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl, Huaheine, " he murmured. "Andthese strange foreign things are the commonplaces of your life!"

Peggy and Marmaduke lagged behind a little. She pressed his arm. 

"I'm so glad you're staying for dinner. I shouldn't like to think youwere running away from him. "

"I was only afraid of losing my temper and making a scene, " repliedDoggie with dignity. 

"His manners are odious, " said Peggy. "You leave him to me. "

Suddenly the Dean, taking a turn that brought him into view of theporch, stopped short. 

"Goodness gracious!" he cried. "Who in the world is that?"

He pointed to a curious object slouching across the lawn; a shorthirsute man wearing a sailor's jersey and smoking a stump of ablackened pipe. His tousled head was bare; he had very long arms andgreat powerful hands protruded at the end of long sinewy wrists frominadequate sleeves. A pair of bright eyes shone out of his dark shaggyface, like a Dandy Dinmont's. His nose was large and red. He rolled ashe walked. Such a sight had never been seen before in the Deanerygarden. 

"That's my man. Peggy's valet, " said Oliver airily. "His name isChipmunk. A beauty, isn't he?"

"Like master, like man, " murmured Doggie. 

Oliver's quick ears caught the words intended only for Peggy. Hesmiled brightly. 

"If you knew what a compliment you were paying me, Doggie, youwouldn't have said such a thing. "

The man seeing the company stare at him, halted, took his pipe out ofhis mouth, and scratched his head. 

"But--er--forgive me, my dear Oliver, " said the Dean. "No doubt he isan excellent fellow--but don't you think he might smoke his pipesomewhere else?"

"Of course he might, " said Oliver. "And he jolly well shall. " He puthis hand to his mouth, sea-fashion--they were about thirty yardsapart--and shouted: "Here, you! What the eternal blazes are you doinghere?"

"Please don't hurt the poor man's feelings, " said the kindly Dean. 

Oliver turned a blank look on his Uncle. "His what? Ain't got any. Notthat kind of feelings. " He proceeded: "Now then, look lively! Clearout! Skidoo!"

The valet touched his forehead in salute, and--"Where am I to go to, Cap'en?"

"Go to----"

Oliver checked himself in time, and turned to the Dean. 

"Where shall I tell him to go?" he asked sweetly. 

"The kitchen garden would be the best place, " replied the Dean. 

"I think I'd better go and fix him up myself, " said Oliver. "A littleconversation in his own language might be beneficial. "

"But isn't he English?" asked Peggy. 

"Born and bred in Wapping, " said Oliver. 

He marched off across the lawn; and, could they have heard it, thefriendly talk that he had with Chipmunk would have made the Saint andthe Divines, and even the Crusader, Sir Guy de Chevenix, who wereburied in the cathedral, turn in their tombs. 

Doggie, watching the disappearing Chipmunk, Oliver's knuckles in hisneck, said:

"I think it monstrous of Oliver to bring such a disreputable creaturedown here. "

Said the Dean: "At any rate, it brings a certain excitement into ourquiet surroundings. "

"They must be having the time of their lives in the Servants' Hall, "said Peggy. 

CHAPTER IV

After breakfast the next morning Doggie, attired in a green shot-silkdressing-gown, entered his own particular room and sat down to think. In its way it was a very beautiful room--high, spacious, well-proportioned, facing south-east. The wall-paper, which he haddesigned himself, was ivory-white with veinings of peacock-blue. Intothe ivory-silk curtains were woven peacocks in full pride. Thecushions were ivory and peacock-blue. The chairs, the writing-table, the couch, the bookcases, were pure Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Vellum-bound books filled the cases--Doggie was very particular abouthis bindings. Delicate water-colours alone adorned the walls. On hisneatly arranged writing-table lay an ivory set--inkstand, pen-tray, blotter and calendar. Bits of old embroidery harmonizing with thepeacock shades were spread here and there. A pretty collection ofeighteenth-century Italian ivory statuettes were grouped about theroom. A spinet, inlaid with ebony and ivory, formed a centre for thearrangement of many other musical instruments--a viol, mandolins gaywith ribbons, a theorbo, flutes and clarinets. Through the curtains, draped across an alcove, could be guessed the modern monstrosity of agrand piano. One tall closed cabinet was devoted to his collection ofwall-papers. Another, open, to a collection of little dogs in china, porcelain, faïence; thousands of them; he got them through dealersfrom all over the world. He had the finest collection in existence, and maintained a friendly and learned correspondence with the othercollector--an elderly, disillusioned Russian prince, who livedsomewhere near Nijni-Novgorod. On the spinet and on the writing-tablewere great bowls of golden _rayon d'or_ roses. 

Doggie sat down to think. An unwonted frown creased his brow. Severalproblems distracted him. The morning sun streaming into the roomdisclosed, beyond doubt, discolorations, stains and streaks on thewall-paper. It would have to be renewed. Already he had decided todesign something to take its place. But last night Peggy had declaredher intention to turn this abode of bachelor comfort into thedrawing-room, and to hand over to his personal use some otherapartment, possibly the present drawing-room, which received all theblaze and glare of the afternoon sun. What should he do? Live in thesordidness of discoloured wall-paper for another year, or go throughthe anxiety of artistic effort and manufacturers' stupidity and delay, to say nothing of the expense, only to have the whole thing scrappedbefore the wedding? Doggie had a foretaste of the dilemmas ofmatrimony. He had a gnawing suspicion that the trim and perfect lifewas difficult of attainment. 

Then, meandering through this wilderness of dubiety, ran thoughts ofOliver. Every one seemed to have gone crazy over him. Uncle Edward andAunt Sophia had hung on his lips while he lied unblushingly about hisadventures. Even Peggy had listened open-eyed and open-mouthed when hehad told a tale of shipwreck in the South Seas: how the schooner hadbeen caught in some beastly wind and the masts had been torn out andthe rudder carried away, and how it had struck a reef, and howsomething had hit him on the head, and he knew no more till he woke upon a beach and found that the unspeakable Chipmunk had swum with himfor a week--or whatever the time was--until they got to land. Ifhulking, brainless dolts like Oliver, thought Doggie, like to foolaround in schooners and typhoons, they must take the consequences. There was nothing to brag about. The higher man was the intellectual, the æsthetic, the artistic being. What did Oliver know of Lydian modesor Louis Treize decoration or Astec clay dogs? Nothing. He couldn'teven keep his socks from slopping about over his shoes. And there wasPeggy all over the fellow, although before dinner she had said shecouldn't bear the sight of him. Doggie was perturbed. On bidding himgood night, she had kissed him in the most perfunctory manner--merelythe cousinly peck of a dozen years ago--and had given no thought tothe fact that he was driving home in an open car without an overcoat. He had felt distinctly chilly on his arrival, and had taken a dose ofammoniated quinine. Was Peggy's indifference a sign that she hadceased to care for him? That she was attracted by the buccaneeringOliver?

Now suppose the engagement was broken off, he would be free to do ashe chose with the redecoration of the room. But suppose, as hesincerely and devoutly hoped, it wasn't? Dilemma on dilemma. Added toall this, Goliath, the miniature Belgian griffon, having probablyovereaten himself, had complicated pains inside, and the callous vet. Could or would not come round till the evening. In the meantime, Goliath might die. 

He was at this point of his reflections, when to his horror heheard a familiar voice outside the door. 

"All right, Peddle. Don't worry. I'll show myself in. Look after thatman of mine. Quite easy. Give him some beer in a bucket and leave himto it. "

Then the door burst open and Oliver, pipe in mouth and hat on oneside, came into the room. 

"Hallo, Doggie! Thought I'd look you up. Hope I'm not disturbing you. "

"Not at all, " said Doggie. "Do sit down. "

But Oliver walked about and looked at things. 

"I like your water-colours. Did you collect them yourself?"

"Yes. "

"I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty. Who is it by?"

The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. Oliver, theconnoisseur, was showing himself in a new and agreeable light. Doggietook him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits andtheir little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, hada true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning tolike him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection oflittle dogs, spoiled everything. 

"My holy aunt!" he cried--an objurgation which Doggie had abhorredfrom boyhood--and he doubled with laughter in his horrid schoolboyfashion--"My dear Doggie--is that your family? How many litters?"

"It's the finest collection of the kind in the world, " replied Doggiestiffly, "and is worth several thousand pounds. "

Oliver heaved himself into a chair--that was Doggie's impression ofhis method of sitting down--a Sheraton chair with delicate arms andlegs. 

"Forgive me, " he said, "but you're such a funny devil. "--Doggie gaped. The conception of himself as a funny devil was new. --"Pictures andmusic I can understand. But what the deuce is the point of these damlittle dogs?"

But Doggie was hurt. "It would be useless to try to explain, " said he. 

Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming on to the couch. 

"Look here, old chap, " he said, "I seem to have put my foot into itagain. I didn't mean to, really. Peggy gave me hell this morning fornot treating you as a man and a brother, and I came round to try toput things right. "

"It's very considerate of Peggy, I'm sure, " said Marmaduke. 

"Now look here, old Doggie----"

"I told you when we first met yesterday that I vehemently object tobeing called Doggie. "

"But why?" asked Oliver. "I've made inquiries, and find that all yourpals----"

"I haven't any pals, as you call them. "

"Well, all our male contemporaries in the place who have the honour ofyour acquaintance--they all call you Doggie, and you don't seem tomind. "

"I do mind, " replied Marmaduke angrily, "but as I avoid their companyas much as possible, it doesn't very much matter. "

Oliver stretched out his legs and put his hands behind his back--thenwriggled to his feet. "What a beast of a chair! Anyhow, " he went on, puffing at his pipe, "don't let us quarrel. I'll call you Marmaduke, if you like, when I can remember--it's a beast of a name--like thechair. I'm a rough sort of chap. I've had ten years' pretty roughtraining. I've slept on boards. I've slept in the open without a centto hire a board. I've gone cold and I've gone hungry, and men haveknocked me about and I've knocked men about--and I've lost theDurdlebury sense of social values. In the wilds if a man once gets thename, say, of Duck-Eyed Joe, it sticks to him, and he accepts it andanswers to it, and signs 'Duck-Eyed Joe' on an IOU and honours thesignature. "

"But I'm not in the wilds, " said Marmaduke, "and haven't the slightestintention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life youdescribe. So what you say doesn't apply to me. "

"Quite so, " replied Oliver. "That wasn't the moral of my discourse. The habit of mind engendered in the wilds applies to me. Just as Icould never think of Duck-Eyed Joe as George Wilkinson, so you, JamesMarmaduke Trevor, will live imperishably in my mind as Doggie. I wasmaking a sort of apology, old chap, for my habit of mind. "

"If it is an apology----" said Marmaduke. 

Oliver, laughing, clapped him boisterously on the shoulder. "Oh, yousolemn comic cuss!" He strode to a rose-bowl and knocked the ashes ofhis pipe into the water--Doggie trembled lest he might next squirttobacco juice over the ivory curtains. "You don't give a fellow achance. Look here, tell me, as man to man, what are you going to dowith your life? I don't mean it in the high-brow sense of people wholive in unsuccessful plays and garden cities, but in the ordinarycommon-sense way of the world. Here you are, young, strong, educated, intelligent----"

"I'm not strong, " said Doggie. 

"Oh, shucks! A month's exercise would make you as strong as a mule. Here you are--what the blazes are you going to do with yourself?"

"I don't admit that you have any right to question me, " said Doggie, lighting a cigarette. 

"Peggy has given it to me. We had a heart to heart talk this morning, I assure you. She called me a swaggering, hectoring barbarian. So Itold her what I'd do. I said I'd come here and squeak like a littlemouse and eat out of your hand. I also said I'd take you out with meto the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water andexercise. I'll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go aboutbarefoot and swab decks. It's a life for a man out there, I tell you. If you've nothing better to do than living here snug like a flea on adog's back, until you get married, you'd better come. "

Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely:

"Your offer is very kind, Oliver; but I don't think that kind of lifewould suit me. "

"Oh yes it would, " said Oliver. "It would make you healthy, wealthy--if you took a fancy to put some money into the pearlfishery--and wise. I'd show you the world, make a man of you, forPeggy's sake, and teach you how men talk to one another in a gale ofwind. "

The door opened and Peddle appeared. 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver--but your man----"

"Yes? What about him? Is he misbehaving himself? Kissing the maids?"

"No, sir, " said Peddle--"but none of them can get on with their work. He has drunk two quart jugs of beer and wants a third. "

"Well, give it to him. "

"I shouldn't like to see the man intoxicated, sir, " said Peddle. 

"You couldn't. No one has or ever will. "

"He is also standing on his head, sir, in the middle of the kitchentable. "

"It's his great parlour-trick. You just try to do it, Peddle--especially after two quarts of beer. He's showing hisgratitude, poor chap--just like the juggler of Notre-Dame in thestory. And I'm sure everybody's enjoying themselves?"

"The maids are nearly in hysterics, sir. "

"But they're quite happy?"

"Too happy, sir. "

"Lord!" cried Oliver, "what a lot of stuffy owls you are! What do youwant me to do? What would you like me to do, Doggie? It's your house. "

"I don't know, " said Doggie. "I've had nothing to do with such people. Perhaps you might go and speak to him. "

"No, I won't do that. I tell you what, Peddle, " said Oliver brightly. "You lure him out into the stable yard with a great hunk of pie--headores pie--and tell him to sit there and eat it till I come. Tell himI said so. "

"I'll see what can be done, sir, " said Peddle. 

"I don't mean to be inhospitable, " said Doggie, after the butler hadgone, "but why do you take this extraordinary person about with you?"

"I wanted him to see Durdlebury and Durdlebury to see him. Do itgood, " replied Oliver. "Now, what about my proposition? Out there ofcourse you'll be my guest. Put yourself in charge of Chipmunk and mefor eight months, and you'll never regret it. What Chipmunk doesn'tknow about ships and drink and hard living isn't knowledge. We'll letyou down easy--treat you kindly--word of honour. "

Doggie being a man of intelligence realized that Oliver's offer arosefrom a genuine desire to do him some kind of service. But if afriendly bull out of the fullness of its affection invited you toaccompany him to the meadow and eat grass, what could you do butcourteously decline the invitation? This is what Doggie did. After afurther attempt at persuasion, Oliver grew impatient, and picking uphis hat stuck it on the side of his head. He was a simple-natured, impulsive man. Peggy's spirited attack had caused him to realize thathe had treated Doggie with unprovoked rudeness; but then, Doggie wassuch a little worm. Suddenly the great scheme for Doggie'sregeneration had entered his head, and generously he had rushed tobegin to put it into execution. The pair were his blood relationsafter all. He saw his way to doing them a good turn. Peggy, with allher go--exemplified by the manner in which she had gone for him--wasworth the trouble he proposed to take with Doggie. It really was ahandsome offer. Most fellows would have jumped at the prospect ofbeing shown round the Islands with an old hand who knew the wholething backwards, from company promoting to beach-combing. He had notexpected such a point-blank, bland refusal. It made him angry. 

"I'm really most obliged to you, Oliver, " said Doggie finally. "Butour ideals are so entirely different. You're primitive, you know. Youseem to find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I findmine in adopting the resources of civilization to circumvent them. "

He smiled, pleased with his little epigram. 

"Which means, " said Oliver, "that you're afraid to roughen your handsand spoil your complexion. "

"If you like to put it that way--symbolically. "

"Symbolically be hanged!" cried Oliver, losing his temper. "You're aneffeminate little rotter, and I'm through with you. Go on and wag yourtail and sit up and beg for biscuits----"

"Stop!" shouted Doggie, white with sudden anger which shook him fromhead to foot. He marched to the door, his green silk dressing-gownflapping round his legs, and threw it wide open. "This is my house. I'm sorry to have to ask you to get out of it. "

Oliver looked intently for a few seconds into the flaming little darkeyes. Then he said gravely:

"I'm a beast to have said that. I take it all back. Good-bye!"

"Good day to you, " said Doggie; and when the door was shut he went andthrew himself, shaken, on the couch, hating Oliver and all his worksmore than ever. Go about barefoot and swab decks! It was Bedlammadness. Besides being dangerous to health, it would be excruciatingdiscomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at such martyrdom. Itwas intolerable. 

Doggie stayed away from the Deanery all that day. On the morrow heheard, to his relief, that Oliver had returned to London with theunedifying Chipmunk. He took Peggy for a drive in the Rolls-Royce, andtold her of Oliver's high-handed methods. She sympathized. She said, however:

"Oliver's a rough diamond. "

"He's one of Nature's non-gentlemen, " said Doggie. 

She laughed and patted his arm. "Clever lad!" she said. 

So Doggie's wounded vanity was healed. He confided to her some of hisdifficulties as to the peacock and ivory room. 

"Bear with the old paper for my sake, " she said. "It's something youcan do for me. In the meanwhile, you and I can put our heads togetherand design a topping scheme of decoration. It's not too early to startin right now, for it'll take months and months to get the house justas we want. "

"You're the best girl in the world, " said Doggie; "and the way youunderstand me is simply wonderful. "

"Dear old thing, " smiled Peggy; "you're no great conundrum. "

Happiness once more settled on Doggie Trevor. For the next two orthree days he and Peggy tackled the serious problem of thereorganization of Denby Hall. Peggy had the large ideas of a limitedthough acute brain, stimulated by social ambitions. When she becamemistress of Denby Hall, she intended to reverse the invisible boundarythat included it in Durdlebury and excluded it from the County. It wasto be County--of the fine inner Arcanum of County--and only Durdleburyby the grace of Peggy Trevor. No "durdling, " as Oliver called it, forher. Denby Hall was going to be the very latest thing of September, 1915, when she proposed, the honeymoon concluded, to take smart andstartling possession. Lots of Mrs. Trevor's rotten old stuffyfurniture would have to go. Marmaduke would have to revolutionize hishabits. As she would have all kinds of jolly people down to stay, additions must be made to the house. Within a week after herengagement she had devised all the improvements. Marmaduke's room, with a great bay thrown out, would be the drawing-room. The presentdrawing-room, nucleus of a new wing, would be a dancing-room, withparquet flooring; when not used for tangos and the fashionable negroiddances, it would be called the morning-room; beyond that there wouldbe a billiard-room. Above this first floor there could easily be builta series of guest chambers. As for Marmaduke's library, or study, orden, any old room would do. There were a couple of bedroomsoverlooking the stable yard which thrown into one would dobeautifully. 

With feminine tact she dangled these splendours before Doggie'sinfatuated eyes, instinctively choosing the opportunity of hisgratitude for soothing treatment. Doggie telegraphed for Sir OwenJulius, R. A. , Surveyor to the Cathedral, the only architect of hisacquaintance. The great man sent his partner, plain John Fox, whoundertook to prepare a design. 

Mr. Fox came down to Durdlebury on the 28th of July. There had been alot of silly talk in the newspapers about Austria and Serbia, to whichDoggie had given little heed. There was always trouble in the BalkanStates. Recently they had gone to war. It had left Doggie quite cold. They were all "Merry Widow, " irresponsible people. They dressed inqueer uniforms and picturesque costumes, and thought themselvestremendously important, and were always squabbling among themselvesand would go on doing it till the day of Doom. Now there was morefuss. He had read in the _Morning Post_ that Sir Edward Grey hadproposed a Conference of the Great Powers. Only sensible thing to do, thought Doggie. He dismissed the trivial matter from his mind. On themorning of the 29th he learned that Austria had declared war onSerbia. Still, what did it matter?

Doggie had held aloof from politics. He regarded them as somewhatvulgar. Conservative by caste, he had once, when the opportunity wasalmost forced on him, voted for the Conservative candidate of theconstituency. European politics on the grand scale did not arouse hisinterest at all. England, save as the wise Mentor, had nothing to dowith them. Still, if Russia fought, France would have to join herally. It was not till he went to the Deanery that he began tocontemplate the possibility of a general European war. For the nextday or two he read his newspapers very carefully. 

On Saturday, the 1st of August, Oliver suddenly reappeared, proposingto stay over the Bank Holiday. He brought news and rumours of war fromthe great city. He had found money very tight, Capital with a big Cimpossible to obtain. Every one told him to come back when the presentEuropean cloud had blown over. In the opinion of the judicious, itwould not blow over. There was going to be war, and England could notstay out of it. The Sunday morning papers confirmed all he said. Germany had declared war on Russia. France was involved. Would GreatBritain come in, or for ever lose her honour?

That warm beautiful Sunday afternoon they sat on the peaceful lawnunder the shadow of the great cathedral. Burford brought out thetea-tray and Mrs. Conover poured out tea. Sir Archibald and Lady Bruceand their daughter Dorothy were there. Doggie, impeccable in darkpurple. Nothing clouded the centuries-old serenity of the place. Yetthey asked the question that was asked on every quiet lawn, everylittle scrap of shaded garden throughout the land that day: WouldEngland go to war?

And if she came in, as come in she must, what would be the result? Allhad premonitions of strange shifting of destinies. As it was yesterdayso it was to-day in that gracious shrine of immutability. But everyone knew in his heart that as it was to-day so would it not beto-morrow. The very word "war" seemed as out of place as thesuggestion of Hell in Paradise. Yet the throb of the War Drum cameover the broad land of France and over the sea and half over England, and its echo fell upon the Deanery garden, flung by the flyingbuttresses and piers and towers of the grey cathedral. 

 * * * * *

On the morning of Wednesday, the 5th of August, it thundered all overthe Close. The ultimatum to Germany as to Belgium had expired thenight before. We were at war. 

"Thank God, " said the Dean at breakfast, "we needn't cast down oureyes and slink by when we meet a Frenchman. "

CHAPTER V

The first thing that brought the seriousness of the war home to Doggiewas a letter from John Fox. John Fox, a major in a Territorialregiment, was mobilized. He regretted that he could not give hispersonal attention to the proposed alterations at Denby Hall. Shouldthe plans be proceeded with in his absence from the office, or wouldMr. Trevor care to wait till the end of the war, which, from thenature of things, could not last very long? Doggie trotted off toPeggy. She was greatly annoyed. 

"What awful rot!" she cried. "Fox, a major of artillery! I'd just assoon trust you with a gun. Why doesn't he stick to his architecture?"

"He'd be shot or something if he refused to go, " said Doggie. "But whycan't we turn it over to Sir Owen Julius?"

"That old archæological fossil?"

Peggy, womanlike, forgot that they had approached him in the firstplace. 

"He'd never begin to understand what we want. Fox hinted as much. NowFox is modern and up to date and sympathetic. If I can't have Fox, Iwon't have Sir Owen. Why, he's older than Dad! He's decrepit. Can't weget another architect?"

"Do you think, dear, " said Doggie, "that, in the circumstances, itwould be a nice thing to do?"

She flashed a glance at him. She had woven no young girl's romanticillusions around Marmaduke. Should necessity have arisen, she couldhave furnished you with a merciless analysis of his character. But inthat analysis she would have frankly included a very fine sense ofhonour. If he said a thing wasn't quite nice--well, it wasn't quitenice. 

"I suppose it wouldn't, " she admitted. "We shall have to wait. Butit's a rotten nuisance all the same. "

Hundreds of thousands of not very intelligent, but at the same time byno means unpatriotic, people, like Peggy, at the beginning of the warthought trivial disappointments rotten nuisances. We had all waxed toofat during the opening years of the twentieth century, and, not havinga spiritual ideal in God's universe, we were in danger of perishingfrom Fatty Degeneration of the Soul. As it was, it took a year or moreof war to cure us. 

It took Peggy quite a month to appreciate the meaning of themobilization of Major Fox, R. F. A. A brigade of Territorial artilleryflowed over Durdlebury, and the sacred and sleepy meadows became amass of guns and horse-lines and men in khaki, and waggons and dingycanvas tents--and the old quiet streets were thick with unaccustomedsoldiery. The Dean called on the Colonel and officers, and soon thehouse was full of eager young men holding the King's commission. Doggie admired their patriotism, but disliked their whole-heartedembodiment of the military spirit. They seemed to have no ideas beyondtheir new trade. The way they clanked about in their great boots andspurs got on his nerves. He dreaded also lest Peggy should be affectedby the meretricious attraction of a uniform. There were fine heftyfellows among the visitors at the Deanery, on whom Peggy looked withnatural admiration. Doggie bitterly confided to Goliath that it wasthe "glamour of brawn. " It never entered his head during those earlydays that all the brawn of all the manhood of the nation would beneeded. We had our well-organized Army and Navy, composed ofpeculiarly constituted men whose duty it was to fight; just as we hadour well-organized National Church, also composed of peculiarlyconstituted men whose duty it was to preach. He regarded himself asremote from one as from the other. 

Oliver, who had made a sort of peace with Doggie and remained at theDeanery, very quickly grew restless. 

One day, walking with Peggy and Marmaduke in the garden, he said: "Iwish I could get hold of that confounded fellow, Chipmunk!"

Partly through deference to the good Dean's delicately hinted distastefor that upsetter of decorous households, and partly to allow hisfollower to attend to his own domestic affairs, he had left Chipmunkin London. Fifteen years ago Chipmunk had parted from a wife somewherein the neighbourhood of the East India Docks. Both being illiterate, neither had since communicated with the other. As he had left herearning good money in a factory, his fifteen years' separation hadbeen relieved from anxiety as to her material welfare. A prudent, although a beer-loving man, he had amassed considerable savings, andit was the dual motive of sharing these with his wife and ofprotecting his patron from the ever-lurking perils of London, that hadbrought him across the seas. When Oliver had set him free in town, hewas going in quest of his wife. But as he had forgotten the name ofthe street near the East India Docks where his wife lived, and thename of the factory in which she worked, the successful issue of thequest, in Oliver's opinion, seemed problematical. The simple Chipmunk, however, was quite sanguine. He would run into her all right. As soonas he had found her he would let the Captain know. Up to the presenthe had not communicated with the Captain. He could give the Captain nodefinite address, so the Captain could not communicate with him. Chipmunk had disappeared into the unknown. 

"Isn't he quite capable of taking care of himself?" asked Peggy. 

"I'm not so sure, " replied Oliver. "Besides, he's hanging me up. I'mkind of responsible for him, and I've got sixty pounds of his money. It's all I could do to persuade him not to stow the lot in his pocket, so as to divide it with Mrs. Chipmunk as soon as he saw her. I mustfind out what has become of the beggar before I move. "

"I suppose, " said Doggie, "you're anxious now to get back to the SouthSeas?"

Oliver stared at him. "No, sonny, not till the war's over. "

"Why, you wouldn't be in any great danger out there, would you?"

Oliver laughed. "You're the funniest duck that ever was, Doggie. I'llnever get to the end of you. " And he strolled away. 

"What does he mean?" asked the bewildered Doggie. 

"I think, " replied Peggy, smiling, "that he means he's going tofight. "

"Oh, " said Doggie. Then after a pause he added, "He's just the sort ofchap for a soldier, isn't he?"

The next day Oliver's anxiety as to Chipmunk was relieved by theappearance of the man himself, incredibly dirty and dusty and thirsty. Having found no trace of his wife, and having been robbed of the moneyhe carried about him, he had tramped to Durdlebury, where he reportedhimself to his master as if nothing out of the way had happened. 

"You silly blighter, " said Oliver. "Suppose I had let you go with yourother sixty pounds, you would have been pretty well in the soup, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Cap'en, " said Chipmunk. 

"And you're not going on any blethering idiot wild-goose chases afterwives and such-like truck again, are you?"

"No, Cap'en, " said Chipmunk. 

This was in the stable-yard, after Chipmunk had shaken some of thedust out of his hair and clothes and had eaten and drunk voraciously. He was now sitting on an upturned bucket and smoking his clay pipewith an air of solid content. Oliver, lean and supple, his hands inhis pockets, looked humorously down upon him. 

"And you've got to stick to me for the future, like a roseate leech. "

"Yes, Cap'en. "

"You're going to ride a horse. "

"A wot?" roared Chipmunk. 

"A thing on four legs, that kicks like hell. "

"Wotever for? I ain't never ridden no 'osses. "

"You're going to learn, you unmilitary-looking, worm-eaten scab. You've got to be a ruddy soldier. "

"Gorblime!" said Chipmunk, "that's the first I 'eard of it. A 'osssoldier? You're not kiddin', are you, Cap'en?"

"Certainly not. "

"Gorblime! Who would ha' thought it?" Then he spat lustily and suckedat his pipe. 

"You've nothing to say against it, have you?"

"No, Cap'en. "

"All right. And look here, when we're in the army you must chuckcalling me Cap'en. "

"What shall I have to call yer? Gineral?" Chipmunk asked simply. 

"Mate, Bill, Joe--any old name. "

"Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk. 

"Do you know why we're going to enlist?"

"Can't say as 'ow I does, Cap'en. "

"You chuckle-headed swab! Don't you know we're at war?"

"I did 'ear some talk about it in a pub one night, " Chipmunk admitted. "'Oo are we fighting? Dutchmen or Dagoes?"

"Dutchmen. "

Chipmunk spat in his horny hands, rubbed them together and smiled. Aseach individual hair on his face seemed to enter into the smile, theresult was sinister. 

"Do you remember that Dutchman at Samoa, Cap'en?"

Oliver smiled back. He remembered the hulking, truculent Germanmerchant whom Chipmunk, having half strangled, threw into the sea. Healso remembered the amount of accomplished lying he had to practise inorder to save Chipmunk from the clutches of the law and get away withthe schooner. 

"We leave here to-morrow, " said Oliver. "In the meanwhile you'll haveto shave your ugly face. "

For the first time Chipmunk was really staggered. He gaped at Oliver'sretiring figure. Even his limited and time-worn vocabulary failed him. The desperate meaning of the war has flashed suddenly on millions ofmen in millions of different ways. This is the way in which it flashedon Chipmunk. 

He sat on his bucket pondering over the awfulness of it and suckinghis pipe long after it had been smoked out. The Dean's car drove intothe yard and the chauffeur, stripping off his coat, prepared to cleanit down. 

"Say, guv'nor, " said Chipmunk hoarsely, "what do you think of this'ere war?"

"Same as most people, " replied the chauffeur tersely. He shared in thegeneral disapproval of Chipmunk. 

"But see 'ere. Cap'en he tells me I must shave me face and be a 'osssoldier. I never shaved me face in me life, and I dunno 'ow to do it, just as I dunno 'ow to ride a 'oss. I'm a sailorman, I am, andsailormen don't shave their faces and ride 'osses. That's why I arskedyer what yer thought of this 'ere war. "

The chauffeur struggled into his jeans and adjusted them beforereplying. 

"If you're a sailor, the place for you is the navy, " he remarked in asuperior manner. "As for the cavalry, the Cap'en, as you call him, ought to have more sense----"

Chipmunk rose and swung his long arms threateningly. 

"Look 'ere, young feller, do you want to have your blinkin' 'eadknocked orf? Where the Cap'en goes, I goes, and don't you make anymistake about it!"

"I didn't say anything, " the chauffeur expostulated. 

"Then don't say it. See? Keep your blinkin' 'ead shut and mind yourown business. "

And, scowling fiercely and thrusting his empty pipe into his trouserspocket, Chipmunk rolled away. 

A few hours later Oliver, entering his room to dress for dinner, foundhim standing in the light of the window laboriously fitting studs intoa shirt. The devoted fellow having gone to report to his master, hadfound Burford engaged in his accustomed task of laying out hismaster's evening clothes--Oliver during his stay in London hadprovided himself with these necessaries. A jealous snarl had sentBurford flying. So intent was he on his work, that he did not hearOliver enter. Oliver stood and watched him. Chipmunk was swearingwholesomely under his breath. Oliver saw him take up the tail of theshirt, spit on it and begin to rub something. 

"Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk. 

"What in the thundering blazes are you doing there?" cried Oliver. 

Chipmunk turned. 

"Oh, my God!" said Oliver. 

Then he sank on a chair and laughed and laughed, and the more helooked at Chipmunk the more he laughed. And Chipmunk stood stolid, holding the shirt of the awful, wet, thumb-marked front. But it wasnot at the shirt that Oliver laughed. 

"Good God!" he cried, "were you born like that?"

For Chipmunk, having gone to the barber's, was clean-shaven, andrevealed himself as one of the most comically ugly of the sons of men. 

"Never mind, " said Oliver, after a while, "you've made the sacrificefor your country. "

"And wot if I get the face-ache?"

"I'd get something that looked like a face before I'd talk of it, "grinned Oliver. 

At the family dinner-table, Doggie being present, he announced hisintentions. It was the duty of every able-bodied man to fight for theEmpire. Had not half a million just been called for? We should want ajolly sight more than that before we got through with it. Anyway, hewas off to-morrow. 

"To-morrow?" echoed the Dean. 

Burford, who was handing him potatoes, arched his eyebrows in alarm. He was fond of Oliver. 

"With Chipmunk. "

Burford uttered an unheard sigh of relief. 

"We're going to enlist in King Edward's Horse. They're our kind. Overseas men. Lots of 'em what you dear good people would call badeggs. There you make the mistake. Perhaps they mayn't be fresh enoughraw for a dainty palate--but for cooking, good hard cooking, by gosh!nothing can touch 'em. "

"You talk of enlisting, dear, " said Mrs. Conover. "Does that mean as aprivate soldier?"

"Yes--a trooper. Why not?"

"You're a gentleman, dear. And gentlemen in the Army are officers. "

"Not now, my dear Sophia, " said the Dean. "Gentlemen are crowding intothe ranks. They are setting a noble example. "

They argued it out in their gentle old-fashioned way. The Dean quotedexamples of sons of family who had served as privates in the SouthAfrican War. 

"And that to this, " said he, "is but an eddy to a maelstrom. "

"Come and join us, James Marmaduke, " said Oliver across the table. "Chipmunk and me. Three 'sworn brothers to France. '"

Doggie smiled easily. "I'm afraid I can't undertake to swear afraternal affection for Chipmunk. He and I would have neither habitsnor ideals in common. "

Oliver turned to Peggy. "I wish, " said he, with rare restraint, "hewouldn't talk like a book on deportment. "

"Marmaduke talks the language of civilization, " laughed Peggy. "He'snot a savage like you. "

"Don't you jolly well wish he was!" said Oliver. 

Peggy flushed. "No, I don't!" she declared. 

The Dean being called away on business immediately after dinner, theyoung men were left alone in the dining-room when the ladies haddeparted. Oliver poured himself out a glass of port and filled hispipe--an inelegant proceeding of which Doggie disapproved. A pipealone was barbaric, a pipe with old port was criminal. He held hispeace however. 

"James Marmaduke, " said Oliver, after a while, "what are you going todo?" Much as Marmaduke disliked the name of "Doggie, " he winced underthe irony of the new appellation. 

"I don't see that I'm called upon to do anything, " he replied. 

Oliver smoked and sipped his port. "I don't want to hurt your feelingsany more, " said he gravely, "though sometimes I'd like to scrag you--Isuppose because you're so different from me. It was so when we werechildren together. Now I've grown very fond of Peggy. Put on the righttrack, she might turn into a very fine woman. "

"I don't think we need discuss Peggy, Oliver, " said Marmaduke. 

"I do. She is sticking to you very loyally. " Oliver was a bit of anidealist. "The time may come when she'll be up the devil's own tree. She'll develop a patriotic conscience. If she sticks to you while youdo nothing she'll be miserable. If she chucks you, as she probablywill, she'll be no happier. It's all up to you, James DoggieMarmaduke, old son. You'll have to gird up your loins and take swordand buckler and march away like the rest. I don't want Peggy to beunhappy. I want her to marry a man. That's why I proposed to take youout with me to Huaheine and try to make you one. But that's over. Now, here's the real chance. Better take it sooner than later. You'll haveto be a soldier, Doggie. "

His pipe not drawing, he was preparing to dig it with the point of adessert-knife, when Doggie interposed hurriedly. 

"For goodness' sake, don't do that! It makes cold shivers run down myback!"

Oliver looked at him oddly, put the extinct pipe in his dinner-jacketpocket and rose. 

"A flaw in the dainty and divine ordering of things makes you shivernow, old Doggie. What will you do when you see a fellow digging outanother fellow's intestines with the point of a bayonet? A bigger flawthere somehow!"

"Don't talk like that. You make me sick, " said Doggie. 

CHAPTER VI

During the next few months there happened terrible and marvellousthings, which are all set down in the myriad chronicles of the time;which shook the world and brought the unknown phenomenon of changeinto the Close of Durdlebury. Folks of strange habit and speech walkedin it, and, gazing at the Gothic splendour of the place, saw throughthe mist of autumn and the mist of tears not Durdlebury but Louvain. More than one of those grey houses flanking the cathedral and sharingwith it the continuity of its venerable life, was a house of mourning;not for loss in the inevitable and not unkindly way of human destinyas understood and accepted with long disciplined resignation--but forloss sudden, awful, devastating; for the gallant lad who had left itbut a few weeks before, with a smile on his lips, and a new anddancing light of manhood in his eyes, now with those eyes unclosed andglazed staring at the pitiless Flanders sky. Not one of those housesbut was linked with a battlefield. Beyond the memory of man the readerof the Litany had droned the accustomed invocation on behalf of theSovereign and the Royal Family, the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, theLords of the Council and all prisoners and captives, and thecongregation had lumped them all together in their responses with anundifferentiating convention of fervour. What had prisoners andcaptives, any more than the Lords of the Council, to do with theirlives, their hearts, their personal emotions? But now--Durdlebury menwere known to be prisoners in German hands, and after "all prisonersand captives" there was a long and pregnant silence, in which was feltthe reverberation of war against pier and vaulted arch and groinedroof of the cathedral, which was broken too, now and then, by thestifled sob of a woman, before the choir came in with the response sonew and significant in its appeal--"We beseech thee to hear us, OLord!"

And in every home the knitting-needles of women clicked, as they didthroughout the length and breadth of the land. And the young men leftshop and trade and counting-house. And young parsons fretted, and someobtained the Bishop's permission to become Army chaplains, and others, snapping their fingers (figuratively) under the Bishop's nose, threwtheir cassocks to the nettles and put on the full (though in moderntimes not very splendiferous) panoply of war. And in course of timethe brigade of artillery rolled away and new troops took their place;and Marmaduke Trevor, Esquire, of Denby Hall, was called upon tobillet a couple of officers and twenty men. 

Doggie was both patriotic and polite. Having a fragment of the BritishArmy in his house, he did his best to make them comfortable. ByJanuary he had no doubt that the Empire was in peril, that it wasevery man's duty to do his bit. He welcomed the new-comers with openarms, having unconsciously abandoned his attitude of superiority overmere brawn. Doggie saw the necessity of brawn. The more the better. Itwas every patriotic Englishman's duty to encourage brawn. If the twoofficers had allowed him, he would have fed his billeted men every twohours on prime beefsteaks and burgundy. He threw himself heart andsoul into the reorganization of his household. Officers and men foundthemselves in clover. The officers had champagne every night fordinner. They thought Doggie a capital fellow. 

"My dear chap, " they would say, "you're spoiling us. I don't say wedon't like it and aren't grateful. We jolly well are. But we'resupposed to rough it--to lead the simple life--what? You're doing ustoo well. "

"Impossible!" Doggie would reply, filling up the speaker's glass. "Don't I know what we owe to you fellows? In what other way can ahelpless, delicate crock like myself show his gratitude and in somesort of little way serve his country?"

When the sympathetic and wine-filled guest would ask what was thenature of his malady, he would tap his chest vaguely and reply:

"Constitutional. I've never been able to do things like other fellows. The least thing bowls me out. "

"Dam hard lines--especially just now. "

"Yes, isn't it?" Doggie would answer. And once he found himselfadding, "I'm fed up with doing nothing. "

Here can be noted a distinct stage in Doggie's development. Herealized the brutality of fact. When great German guns were yawningopen-mouthed at you, it was no use saying, "Take the nasty, horridthings away, I don't like them. " They wouldn't go unless you tookother big guns and fired at them. And more guns were required thancould be manned by the peculiarly constituted fellows who made up theartillery of the original British Army. New fellows not at allwarlike, peaceful citizens who had never killed a cat in anger, werebeing driven by patriotism and by conscience to man them. AgainstBlood and Iron now supreme, the superior, æsthetic and artistic beingwas of no avail. You might lament the fall in relative values ofcollections of wall-papers and little china dogs, as much as youliked; but you could not deny the fall; they had gone down withsomething of an ignoble "wallop. " Doggie began to set a high value onguns and rifles and such-like deadly engines, and to inquirepetulantly why the Government were not providing them at greaternumbers and at greater speed. On his periodic visits to London hewandered round by Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, to see for himselfhow the recruiting was going on. At the Deanery he joined in ardentdiscussions of the campaign in Flanders. On the walls of his peacockand ivory room were maps stuck all over with little pins. When he toldthe young officer that he was wearied of inaction, he spoke the truth. He began to feel mightily aggrieved against Providence for keeping himoutside this tremendous national league of youth. He never questionedhis physical incapacity. It was as real a fact as the German guns. Hewent about pitying himself and seeking pity. 

The months passed. The regiment moved away from Durdlebury, and Doggiewas left alone in Denby Hall. 

He felt solitary and restless. News came from Oliver that he had beenoffered and had accepted an infantry commission, and that Chipmunk, having none of the special qualities of a "'oss soldier, " had, bycertain skilful wire-pullings, been transferred to his regiment, andhad once more become his devoted servant. "A month of this sort ofthing, " he wrote, "would make our dear old Doggie sit up. " Doggiesighed. If only he had been blessed with Oliver's constitution!

One morning Briggins, his chauffeur, announced that he could stick itno longer and was going to join up. Then Doggie remembered a talk hehad had with one of the young officers who had expressed astonishmentat his not being able to drive a car. "I shouldn't have the nerve, " hehad replied. "My nerves are all wrong--and I shouldn't have thestrength to change tyres and things. ". .. If his chauffeur went, hewould find it very difficult to get another. Who would drive theRolls-Royce?

"Why not learn to drive yourself, sir?" said Briggins. "Not theRolls-Royce. I would put it up or get rid of it, if I were you. If youengage a second-rate man, as you'll have to, who isn't used to thismake of car, he'll do it in for you pretty quick. Get a smaller one inits place and drive it yourself. I'll undertake to teach you enoughbefore I go. "

So Doggie, following Briggins' advice, took lessons and, to hisamazement, found that he did not die of nervous collapse when a dogcrossed the road in front of the car and that the fitting ofdetachable wheels did not require the strength of a Hercules. Thefirst time he took Peggy out in the two-seater he swelled with pride. 

"I'm so glad to see you can do something!" she said. 

Although she was kind and as mildly affectionate as ever, he hadnoticed of late a curious reserve in her manner. Conversation did notflow easily. There seemed to be something at the back of her mind. Shehad fits of abstraction from which, when rallied, she roused herselfwith an effort. 

"It's the war, " she would declare. "It's affecting everybody thatway. "

Gradually Doggie began to realize that she spoke truly. Most people ofhis acquaintance, when he was by, seemed to be thus afflicted. Thelack of interest they manifested in his delicacy of constitution wasalmost impolite. At last he received an anonymous letter, "For littleDoggie Trevor, from the girls of Durdlebury, " enclosing a whitefeather. 

The cruelty of it broke Doggie down. He sat in his peacock and ivoryroom and nearly wept. Then he plucked up courage and went to Peggy. She was rather white about the lips as she listened. 

"I'm sorry, " she said, "but I expected something of the sort tohappen. "

"It's brutal and unjust. "

"Yes, it's brutal, " she admitted coldly. 

"I thought you, at any rate, would sympathize with me, " he cried. 

She turned on him. "And what about me? Who sympathizes with me? Do youever give a moment's thought to what I've had to go through the lastfew months?"

"I don't quite know what you mean, " he stammered. 

"I should have thought it was obvious. You can't be such an innocentbabe as to suppose people don't talk about you. They don't talk to youbecause they don't like to be rude. They send you white feathersinstead. But they talk to me. 'Why isn't Marmaduke in khaki?' 'Whyisn't Doggie fighting?' 'I wonder how you can allow him to slack aboutlike that!'--I've had a pretty rough time fighting your battles, I cantell you, and I deserve some credit. I want sympathy just as much asyou do. "

"My dear, " said Doggie, feeling very much humiliated, "I never knew. Inever thought. I do see now the unpleasant position you've been in. People are brutes. But, " he added eagerly, "you told them the realreason?"

"What's that?" she asked, looking at him with cold eyes. 

Then Doggie knew that the wide world was against him. "I'm not fit. I've no constitution. I'm an impossibility. "

"You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car. Thenyou discovered that you hadn't. You fancy you've a weak heart. Perhapsif you learned to walk thirty miles a day you would discover youhadn't that either. And so with the rest of it. "

"This is very painful, " he said, going to the window and staring out. "Very painful. You are of the same opinion as the young women who sentme that abominable thing. "

She had been on the strain for a long while and something inside herhad snapped. At his woebegone attitude she relented however, and cameup and touched his shoulder. 

"A girl wants to feel some pride in the man she's going to marry. It'shorrible to have to be always defending him--especially when she's notsure she's telling the truth in his defence. "

He swung round horrified. "Do you think I'm shamming, so as to get outof serving in the Army?"

"Not consciously. Unconsciously, I think you are. What does yourdoctor say?"

Doggie was taken aback. He had no doctor. He had not consulted one foryears, having no cause for medical advice. The old family physicianwho had attended his mother in her last illness and had prescribedGregory powders for him as a child, had retired from Durdlebury longago. There was only one person living familiar with his constitution, and that was himself. He made confession of the surprising fact. Peggymade a little gesture. 

"That proves it. I don't believe you have anything wrong with you. Thenerves business made me sceptical. This is straight talking. It'shorrid, I know. But it's best to get through with it once and forall. "

Some men would have taken deep offence and, consigning Peggy to thedevil, have walked out of the room. But Doggie, a conscientious, eventhough a futile human being, was gnawed for the first time by thesuspicion that Peggy might possibly be right. He desired to acthonourably. 

"I'll do, " said he, "whatever you think proper. "

Peggy was swift to smite the malleable iron. To use the conventionalphrase might give an incorrect impression of red-hot martial ardour onthe part of Doggie. 

"Good, " she said, with the first smile of the day. "I'll hold you toit. But it will be an honourable bargain. Get Dr. Murdoch to overhaulyou thoroughly, with a view to the Army. If he passes you, take acommission. Dad says he can easily get you one through his old friendGeneral Gadsby at the War Office. If he doesn't, and you're unfit, I'll stick to you through thick and thin, and make the young women ofDurdlebury wish they'd never been born. "

She put out her hand. Doggie took it. 

"Very well, " said he, "I agree. "

She laughed, and ran to the door. 

"Where are you going?"

"To the telephone--to ring up Dr. Murdoch for an appointment. "

"You're flabby, " said Dr. Murdoch the next morning to an anxiousDoggie in pink pyjamas; "but that's merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it right in no time. Otherwise, my dearTrevor, you're in splendid health. I was afraid your family historymight be against you--the child of elderly parents, and so forth. Butnothing of the sort. Not only are you a first-class life for aninsurance company, but you're a first-class life for the Army--andthat's saying a good deal. There's not a flaw in your wholeconstitution. "

He put away his stethoscope and smiled at Doggie, who regarded himblankly as the pronouncer of a doom. He went on to prescribe a courseof physical exercises, so many miles a day walking, such and suchback-breaking and contortional performances in his bathroom; ifpossible, a skilfully graduated career in a gymnasium, but his wordsfell on the ears of a Doggie in a dream; and when he had ended, Doggiesaid:

"I'm afraid, Doctor, you'll have to write all that out for me. "

"With pleasure, " smiled the doctor, and gripped him by the hand. Andseeing Doggie wince, he said heartily: "Ah! I'll soon set that rightfor you. I'll get you something--an india-rubber contrivance topractise with for half an hour a day, and you'll develop a hand like agorilla's. "

Dr. Murdoch grinned his way, in his little car, to his next patient. Here was this young slacker, coddled from birth, absolutelyhorse-strong and utterly confounded at being told so. He grinned andchuckled so much that he nearly killed his most valuable old ladypatient, who was crossing the High Street. 

But Doggie crept out of bed and put on a violet dressing-gown thatclashed horribly with his pink pyjamas, and wandered like a man in anightmare to his breakfast. But he could not eat. He swallowed a cupof coffee and sought refuge in his own room. He was frightened. Horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was noescape--not the tiniest break of a mesh. He had given his word--and injustice to Doggie, be it said that he held his word sacred--he hadgiven his word to join the Army if he should be passed by Murdoch. Hehad been passed--more than passed. He would have to join. He wouldhave to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in mud, eat in mud, plough through mud, in the midst of falling shells andother instruments of death. And he would be an officer, with all kindsof strange and vulgar men under him, men like Chipmunk, for instance, whom he would never understand. He was almost physically sick withapprehension. He realized that he had never commanded a man in hislife. He had been mortally afraid of Briggins, his late chauffeur. Hehad heard that men at the front lived on some solid horror calledbully-beef dug out of tins, and some liquid horror called cocoa, alsodrunk out of tins; that men kept on their clothes, even their boots, for weeks at a time; that rats ran over them while they tried tosleep; that lice, hitherto associated in his mind with the mostrevolting type of tramp, out there made no distinction of persons. They were the common lot of the lowest Tommy and the finest gentleman. And then the fighting. The noise of the horrid guns. The disgustingsights of men shattered to bloody bits. The horrible stench. Theterror of having one's face shot half away and being an object ofrevolt and horror to all beholders for the rest of life. Death. Feverishly he ruffled his comely hair. Death. He was surprised thatthe contemplation of it did not freeze the blood in his veins. Yes. Heput it clearly before him. He had given his word to Peggy that hewould go and expose himself to Death. Death. What did it mean? He hadbeen brought up in orthodox Church of England Christianity. Hisflaccid mind had never questioned the truth of its dogmas. Hebelieved, in a general sort of way, that good people went to Heavenand bad people went to Hell. His conscience was clear. He had neverdone any harm to anybody. As far as he knew, he had broken none of theTen Commandments. In a technical sense he was a miserable sinner, andso proclaimed himself once a week. But though, perhaps, he had donenothing in his life to merit eternal bliss in Paradise, yet, on theother hand, he had committed no action which would justify a kindlyand just Creator in consigning him to the eternal flames of Hell. Somehow the thought of Death did not worry him. It faded from hismind, being far less terrible than life under prospective conditions. Discomfort, hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, pain; above all the terrorof his fellows--these were the soul-racking anticipations of this newlife into which it was a matter of honour for him to plunge. And to anessential gentleman like Doggie a matter of honour was a matter oflife. And so, dressed in his pink pyjamas and violet dressing-gown, amid the peacock-blue and ivory hangings of his boudoir room, andstared at by the countless unsympathetic eyes of his little chinadogs, Doggie Trevor passed through his first Gethsemane. 

 * * * * *

His decision was greeted with joy at the Deanery. Peggy threw her armsround his neck and gave him the very first real kiss he had everreceived. It revived him considerably. His Aunt Sophia also embracedhim. The Dean shook him warmly by the hand, and talked eloquentpatriotism. Doggie already felt a hero. He left the house in a glow, but the drive home in the two-seater was cold and the pitch-dark nightpresaged other nights of mercilessness in the future; and when Doggiesat alone by his fire, sipping the hot milk which Peddle presented himon a silver tray, the doubts and fears of the morning racked himagain. An ignoble possibility occurred to him. Murdoch might be wrong. Murdoch might be prejudiced by local gossip. Would it not be better togo up to London and obtain the opinion of a first-class man to whom hewas unknown? There was also another alternative. Flight. He might goto America, and do nothing. To the South of France, and help in somesort of way with hospitals for French wounded. He caught himself upshort as these thoughts passed through his mind, and he shuddered. Hetook up the glass of hot milk and put it down again. Milk? He neededsomething stronger. A glance in a mirror showed him his sleek hairtousled into an upstanding wig. In a kind of horror of himself he wentto the dining-room and for the first time in his life drank a stiffwhisky and soda for the sake of the stimulant. Reaction came. He felta man once more. Rather suicide at once than such damnable dishonour. According to the directions which the Dean, a man of affairs, hadgiven him, he sat down and wrote his application to the War Office fora commission. Then--unique adventure!--he stole out of the barred andbolted house, without thought of hat and overcoat (let the traducersof alcohol mark it well), ran down the drive and posted the letter inthe box some few yards beyond his entrance gates. 

The Dean had already posted his letter to his old friend GeneralGadsby at the War Office. 

So the die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. The bridges were burnt. The irrevocable step was taken. Dr. Murdoch turned up the next morningwith his prescription for physical training. And then Doggie trainedassiduously, monotonously, wearily. He grew appalled by thesenselessness of this apparently unnecessary exertion. Now and thenPeggy accompanied him on his prescribed walks; but the charm of hercompany was discounted by the glaring superiority of her powers ofendurance. While he ached with fatigue, she pressed along as fresh asAtalanta at the beginning of her race. When they parted by the Deanerydoor, she would stand flushed, radiant in her youth and health, andsay:

"We've had a topping walk, old dear. Now isn't it a glorious thing tofeel oneself alive?"

But poor Doggie of the flabby muscles felt half dead. 

 * * * * *

The fateful letter burdening Doggie with the King's commission arriveda few weeks later: a second lieutenancy in a Fusilier battalion of theNew Army. Dates and instructions were given. The impress of the RoyalArms at the head of the paper, with its grotesque perky lion andunicorn, conveyed to Doggie a sense of the grip of some uncanny power. The typewritten words scarcely mattered. The impress fascinated him. There was no getting away from it. Those two pawing beasts held him intheir clutch. They headed a Death Warrant, from which there was noappeal. 

Doggie put his house in order, dismissed with bounty those of hisservants who would be no longer needed, and kept the Peddles, husbandand wife, to look after his interests. On his last night at home hewent wistfully through the familiar place, the drawing-room sacred tohis mother's memory, the dining-room so solid in its half-century ofcomfort, his own peacock and ivory room so intensely himself, soexpressive of his every taste, every mood, every emotion. Thosestrange old-world musical instruments--he could play them all with thetouch or breath of a master and a lover. The old Italian theorbo. Hetook it up. How few to-day knew its melodious secret! He lookedaround. All these daintinesses and prettinesses had a meaning. Theysignified the magical little beauties of life--things which asserted arange of spiritual truths, none the less real and consolatory becausevice and crime and ugliness and misery and war co-existed in ghastlyfact on other facets of the planet Earth. The sweetness here expressedwas as essential to the world's spiritual life as the sweet elementsof foodstuffs to its physical life. To the getting together of allthese articles of beauty he had devoted the years of his youth. .. . And--another point of view--was he not the guardian by inheritance--inother words, by Divine Providence--of this beautiful English home, thetrustee of English comfort, of the sacred traditions of sweet Englishlife that had made England the only country, the only country, hethought, that could call itself a Country and not a Compromise, in theworld?

And he was going to leave it all. All that it meant in beauty anddignity and ease of life. For what?

For horror and filthiness and ugliness, for everything against whichhis beautiful peacock and ivory room protested. Doggie's last night atDenby Hall was a troubled one. 

Aunt Sophia and Peggy accompanied him to London and stayed with him athis stuffy little hotel off Bond Street, while Doggie got his kittogether. They bought everything in every West End shop that anysalesman assured them was essential for active service. Swords, revolvers, field-glasses, pocket-knives (for gigantic pockets), compasses, mess-tins, cooking-batteries, sleeping-bags, waterproofs, boots innumerable, toilet accessories, drinking-cups, thermos flasks, field stationery cases, periscopes, tinted glasses, Gieve waistcoats, cholera belts, portable medicine cases, earplugs, tin-openers, corkscrews, notebooks, pencils, luminous watches, electric torches, pins, housewives, patent seat walking-sticks--everything that the manof commercial instincts had devised for the prosecution of the war. 

The amount of warlike equipment with which Doggie, with the aid of hisAunt Sophia and Peggy, encumbered the narrow little passages ofSturrocks's Hotel, must have weighed about a ton. 

At last Doggie's uniforms--several suits--came home. He had devotedenormous care to their fit. Attired in one he looked beautiful. Peggydecreed a dinner at the Carlton. She and Doggie alone. Her mothercould get some stuffy old relation to spend the evening with her atSturrocks's. She wanted Doggie all to herself, so as to realize thedream of many disgusting and humiliating months. And as she sweptthrough the palm court and up the broad stairs and wound through thecrowded tables of the restaurant with the khaki-clad Doggie by herside, she felt proud and uplifted. Here was her soldier whom she hadmade. Her very own man in khaki. 

"Dear old thing, " she whispered, pressing his arm as they trekked totheir table. "Don't you feel glorious? Don't you feel as if you couldface the universe?"

Peggy drank one glass of the quart of champagne. Doggie drank therest. 

On getting into bed he wondered why this unprecedented quantity ofwine had not affected his sobriety. Its only effect had been to stiflethought. He went to bed and slept happily, for Peggy's parting kisshad been such as would conduce to any young man's felicity. 

The next morning Aunt Sophia and Peggy saw him off to his depot, withhis ton of luggage. He leaned out of the carriage window and exchangedhand kisses with Peggy until the curve of the line cut her off. Thenhe settled down in his corner with the _Morning Post_. But he couldnot concentrate his attention on the morning news. This strangecostume in which he was clothed seemed unreal, monstrous; no longerthe natty dress in which he had been proud to prink the night before, but a nightmare, Nessus-like investiture, signifying some abominableburning doom. 

The train swept him into a world that was upside down. 

CHAPTER VII

Those were proud days for Peggy. She went about Durdlebury with herhead in the air, and her step was as martial as though she herselfwore the King's uniform, and she regarded the other girls of the townwith a defiant eye. If only she could discover, she thought, thesender of the abominable feather! In Timpany's drapery establishmentshe raked the girls at the counter with a searching glance. At thecathedral services she studied the demure faces of her contemporaries. Now that Doggie was a soldier she held the anonymous exploit to becowardly and brutal. What did people know of the thousand and onereasons that kept eligible young men out of the Army? What had theyknown of Marmaduke? As soon as the illusion of his life had beendispelled, he had marched away with as gallant a tread as anybody; andthough Doggie had kept to himself his shrinkings and his terrors, sheknew that what to the average hardily bred young man was a gayadventure, was to him an ordeal of considerable difficulty. She longedfor his first leave, so that she could parade him before the town, inthe event of there being a lurking sceptic who still refused tobelieve that he had joined the Army. 

Conspicuous in the drawing-room, framed in silver, stood a largefull-length photograph of Doggie in his new uniform. 

She wrote to him daily, chronicling the little doings of the town, attimes reviling it for its dullness. Dad, on numberless committees, wasscarcely ever in the house, except for hurried meals. Most of thepleasant young clergy had gone. Many of the girls had gone too:Dorothy Bruce to be a probationer in a V. A. D. Hospital. If Durdleburywere not such a rotten out-of-the-world place, the infirmary would befull of wounded soldiers, and she could do her turn at nursing. Asthings were, she could only knit socks for Tommies and a silk khakitie for her own boy. But when everybody was doing their bit, theseoccupations were not enough to prevent her feeling a little slacker. He would have to do the patriotic work for both of them, tell her allabout himself, and let her share everything with him in imagination. She also expressed her affection for him in shy and slangy terms. 

Doggie wrote regularly. His letters were as shy and conveyed lessinformation. The work was hard, the hours long, his accommodationSpartan. They were in huts on Salisbury Plain. Sometimes he confessedhimself too tired to write more than a few lines. He had a bad cold inthe head. He was better. They had inoculated him against typhoid andhad allowed him two or three slack days. The first time he hadunaccountably fainted; but he had seen some of the men do the same, and the doctor had assured him that it had nothing to do withcowardice. He had gone for a route march and had returned a dusty lumpof fatigue. But after having shaken the dust out of hismoustache--Doggie had a playful turn of phrase now and then--and drunka quart of shandy-gaff, he had felt refreshed. Then it rained hard, and they were all but washed out of the huts. It was a very strangelife--one which he never dreamed could have existed. "Fancy me, " hewrote, "glad to sleep on a drenched bed!" There was the riding-school. Why hadn't he learned to ride as a boy? He had been told that thehorse was a noble animal and the friend of man. He was afraid he wouldreturn to his dear Peggy with many of his young illusions shattered. The horse was the most ignoble, malevolent beast that ever walked, except the sergeant-major in the riding-school. Peggy was filled withadmiration for his philosophic endurance of hardships. It was realcourage. His letters contained simple statements of fact, but not aword of complaint. On the other hand, they were not ebullient withjoy; but then, Peggy reflected, there was not much to be joyous aboutin a ramshackle hut on Salisbury Plain. "Dear old thing, " she wouldwrite, "although you don't grouse, I know you must be having a prettythin time. But you're bucking up splendidly, and when you get yourleave I'll do a girl's very d----dest (don't be shocked; but I'm sureyou're learning far worse language in the Army) to make it up to you. "Her heart was very full of him. 

Then there came a time when his letters grew rarer and shorter. Atlast they ceased altogether. After a week's waiting she sent ananxious telegram. The answer came back. "Quite well. Will write soon. "She waited. He did not write. One evening an unstamped envelope, addressed to her in a feminine hand, which she recognized as that ofMarmaduke's anonymous correspondent, was found in the Deaneryletter-box. The envelope enclosed a copy of a cutting from the"Gazette" of the morning paper, and a sentence was underlined andadorned with exclamation marks at the sides. 

 "R. Fusiliers. Tempy. 2nd Lieutenant J. Trevor resigns his commission. "

The Colonel dealt with him as gently as he could in that finalinterview. He put his hand in a fatherly way on Doggie's shoulder andbade him not take it too much to heart. He had done his best; but hewas not cut out for an officer. These were merciless times. In mattersof life and death we could not afford weak links in the chain. Soldiers in high command, with great reputations, had already beenscrapped. In Doggie's case there was no personal discredit. He hadalways conducted himself like a gentleman and a man of honour, but hehad not the qualities necessary for the commanding of men. He mustsend in his resignation. 

"But what can I do, sir?" asked Doggie in a choking voice. "I amdisgraced for ever. "

The Colonel reflected for a moment. He knew that Doggie's life hadbeen a little hell on earth from the first day he had joined. He wasvery sorry for the poor little toy Pom in his pack of hounds. It wasscarcely the toy Pom's fault that he had failed. But the Great Huntcould have no use for toy Poms. At last he took a sheet of regimentalnotepaper and wrote:

 "DEAR TREVOR, --

 "I am full of admiration for the plucky way in which you have striven to overcome your physical disabilities, and I am only too sorry that they should have compelled the resignation of your commission and your severance from the regiment. 

 "Yours sincerely, "L. G. CAIRD, "Lt-Col. "

He handed it to Doggie. 

"That's all I can do for you, my poor boy, " said he. 

"Thank you, sir, " said Doggie. 

 * * * * *

Doggie took a room at the Savoy Hotel, and sat there most of the day, the pulp of a man. He had gone to the Savoy, not daring to show hisface at the familiar Sturrocks's. At the Savoy he was but a numberunknown, unquestioned. He wore civilian clothes. Such of his uniformsand martial paraphernalia as he had been allowed to retain incamp--for one can't house a ton of kit in a hut--he had given to hisbatman. His one desire now was to escape from the eyes of hisfellow-men. He felt that he bore upon him the stigma of his disgrace, obvious to any casual glance. He was the man who had been turned outof the army as a hopeless incompetent. Even worse than theslacker--for the slacker might have latent the qualities that helacked. Even at the best and brightest, he could only be mistaken fora slacker, once more the likely recipient of white feathers from anydamsel patriotically indiscreet. The Colonel's letter brought himlittle consolation. It is true that he carried it about with him inhis pocket-book; but the gibing eyes of observers had not the X-raypower to read it there. And he could not pin it on his hat. Besides, he knew that the kindly Colonel had stretched a point of veracity. Nolonger could he take refuge in his cherished delicacy of constitution. It would be a lie. 

Peggy, in her softest and most pitying mood, never guessed the natureof Doggie's ordeal. Those letters so brave, sometimes so playful, hadbeen written with shaky hand, misty eyes, throbbing head, despairingheart. Looking back, it seemed to him one blurred dream of pain. Hisbrother officers were no worse than those in any other Kitchenerregiment. Indeed, the Colonel was immensely proud of them and sangtheir praises to any fellow-dugout who would listen to him at theNaval and Military Club. But how were a crowd of young men, trained inthe rough and tumble of public schools, universities and sport, andnow throbbing under the stress of the new deadly game, to understandpoor Doggie Trevor? They had no time to take him seriously, save tocurse him when he did wrong, and in their leisure time he becamenaturally a butt for their amusement. 

"Surely I don't have to sleep in there?" he asked the subaltern whowas taking him round on the day of his arrival in camp, and showed himhis squalid little cubby-hole of a hut with its dirty boards, itscheap table and chair, its narrow sleep-dispelling little bedstead. 

"Yes, it's a beastly hole, isn't it? Until last month we were undercanvas. "

"Sleeping on the bare ground?"

"Wallowing in the mud like pigs. Not one of us without a cold. Neverhad a such filthy time in my life. "

Doggie looked about him helplessly, while the comforter smiled grimly. Already his disconsolate attitude towards the dingy hutments of thecamp and the layer of thick mud on his beautiful new boots haddiverted his companion. 

"Couldn't I have this furnished at my own expense? A carpet and aproper bed, and a few pictures----"

"I wouldn't try. "

"Why not?"

"Some of it might get broken--not quite accidentally. "

"But surely, " gasped Doggie, "the soldiers would not be allowed tocome in here and touch my furniture?"

"It seems, " said the subaltern, after a bewildered stare, "that youhave quite a lot to learn. "

Doggie had. The subaltern reported a new kind of animal to the mess. The mess saw to it that Doggie should be crammed with information--butinformation wholly incorrect and misleading, which added to his manydifficulties. When his ton of kit arrived he held an unwillingreception in the hut and found himself obliged to explain to gravelycurious men the use for which the various articles were designed. 

"This, I suppose, is a new type of gas-mask?"

No. It was a patent cooker. Doggie politely showed how it worked. Healso demonstrated that a sleeping-bag was not a kit-sack of a sizeunauthorized by the regulations, and that a huge steel-pointedwalking-stick had nothing to do with agriculture. 

He was very weary of his visitors by the time they had gone. The nextday the Adjutant advised him to scrap the lot. So sorrowfully he sentback most of his purchases to London. 

Then the Imp of Mischance brought as a visitor to the mess, asubaltern from another regiment who belonged to Doggie's part of thecountry. 

"Why--I'm blowed if it isn't Doggie Trevor!" he exclaimed carelessly. "How d'ye do, Doggie?"

So thenceforward he was known in the regiment by the hated name. 

There were rags in which, as he was often the victim, he was forced tojoin. His fastidiousness loathed the coarse personal contact of armsand legs and bodies. His undeveloped strength could not cope with themuscle of his young brother barbarians. Aching with the day's fatigue, he would plead, to no avail, to be left alone. Compared with thesefeared and detested scraps, he considered, in after-times, battles tobe agreeable recreations. 

Had he been otherwise competent, he might have won through the teasingand the ragging of the mess. No one disliked him. He waspleasant-mannered, good-natured, and appeared to bear no malice. True, his ignorance not only of the ways of the army but of the ways oftheir old hearty world, was colossal, his mode of expression ratherthat of a precise old church dignitary than of a subaltern in aregiment of Fusiliers, his habits, including a nervous shrinking fromuntidiness and dirt, those of a dear old maid; but the mess thought, honestly, that he could be knocked into their own social shape, and inthe process of knocking carried out their own traditions. They mighthave succeeded if Doggie had discovered any reserve source of pridefrom which to draw. But Doggie was hopeless at his work. The mechanismof a rifle filled him with dismay. He could not help shutting his eyesbefore he pulled the trigger. Inured all his life to lethargic action, he found the smart crisp movements of drill almost impossible toattain. The riding-school was a terror and a torture. Every second hedeemed himself in imminent peril of death. Said the sergeant-major:

"Now, Mr. Trevor, you're sitting on a 'orse and not a 'olly-bush. "

And Doggie would wish the horse and the sergeant-major in hell. 

Again, what notion could poor Doggie have of command? He had neverraised his mild tenor voice to damn anybody in his life. At first thetone in which the officers ordered the men about shocked him. Sorough, so unmannerly, so unkind. He could not understand the cheerylack of resentment with which the men obeyed. He could not get intothe way of military directness, could never check the polite "Do youmind" that came instinctively to his lips. Now if you ask a privatesoldier whether he minds doing a thing instead of telling him to doit, his brain begins to get confused. As one defaulter, whoseconfusion of brain had led him into trouble, observed to his mates:"What can you do with a blighter who's a cross between a blinkingArchbishop and a ruddy dicky-bird?" What else, save show in divers andingenious ways that you mocked at his authority? Doggie had thenervous dread of the men that he had anticipated. During his trainingon parade, words of command stuck in his throat. When forced out, theygrotesquely mixed themselves together. 

The Adjutant gave advice. 

"Speak out, man. Bawl. You're dealing with soldiers at drill, notsaying sweet nothings to old ladies in a drawing-room. "

And Doggie tried. Doggie tried very hard. He was mortified by his ownstupidity. Little points of drill and duty that the others of his ownstanding seemed to pick up at once, almost by instinct, he could onlygrasp after long and tedious toil. No one realized that his brain wasstupefied by the awful and unaccustomed physical fatigue. 

And then came the inevitable end. 

 * * * * *

So Doggie crept into the Savoy Hotel and hid himself there, wishing hewere dead. It was some time before he could write the terrible letterto Peggy. He did so on the day when he saw that his resignation wasgazetted. He wrote after many anguished attempts:

 "DEAR PEGGY, --

 "I haven't written before about the dreadful thing that has happened, because I simply couldn't. I have resigned my commission. Not of my own free will, for, believe me, I would have gone through anything for your sake, to say nothing of the country and my own self-respect. To put it brutally, I have been thrown out for sheer incompetence. 

 "I neither hope nor expect nor want you to continue your engagement to a disgraced man. I release you from every obligation your pity and generosity may think binding. I want you to forget me and marry a man who can do the work of this new world. 

 "What I shall do I don't know. I have scarcely yet been able to think. Possibly I shall go abroad. At any rate I shan't return to Durdlebury. If women sent me white feathers before I joined, what would they send me now? It will always be my consolation to know that you once gave me your love, in spite of the pain of realizing that I have forfeited it by my unworthiness. 

 "Please tell Uncle Edward that I feel keenly his position, for he was responsible for getting me the commission through General Gadsby. Give my love to my Aunt, if she will have it. 

 "Yours always affectionately, J. MARMADUKE TREVOR. "

By return of post came the answer:

 "DEAREST, --

 "We are all desperately disappointed. Perhaps we hurried on things too quickly and tried you too high all at once. I ought to have known. Oh, my poor dear boy, you must have had a dreadful time. Why didn't you tell me? The news in the 'Gazette' came upon me like a thunderbolt. I didn't know what to think. I'm afraid I thought the worst, the very horrid worst--that you had got tired of it and resigned of your own accord. How was one to know? Your letter was almost a relief. 

 "In offering to release me from my engagement you are acting like the honourable gentleman you are. Of course, I can understand your feelings. But I should be a little beast to accept right away like that. If there are any feathers about, I should deserve to have them stuck on to me with tar. Don't think of going abroad or doing anything foolish, dear, like that, till you have seen me--that is to say, us, for Dad is bringing Mother and me up to town by the first train to-morrow. Dad feels sure that everything is not lost. He'll dig out General Gadsby and fix up something for you. In the meantime, get us rooms at the Savoy, though Mother is worried as to whether it's a respectable place for Deans to stay at. But I know you wouldn't like to meet us at Sturrocks's--otherwise you would have been there yourself. Meet our train. All love from

 "PEGGY. "

Doggie engaged the rooms, but he did not meet the train. He did noteven stay in the hotel to meet his relations. He could not meet them. He could not meet the pity in their eyes. He read in Peggy's note adesire to pet and soothe him and call him "Poor little Doggie, " and hewrithed. He could not even take up an heroic attitude, and say toPeggy: "When I have retrieved the past and can bring you an unsulliedreputation, I will return and claim you. Till then farewell. " Therewas no retrieving the past. Other men might fail at first, and thenmake good; but he was not like them. His was the fall of HumptyDumpty. Final--irretrievable. 

He packed up his things in a fright and, leaving no address at theSavoy, drove to the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury. But he wrote Peggy aletter "to await arrival. " If time had permitted he would have sent atelegram, stating that he was off for Tobolsk or Tierra del Fuego, andthereby prevented their useless journey; but they had already startedwhen he received Peggy's message. 

Nothing could be done, he wrote, in effect, to her, nothing in the wayof redemption. He would not put her father to the risk of any othersuch humiliation. He had learned, by the most bitter experience, thatthe men who counted now in the world's respect and in woman's lovewere men of a type to which, with all the goodwill in the world, hecould not make himself belong--he did not say to which he wished hecould belong with all the agony and yearning of his soul. Peggy mustforget him. The only thing he could do was to act up to her generousestimate of him as an honourable gentleman. As such it was his duty towithdraw for ever from her life. His exact words, however, were: "Youknow how I have always hated slang, how it has jarred upon me, oftento your amusement, when you have used it. But I have learned in thepast months how expressive it may be. Through slang I've learned whatI am. I am a born 'rotter. ' A girl like you can't possibly love andmarry a rotter. So the rotter, having a lingering sense of decency, makes his bow and exits--God knows where. "

Peggy, red-eyed, adrift, rudderless on a frightening sea, called herfather into her bedroom at the Savoy and showed him the letter. Hedrew out and adjusted his round tortoise-shell-rimmed reading-glassesand read it. 

"That's a miraculously new Doggie, " said he. 

Peggy clutched the edges of his coat. 

"I've never heard you call him that before. "

"It has never been worth while, " said the Dean. 

CHAPTER VIII

At the Savoy, during the first stupefaction of his misery, Doggie hadnot noticed particularly the prevalence of khaki. At the Russell itdwelt insistent, like the mud on Salisbury Plain. Men that might havebeen the twin brethren of his late brother officers were everywhere, free, careless, efficient. The sight of them added the gnaw of envy tohis heartache. Even in his bedroom he could hear the jingle of theirspurs and their cheery voices as they clanked along the corridor. Onthe third day after his migration he took a bold step and moved intolodgings in Woburn Place. Here at least he could find quiet, untroubled by heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of histime in dull reading and dispirited walking. For he could walk now--somuch had his training done for him--and walk for many miles withoutfatigue. For all the enjoyment he got out of it, he might as well havemarched round a prison yard. Indeed there were some who tramped theprison yards with keener zest. They were buoyed up with the hope offreedom, they could look forward to the ever-approaching day when theyshould be thrown once more into the glad whirl of life. But themiraculously new Doggie had no hope. He felt for ever imprisoned inhis shame. His failure preyed on his mind. 

He dallied with thoughts of suicide. Why hadn't he salved, at anyrate, his service revolver? Then he remembered the ugly habits of theunmanageable thing--how it always kicked its muzzle up in the air. Would he have been able even to shoot himself with it? And he smiledin self-derision. Drowning was not so difficult. Any fool could throwhimself into the water. With a view to the inspection of a suitablespot, Doggie wandered, idly, in the dusk of one evening, to WaterlooBridge, and turning his back to the ceaseless traffic, leaned hiselbows on the parapet and stared in front of him. A few lights alreadygleamed from Somerset House and the more dimly seen buildings of theTemple. The dome of St. Paul's loomed a dark shadow through the mist. The river stretched below very peaceful, very inviting. The parapetwould be easy to climb. He did not know whether he could dive in theapproved manner--hands joined over head. He had never learned to swim, let alone dive. At any rate, he could fall off. In that art theriding-school had proved him a past master. But the spot had itsdisadvantages. It was too public. Perhaps other bridges might affordmore privacy. He would inspect them all. It would be something to do. There was no hurry. As he was not wanted in this world, so he had noassurance of being welcome in the next. He had a morbid vision ofavatar after avatar being kicked from sphere to sphere. 

At this point of his reflections he became aware of a presence by hisside. He turned his head and found a soldier, an ordinary private, very close to him, also leaning on the parapet. 

"I thought I wasn't mistaken in Mr. Marmaduke Trevor. "

Doggie started away, on the point of flight, dreading the possibleinsolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of thespeaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the greatfleshy nose, the high cheek-bones, and the little grey eyes in theweather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. Hisdawning recognition amused the soldier. 

"Yes, laddie. Ye're right. It's your old Phineas--Phineas McPhail, Esq. , M. A. , defunct. Now 33702 Private P. McPhail redivivus. "

He warmly wrung the hand of the semi-bewildered Doggie, who murmured:"Very glad to meet you, I'm sure. "

Phineas, gaunt and bony, took his arm. 

"Would it not just be possible, " he said, in his old half-pedantic, half-ironic intonation, "to find a locality less exposed to the roarof traffic and the rude jostling of pedestrians and the inclemency ofthe elements, in which we can enjoy the amenities of a little refinedconversation?"

It was like a breath from the past. Doggie smiled. 

"Which way are you going?"

"Your way, my dear Marmaduke, was ever mine, until I was swept, Ithought for ever, out of your path by a torrential spate of whisky. "

He laughed, as though it had been a playful freak of destiny. Doggielaughed, too. But for the words he had addressed to hotel andlodging-house folk, he had spoken to no one for over a fortnight. Theinstinctive craving for companionship made Phineas suddenly welcome. 

"Yes. Let us have a talk, " said he. "Come to my rooms, if you have thetime. There'll be some dinner. "

"Will I come? Will I have dinner? Will I re-enter once more theparadise of the affluent? Laddie, I will. "

In the Strand they hailed a taxi and drove to Bloomsbury. On the wayPhineas asked:

"You mentioned your rooms. Are you residing permanently in London?"

"Yes, " said Doggie. 

"And Durdlebury?"

"I'm not going back. "

"London's a place full of temptations for those without experience, "Phineas observed sagely. 

"I've not noticed any, " Doggie replied. On which Phineas laughed andslapped him on the knee. 

"Man, " said he, "when I first saw you I thought you had changed into adisillusioned misanthropist. But I'm wrong. You haven't changed abit. "

A few minutes later they reached Woburn Place. Doggie showed him intothe sitting-room on the drawing-room floor. A fire was burning in thegrate, for though it was only early autumn, the evening was cold. Thetable was set for Doggie's dinner. Phineas looked round him insurprise. The heterogeneous and tasteless furniture, the dreadfulMid-Victorian prints on the walls--one was the "Return of the Guardsfrom the Crimea, " representing the landing from the troop-ship, repellent in its smug unreality, the coarse glass and well-used plateon the table, the crumpled napkin in a ring (for Marmaduke who in hismother's house had never been taught to dream that a napkin couldpossibly be used for two consecutive meals!), the general air ofslipshod Philistinism--all came as a shock to Phineas, who hadexpected to find in Marmaduke's "rooms" a replica of the fastidiousprettiness of the peacock and ivory room at Denby Hall. He scratchedhis head, covered with a thick brown thatch. 

"Laddie, " said he gravely, "you must excuse me if I take a liberty;but I canna fit you into this environment. "

Doggie looked about him also. "Seems funny, doesn't it?"

"It cannot be that you've come down in the world?"

"To bed-rock, " said Doggie. 

"No?" said Phineas, with an air of concern. "Man, I'm awful sorry. Iknow what the coming down feels like. And I, finding it not abhorrentto a sophisticated and well-trained conscience, and thinking you couldwell afford it, extracted a thousand pounds from your fortune. My dearlad, if Phineas McPhail could return the money----"

Doggie broke in with a laugh. "Pray don't distress yourself, Phineas. It's not a question of money. I've as much as ever I had. The lastthing in the world I've had to think of has been money. "

"Then what in the holy names of Thunder and Beauty, " cried Phineas, throwing out one hand to an ancient saddle-bag sofa whose ends werecovered by flimsy rags, and the other to the decayed ormolu clock onthe mantelpiece, "what in the name of common sense are you doing inthis awful inelegant lodging-house?"

"I don't know, " replied Doggie. "It's a fact, " he continued after apause. "The scheme of decoration is revolting to every æsthetic sensewhich I've spent my life in cultivating. Its futile pretentiousness isthe rasping irritation of every hour. Yet here I am. Quitecomfortable. And here I propose to stay. "

Phineas McPhail, M. A. , late of Glasgow and Cambridge, looked at Doggiewith his keen little grey eyes beneath bent and bristling eyebrows. Inthe language of 33702 Private McPhail, he asked:

"What the blazes is it all about?"

"That's a long story, " said Doggie, looking at his watch. "In themeantime, I had better give some orders about dinner. And you wouldlike to wash. "

He threw open a wing of the folding-doors, once in Georgian timesseparating drawing-room from withdrawing-room, and now separatingliving-room from bedroom, and switching on the light, invited McPhailto follow. 

"I think you'll find everything you want, " said he. 

Phineas McPhail, left alone to his ablutions, again looked round, andhe had more reason than ever to ask what it was all about. Marmaduke'sbedroom at Denby Hall had been a dream of satinwood and dull bluesilk. The furniture and hangings had been Mrs. Trevor's present toMarmaduke on his sixteenth birthday. He remembered how he had beenbored to death by that stupendous ass of an old woman--for so he hadcharacterized her--during the process of selection and installation. The present room, although far more luxurious than any that PhineasMcPhail had slept in for years, formed a striking contrast with thatremembered nest of effeminacy. 

"I'll have to give it up, " he said to himself. But just as he had putthe finishing touches to his hair an idea occurred to him. He flungopen the door. 

"Laddie, I've got it. It's a woman. "

But Doggie laughed and shook his head, and leaving McPhail, took histurn in the bedroom. For the first time since his return to civil lifehe ceased for a few moments to brood over his troubles. McPhail'smystification amused him. McPhail's personality and address, viewed inthe light of the past, were full of interest. Obviously he was a manwho lived unashamed on low levels. Doggie wondered how he could haveregarded him for years with a respect almost amounting to veneration. In a curious unformulated way Doggie felt that he had authority overthis man so much older than himself, who had once been his master. Ittickled into some kind of life his deadened self-esteem. Here at lastwas a man with whom he could converse on sure ground. The khakiuniform caused him no envy. 

"The poet is not altogether incorrect, " said McPhail, when they satdown to dinner, "in pointing out the sweet uses of adversity. If ithad not been for the adversity of a wee bit operation, I should notnow be on sick furlough. And if I had not been on furlough I shouldn'thave the pleasure of this agreeable reconciliation. Here's to you, laddie, and to our lasting friendship. " He sipped his claret. "It'snot like the Lafitte in the old cellar--_Eheu fugaces anni et_--whatthe plague is the Latin for vintages? But 'twill serve. " He drankagain and smacked his lips. "It will even serve very satisfactorily. Good wine at a perfect temperature is not the daily drink of theBritish soldier. "

"By the way, " said Doggie, "you haven't told me why you became asoldier. "

"A series of vicissitudes dating from the hour I left your house, "said Phineas, "vicissitudes the recital of which would wring yourheart, laddie, and make angels weep if their lachrymal glands were nottoo busily engaged by the horrors of war, culminated four months agoin an attack of fervid and penniless patriotism. No one seemed to wantme except my country. She clamoured for me on every hoarding and everyomnibus. A recruiting-sergeant in Trafalgar Square tapped me on thearm, and said: 'Young man, your country wants you. ' Said I with myScottish caution, 'Can you take your affidavit that you got theinformation straight from the War Office?' 'I can, ' said he. Then Ithrew myself on his bosom and bade him take me to her. That's how Ibecame 33702 Private Phineas McPhail, A Company, 10th Wessex Rangers, at the remuneration of one shilling and twopence per diem. "

"Do you like it?" asked Doggie. 

Phineas rubbed the side of his thick nose thoughtfully. 

"There you come to the metaphysical conception of human happiness, " hereplied. "In itself it is a vile life. To a man of thirty-five----"

"Good lord!" cried Doggie, "I always thought you were about fifty!"

"Your mother caught me young, laddie. To a man of thirty-five, agraduate of ancient and honourable universities and a whilom candidatefor holy orders, it is a life that would seem to have no attractionwhatever. The hours are absurd, the work distasteful, and the mode ofliving repulsive. But strange to say, it fully contents me. The secretof happiness lies in the supple adaptability to conditions. When Ifound that it was necessary to perform ridiculous antics with my legsand arms, I entered into the comicality of the idea and performed themwith an indulgent zest which soon won me the precious encomiums of mysuperiors in rank. When I found that the language of the canteen wasnot that of the pulpit or the drawing-room, I quickly acquired the newvocabulary and won the pleasant esteem of my equals. By means of thisfaculty of adaptability I can suck enjoyment out of everything. But, at the same time, mind you, keeping in reserve a little secret fountof pleasure. "

"What do you call a little secret fount of pleasure?" asked Doggie. 

"I'll give you an illustration--and, if you're the man I consider youto be, you'll take a humorous view of my frankness. At present I adaptmyself to a rough atmosphere of coarseness and lustiness, in whichnothing coarse or lusty I could do would produce the slightest rippleof a convulsion: but I have my store of a cultivated mind and cheapeditions of the classics, my little secret fount of Castaly to drinkfrom whenever I so please. On the other hand, when I had the honour ofbeing responsible for your education, I adapted myself to a hot-houseatmosphere in which Respectability and the concomitant virtues ofSupineness and Sloth were cultivated like rare orchids; but in mybedroom I kept a secret fount which had its source in some good Scotsdistillery. "

Whereupon he attacked his plateful of chicken with vehement gusto. 

"You're a hedonist, Phineas, " said Doggie, after a thoughtful pause. 

"Man, " said Phineas, laying down his knife and fork, "you've just hitit. I am. I'm an accomplished hedonist. An early recognition of thefact saved me from the Church. "

"And the Church from you, " said Doggie quietly. 

Phineas shot a swift glance at him beneath his shaggy brown eyebrows. 

"Ay, " said he. "Though, mark you, if I had followed my originalvocation, the Bench of Bishops could not have surpassed me in theunction in which I would have wallowed. If I had been born a bee in adesert, laddie, I would have sucked honey out of a dead camel. "

With easy and picturesque cynicism, and in a Glasgow accent which hadcuriously broadened since his spell of Oriental ease at Denby Hall, hedeveloped his philosophy, illustrating it by incidents more or lessreputable in his later career. At first, possessor of the ill-gottenthousand pounds and of considerable savings from a substantial salary, he had enjoyed the short wild riot of the Prodigal's life. Paris sawmost of his money--the Paris which, under his auspices, Doggie neverknew. Plentiful claret set his tongue wagging in Rabelaisianreminiscence. After Paris came husks. Not bad husks if you knew how tocook them. Borrowed salt and pepper and a little stolen butter workedwonders. But they were irritating to the stomach. He lay on the floor, said he, and yelled for fatted calf; but there was no soft-headedparent to supply it. Phineas McPhail must be a slave again and workfor his living. Then came private coaching, freelance journalism, hunting for secretaryships: the commonplace story humorously told ofthe wastrel's decline; then a gorgeous efflorescence in light greenand gold as the man outside a picture palace in Camberwell--andlastly, the penniless patriot throwing himself into the arms of hisdesirous country. 

"Have you any whisky in the house, laddie?" he asked, after the dinnerthings had been taken away. 

"No, " said Doggie, "but I could easily get you some. "

"Pray don't, " said McPhail. "If you had, I was going to ask you to bekind enough not to let your excellent landlord, whom I recognize as abutler of the old school, produce it. Butlers of the old school areapt, like Peddle, to bring in a maddening tray of decanters, syphons, and glasses. You may not believe me, but I haven't touched a drop ofwhisky since I joined the army. "

"Why?" asked Doggie. 

McPhail looked at the long carefully preserved ash of one of Doggie'sexcellent cigars. 

"It's all a part of the doctrine of adaptability. In order to attainhappiness in the army, the first step is to avoid differences ofopinion with the civil and military police and non-commissionedofficers, and such-like sycophantic myrmidons of authority. Being aman of academic education, it is with difficulty that I agree withthem when I'm sober. If I were drunk, my bonnie laddie"--he waved ahand--"well--I don't get drunk. And as I have no use for whisky, asmerely an agreeable beverage, I have struck whisky out of myhedonistic scheme of existence. But if you have any more of thatpleasant claret----"

Doggie rang the bell and gave the order. The landlord brought inbottle and glasses. 

"And now, my dear Marmaduke, " said Phineas after an appreciative sip, "now that I have told you the story of my life, may I, withoutimpertinent curiosity, again ask you what you meant when you said youhad come down to bed-rock?"

The sight of the man, smug, cynical, shameless, sprawling luxuriouslyon the sofa, with his tunic unbuttoned, filled him with sudden fury:such fury as Oliver's insult had aroused, such as had impelled himduring a vicious rag in the mess to clutch a man's hair and almostpull it out by the roots. 

"Yes, you may; and I'll tell you, " he cried, starting to his feet. "I've reached the bed-rock of myself--the bed-rock of humiliation anddisgrace. And it's all your fault. Instead of training me to be a man, you pandered to my poor mother's weaknesses and brought me up like alittle toy dog--the infernal name still sticks to me wherever I go. You made a helpless fool of me, and let me go out a helpless fool intothe world. And when you came across me I was thinking whether itwouldn't be best to throw myself over the parapet. A month ago youwould have saluted me in the street and stood before me at attentionwhen I spoke to you----"

"Eh? What's that, laddie?" interrupted Phineas, sitting up. "You'veheld a commission in the army?"

"Yes, " said Doggie fiercely, "and I've been chucked. I've been thrownout as a hopeless rotter. And who is most to blame--you or I? It'syou. You've brought me to this infernal place. I'm here inhiding--hiding from my family and the decent folk I'm ashamed to meet. And it's all your fault, and now you have it!"

"Laddie, laddie, " said Phineas reproachfully, "the facts of my being aguest beneath your roof and my humble military rank, render itdifficult for me to make an appropriate reply. "

Doggie's rage had spent itself. These rare fits were short-lived andleft him somewhat unnerved. 

"I'm sorry, Phineas. As you say, you're my guest. And as to youruniform, God knows I honour every man who wears it. "

"That's taking things in the right spirit, " Phineas conceded graciously, helping himself to another glass of wine. "And the right spirit is agreat healer of differences. I'll not go so far as to deny that thereis an element of justice in your apportionment of blame. There may, onvarious occasions, have been some small dereliction of duty. Butyou'll have been observing that in the recent exposition of myphilosophy I have not laboured the point of duty to disproportionateexaggeration. "

Doggie lit a cigarette. His fingers were still shaking. "I'm glad youown up. It's a sign of grace. "

"Ay, " said Phineas, "no man is altogether bad. In spite of everything, I've always entertained a warm affection for you, laddie, and when Isaw you staring at bogies round about the dome of St. Paul's Cathedralmy heart went out to you. You didn't look over-happy. "

Doggie, always responsive to human kindness, was touched. He felt anote of sincerity in McPhail's tone. Perhaps he had judged himharshly, overlooking the plea in extenuation which Phineas had setup--that in every man there must be some saving remnant of goodness. 

"I wasn't happy, Phineas, " he said; "I was as miserable an outcast ascould be found in London, and when a fellow's down and out, you mustforgive him for speaking more bitterly than he ought. "

"Don't I know, laddie? Don't I know?" said Phineas sympathetically. Hereached for the cigar-box. "Do you mind if I take another? Perhapstwo--one to smoke afterwards, in memory of this meeting. It is a longtime since my lips touched a thing so gracious as a real Havana. "

"Take a lot, " said Doggie generously, "I don't really like cigars. Ionly bought them because I thought they might be stronger thancigarettes. "

Phineas filled his pockets. "You can pay no greater compliment to aman's honesty of purpose, " said he, "than by taking him at his word. And now, " he continued, when he had carefully lit the cigar he hadfirst chosen, "let us review the entire situation. What about our goodfriends at Durdlebury? What about your uncle, the Very Reverend theDean, against whom I bear no ill-will, though I do not say that hisultimate treatment of me was not over-hasty--what about him? If youcall upon me to put my almost fantastically variegated experience oflife at your disposal, and advise you in this crisis, so I must askyou to let me know the exact conditions in which you find yourself. "

Doggie smiled once again, finding something diverting and yetstimulating in the calm assurance of Private McPhail. 

"I'm not aware that I've asked you for advice, Phineas. "

"The fact that you're not aware of many things that you do is no proofthat you don't do them--and do them in a manner perfectly obvious toanother party, " replied Phineas sententiously. "You're asking foradvice and consolation from any friendly human creature to whom you'renot ashamed to speak. You've had an awful sorrowful time, laddie. "

Doggie roamed about the room, with McPhail's little grey eyes fixed onhim. Yes, Phineas was right. He would have given most of hispossessions to be able, these later days, to pour out his torturedsoul into sympathetic ears. But shame had kept him, still kept him, would always keep him, from the ears of those he loved. Yes, Phineashad said the diabolically right thing. He could not be ashamed tospeak to Phineas. And there was something good in Phineas which he hadnoticed with surprise. How easy for him, in response to bitteraccusation, to cast the blame on his mother? He himself had given theopening. How easy for him to point to his predecessor's short tenureof office and plead the alternative of carrying out Mrs. Trevor'stheory of education or of resigning his position in favour of somesycophant even more time-serving? But he had kept silent. .. . Doggiestopped short and looked at Phineas with eyes dumbly questioning andquivering lips. 

Phineas rose and put his hands on the boy's shoulders, and said verygently:

"Tell me all about it, laddie. "

Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears foundexpression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in thetelling; and Phineas interjecting an occasional sympathetic "Ay, ay, "and a delicately hinted question, extracted from Doggie all there wasto tell, from the outbreak of war to their meeting on Waterloo Bridge. 

"And now, " cried he at last, a dismally tragic figure, his young facedistorted and reddened, his sleek hair ruffled from the back intounsightly perpendicularities (an invariable sign of distractedemotion) and his hands appealingly outstretched--"what the hell am Igoing to do?"

"Laddie, " said Phineas, standing on the hearthrug, his hands on hiships, "if you had posed the question in the polite language of theprecincts of Durdlebury Cathedral, I might have been at a loss toreply. But the manly invocation of hell shows me that your foot isalready on the upward path. If you had prefaced it by the adjectivethat gives colour to all the aspirations of the British Army, it wouldhave been better. But I'm not reproaching you, laddie. _Poco à poco. _It is enough. It shows me you are not going to run away to a neutralcountry and present the unedifying spectacle of a mangy little Britishlion at the mercy of a menagerie of healthy hyenas and such-likeinferior though truculent beasties. "

"My God!" cried Doggie, "haven't I thought of it till I'm half mad? Itwould be just as you say--unendurable. " He began to pace the roomagain. "And I can't go to France. It would be just the same asEngland. Every one would be looking white feathers at me. The onlything I can do is to go out of the world. I'm not fit for it. Oh, Idon't mean suicide. I've not enough pluck. That's off. But I could goand bury myself in the wilderness somewhere where no one would everfind me. "

"Laddie, " said McPhail, "I misdoubt that you're going to settle downin any wilderness. You haven't the faculty of adaptability of which Ihave spoken to-night at some length. And your heart is young and notcoated with the holy varnish of callousness, which is a secretpreparation known only to those who have served a long apprenticeshipin a severe school of egotism. "

"That's all very well, " cried Doggie, "but what the----"

Phineas waved an interrupting hand. "You've got to go back, laddie. You've got to whip all the moral courage in you and go back toDurdlebury. The Dean, with his influence, and the letter you haveshown me from your Colonel, can easily get you some honourableemployment in either Service not so exacting as the one which you haverecently found yourself unable to perform. "

Doggie threw a newly-lighted cigarette into the fire and turnedpassionately on McPhail. 

"I won't. You're talking drivelling rot. I can't. I'd sooner die thango back there with my tail between my legs. I'd sooner enlist as aprivate soldier. "

"Enlist?" said Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt. "Well, why not?"

"Enlist?" echoed Doggie in a dull tone. 

"Have you never contemplated such a possibility?"

"Good God, no!" said Doggie. 

"I have enlisted. And I am a man of ancient lineage as honourable, soas not to enter into unproductive argument, as yours. And I am aMaster of Arts of the two Universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. Yet Ifail to find anything dishonourable in my present estate as 33702Private Phineas McPhail in the British Army. "

Doggie seemed not to hear him. He stared at him wildly. 

"Enlist?" he repeated. "As a Tommy?"

"Even as a Tommy, " said Phineas. He glanced at the ormolu clock. "Itis past one. The respectable widow woman near the Elephant and Castlewho has let me a bedroom will be worn by anxiety as to my non-return. Marmaduke, my dear, dear laddie, I must leave you. If you will belunching here twelve hours hence, nothing will give me greaterpleasure than to join you. Laddie, do you think you could manage afried sole and a sweetbread?"

"Enlist?" said Doggie, following him out to the front door in a dream. 

He opened the door. Phineas shook hands. 

"Fried sole and a sweetbread at one-thirty?"

"Of course, with pleasure, " said Doggie. 

Phineas fumbled in his pockets. 

"It's a long cry at this time of night from Bloomsbury to the Elephantand Castle. You haven't the price of a taxi fare about you, laddie--two or three pounds----?"

Doggie drew from his patent note-case a sheaf of one-pound andten-shilling treasury notes and handed them over to McPhail's vultureclutch. 

"Good night, laddie!"

"Good night!"

Phineas strode away into the blackness. Doggie shut the front door andput up the chain and went back into his sitting-room. He wound hisfingers in his hair. 

"Enlist? My God!"

He lit a cigarette and after a few puffs flung it into the grate. Hestared at the alternatives. 

Flight, which was craven--a lifetime of self-contempt. Durdlebury, which was impossible. Enlistment----?

Yet what was a man incapable yet able-bodied, honourable thoughdisgraced, to do?

His landlord found him at seven o'clock in the morning asleep in anarm-chair. 

CHAPTER IX

After a bath and a change and breakfast, Doggie went out for one ofhis solitary walks. At Durdlebury such a night as the last would havekept him in bed in a darkened room for most of the following day. Buthe had spent many far, far worse on Salisbury Plain, and theinexorable reveille had dragged him out into the raw dreadful morning, heedless of his headache and yearning for slumber, until at last theprocess of hardening had begun. To-day Doggie was as unfatigued ayoung man as walked the streets of London, a fact which his mind wastoo confusedly occupied to appreciate. Once more was he beset less bythe perplexities of the future than by a sense of certain impendingdoom. For to Phineas McPhail's "Why not?" he had been able to give noanswer. He could give no answer now, as he marched with swinging step, automatically, down Oxford Street and the Bayswater Road in thedirection of Kensington Gardens. He could give no answer as he stoodsightlessly staring at the Peter Pan statue. 

A one-armed man in a khaki cap and hospital blue came and stood by hisside and looked in a pleased yet puzzled way at the exquisite poem inmarble. At last he spoke--in a rich Irish accent. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, but could you be telling me the meaning ofit, at all?"

Doggie awoke and smiled. 

"Do you like it?"

"I do, " said the soldier. 

"It is about Peter Pan. A kind of Fairy Tale. You can see the 'littlepeople' peeping out--I think you call them so in Ireland. "

"We do that, " said the soldier. 

So Doggie sketched the outline of the immortal story of the Boy WhoWill Never Grow Old, and the Irishman listened with deep interest. 

"Indeed, " said he after a time, "it is good to come back to the truethings after the things out there. " He waved his one arm in the vaguedirection of the war. 

"Why do you call them true things?" Doggie asked quickly. 

They turned away, and Doggie found himself sitting on a bench by theman's side. 

"It's not me that can tell you that, " said he, "and my wife andchildren in Galway. "

"Were you there at the outbreak of war?"

He was. A reservist called back to the colours after some years ofretirement from the army. He had served in India and South Africa, ahard-bitten soldier, proud of the traditions of his old regiment. There were scarcely any of them left--and that was all that was leftof him. He smiled cheerily. Doggie condoled with him on the loss ofhis arm. 

"Ah sure, " he replied, "and it might keep me out of a fight when I gointo Ballinasloe. "

"Who would you want to fight?" asked Doggie. 

"The dirty Sinn Feiners that do be always shouting 'Freedom forIreland and to hell with freedom for the rest of the world. ' If Ihaven't lost my arm in a glorious cause, what have I lost it for? Canyou tell me that?"

Doggie agreed that he had fought for the greater freedom of humanityand gave him a cigarette, and they went on talking. The Irishman hadbeen in the retreat from Mons, the first battle of Ypres, and he hadlost his arm in no battle at all; just a stray shell over the road asthey were marching back to billets. They discussed the war, the ethicsof it. Doggie still wanted to know why the realities of blood and mudand destruction were not the true things. Gradually he found that theIrishman meant that the true things were the spiritual, undyingthings; that the grim realities would pass away; that from these deadrealities would arise the noble ideals of the future, which would besymbolized in song and marble; that all he had endured and sacrificedwas but a part of the Great Sacrifice we were making for the Freedomof the World. Being a man roughly educated on a Galway farm and in aninfantry regiment, he had great difficulty in co-ordinating his ideas;but he had a curious power of vision that enabled him to pierce to theheart of things, which he interpreted according to his untrained senseof beauty. 

They parted with expressions of mutual esteem. Doggie struck acrossthe Gardens with a view to returning home by Knightsbridge, Piccadillyand Shaftesbury Avenue. He strode along, his thoughts filled with theIrish soldier. Here was a man, maimed for life and quite content thatit should be so, who had reckoned all the horrors through which he hadpassed as externals unworthy of the consideration of his unconquerablesoul; a man simple, unassuming, expansive only through his Celtictemperament, which allowed him to talk easily to a stranger beforewhom his English or Scotch comrade would have been dumb and gaping asan oyster; obviously brave, sincere and loyal. Perhaps something evenhigher. Perhaps, in essence, the very highest. The Poet-Warrior. Theterm struck Doggie's brain with a thud, like the explosive fusion oftwo elements. 

During his walk to Kensington Gardens a poisonous current had run atthe back of his mind. Drifting on it, might he not escape? Was he notof too fine a porcelain to mingle with the coarse and common potteryof the ranks? Was it necessary to go into the thick of the coarse clayvessels, just to be shattered? It was easy for Phineas to proclaimthat he found no derogation to his dignity as a man of birth and auniversity graduate in identifying himself with his fellow privates. Phineas had systematically brutalized himself into fitness for theposition. He had armed himself in brass--_æs triplex_. He smiled athis own wit. But he, James Marmaduke Trevor, who had lived his life asa clean gentleman, was in a category apart. 

Now, he found that his talk with the Irishman had been an antidote tothe poison. He felt ashamed. Did he dare set himself up to be finerclay than that common soldier? Spiritually, was he even of clay asfine? In a Great Judgment of Souls which of the twain would be amongthe Elect? The ultra-refined Mr. Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall, orthe ignorant poet-warrior of Ballinasloe? "Not Doggie Trevor, " he saidbetween his teeth. And he went home in a chastened spirit. 

Phineas McPhail appeared punctually at half-past one, and feastedsucculently on fried sole and sweetbread. 

"Laddie, " said he, "the man that can provide such viands is a Thing ofBeauty which, as the poet says, is a Joy for Ever. The light in hiswindow is a beacon to the hungry Tommy dragging himself through theviscous wilderness of regulation stew. "

"I'm afraid it won't be a beacon for very long, " said Doggie. 

"Eh?" queried Phineas sharply. "You'd surely not be thinking ofrefusing an old friend a stray meal?"

Doggie coloured at the coarseness of the misunderstanding. 

"How could I be such a brute? There won't be a light in the windowbecause I shan't be there. I'm going to enlist. "

Phineas put his elbows on the table and regarded him earnestly. 

"I would not take too seriously words spoken in the heat of midnightrevelry, even though the revel was conducted on the genteelestprinciples. Have you thought of the matter in the cool and sober hoursof the morning?"

"Yes. "

"It's an unco' hard life, laddie. "

"The one I'm leading is a harder, " said Doggie. "I've made up mymind. "

"Then I've one piece of advice to give you, " said McPhail. "Sink thename of Marmaduke, which would only stimulate the ignorant ribaldry ofthe canteen, and adopt the name of James, which your godfathers andgodmothers, with miraculous foresight, considering their limitationsin the matter of common sense, have given you. "

"That's a good idea, " said Doggie. 

"Also it would tend to the obliteration of class prejudices if yougave up smoking Turkish cigarettes at ten shillings a hundred andarrived in your platoon as an amateur of 'fags. '"

"I can't stand 'fags, '" said Doggie. 

"You can. The human organism is so constituted that it can stand thesweepings of the elephants' house in the Zoological Gardens. Try. Thistime it's only 'fags. '"

Doggie took one from the crumpled paper packet which was handed tohim, and lit it. He made a wry face, never before having smokedAmerican tobacco. 

"How do you like the flavour?" asked Phineas. 

"I think I'd prefer the elephants' house, " said Doggie, eyeing thething with disgust. 

"You'll find it the flavour of the whole British Army, " said McPhail. 

 * * * * *

A few days later the Dean received a letter bearing the pencilledaddress of a camp on the south coast, and written by 35792 Pvte. JamesM. Trevor, A Company, 2-10th Wessex Rangers. It ran:

 "I hope you won't think me heartless for having left you so long without news of me; but until lately I had the same reasons for remaining in seclusion as when I last wrote. Even now I'm not asking for sympathy or reconsideration of my failure or desire in any way to take advantage of the generosity of you all. 

 "I have enlisted in the 10th Wessex. Phineas McPhail, whom I met in London and whose character for good or evil I can better gauge now than formerly, is a private in the same battalion. I don't pretend to enjoy the life any more than I could enjoy living in a kraal of savages in Central Africa. But that is a matter of no account. I don't propose to return to Durdlebury till the end of the war. I left it as an officer and I'm not coming back as a private soldier. I enclose a cheque for £500. Perhaps Aunt Sophia will be so kind as to use the money--it ought to last some time--for the general upkeep, wages, etc. , of Denby Hall. I feel sure she will not refuse me this favour. Give Peggy my love and tell her I hope she will accept the two-seater as a parting gift. It will make me happier to know that she is driving it. 

 "I am keeping on as a _pied à terre_ in London the Bloomsbury rooms in which I have been living, and I've written to Peddle to see about making them more comfortable. Please ask anybody who might care to write to address me as 'James M. ' and not as 'Marmaduke. '"

The Dean read the letter--the family were at breakfast; then he tookoff his tortoise-shell spectacles and wiped them. 

"It's from Marmaduke at last, " said he. "He has carried out myprophecy and enlisted. "

Peggy caught at her breath and shot out her hand for the letter, whichshe read eagerly and then passed over to her mother. Mrs. Conoverbegan to cry. 

"Oh, the poor boy! It will be worse than ever for him. "

"It will, " said Peggy. "But I think it splendid of him to try. How didhe bring himself to do it?"

"Breed tells, " said the Dean. "That's what every one seems to haveforgotten. He's a thoroughbred Doggie. There's the old French proverb:_Bon chien chasse de race. _"

Peggy looked at him gratefully. "You're very comforting, " she said. 

"We must knit him some socks, " observed Mrs. Conover. "I hear thosesupplied to the army are very rough and ready. "

"My dear, " smiled the Dean, "Marmaduke's considerable income does notcease because his pay in the army is one and twopence a day; and Ishould think he would have the sense to provide himself with adequateunderclothing. Also, judging from the account of your shopping orgy inLondon, he has already laid in a stock that would last out severalAntarctic winters. "

The Dean tapped his egg gently. 

"Then what can we do for the poor boy?" asked his wife. 

The Dean scooped the top of his egg off with a vicious thrust. 

"We can cut out slanderous tongues, " said he. 

There had been much calumniating cackle in the little town; nay, more:cackle is of geese; there had been venom of the snakiest kind. TheDeanery, father and mother and daughter, each in their several ways, had suffered greatly. It is hard to stand up against poisonedridicule. 

"My dear, " continued the Dean, "it will be our business to smite thePhilistines, hip and thigh. The reasons which guided Marmaduke in theresignation of his commission are the concern of nobody. The factremains that Mr. Marmaduke Trevor resigned his commission in orderto----"

Peggy interrupted with a smile. "'In order to'--isn't that a bitJesuitical, daddy?"

"I have a great respect for the Jesuits, my dear, " said the Dean, holding out an impressive egg-spoon. "The fact remains, in the eyes ofthe world, as I remarked, that Mr. Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall, aman of fortune and high position in the county, resigned hiscommission in order, for reasons best known to himself, to serve hiscountry more effectively in the humbler ranks of the army, and--mydear, this egg is far too full for war time"--with a hazardous plungeof his spoon he had made a yellow yelky horror of the egg-shell--"andI'm going to proclaim the fact far and wide, and--indeed--rub it in. "

"That'll be jolly decent of you, daddy, " said his daughter. "It willhelp a lot. "

In the failure of Marmaduke to retain his commission the family honourhad not been concerned. The boy had done his best. They blamed not himbut the disastrous training that had unfitted him for the command ofmen. They reproached themselves for their haste in throwing himheadlong into the fiercest element of the national struggle towardsefficiency. They could have found an easier school, in which he couldhave learned to do his share creditably in the national work. Manyyoung men of their acquaintance, far more capable than Marmaduke, werewearing the uniform of a less strenuous branch of the service. It hadbeen a blunder, a failure, but without loss of honour. But whenslanderous tongues attacked poor Doggie for running away with a yelpfrom a little hardship; when a story or two of Doggie's career in theregiment arrived in Durdlebury, highly flavoured in transit and moreand more poisoned as it went from mouth to mouth; when a legend wasspread abroad that he had bolted from Salisbury Plain and was run toearth in a Turkish Bath in London, and was only saved fromcourt-martial by family influence, then the family honour of theConovers was wounded to its proud English depths. And they could saynothing. They had only Doggie's word to go upon; they accepted itunquestioningly, but they knew no details. Doggie had disappeared. Naturally, they contradicted these evil rumours. The good folks ofDurdlebury expected them to do so, and listened with well-bredincredulity. To the question, "Where is he now and what is he going todo?" they could only answer, "We don't know. " They were helpless. 

Peggy had a bitter quarrel with one of her intimates, Nancy Murdoch, daughter of the doctor who had proclaimed the soundness of Marmaduke'sconstitution. 

"He may have told you so, dear, " said Nancy, "but how do you know?"

"Because whatever else he may be, he's not a liar, " retorted Peggy. 

Nancy gave the most delicate suspicion of a shrug to her prettyshoulders. 

That was the beginning of it. Peggy, naturally combative, armed forthe fight and defended Marmaduke. 

"You talk as though you were still engaged to him, " said Nancy. 

"So I am, " declared Peggy rashly. 

"Then where's your engagement ring?"

"Where I choose to keep it. "

The retort lacked originality and conviction. 

"You can't send it back to him, because you don't know where he is. And what did Mrs. Conover mean by telling mother that Mr. Trevor hadbroken off the engagement?"

"She never told her any such thing, " cried Peggy mendaciously. ForMrs. Conover had committed the indiscretion under assurance ofsilence. 

"Pardon me, " said Nancy, much on her dignity. "Of course I understandyour denying it. It isn't pleasant to be thrown over by any man--butby a man like Doggie Trevor----"

"You're a spiteful beast, Nancy, and I'll never speak to you again. You've neither womanly decency nor Christian feeling. " And Peggymarched out of the doctor's house. 

As a result of the quarrel, however, she resumed the wearing of thering, which she flaunted defiantly with left hand deliberatelyungloved. Hitherto she had not been certain of the continuance of theengagement. Marmaduke's repudiation was definite enough; but it hadbeen dictated by his sensitive honour. It lay with her to agree ordecline. She had passed through wearisome days of doubt. A physicallysound fighting man sent about his business as being unfit for war doesnot appear a romantic figure in a girl's eyes. She was bitterlydisappointed with Doggie for the sudden withering of her hopes. Had hefulfilled them she could have loved him wholeheartedly, after thesimple way of women; for her sex, exhilarated by the barbaricconvulsion of the land, clamoured for something heroic, something atleast intensely masculine, in which she could find feminineexultation. She also felt resentment at his flight from the Savoy, hissilence and practical disappearance. Although not blaming himunjustly, she failed to realize the spiritual piteousness of hisplight. If the war has done anything in this country, it has saved theyoung women of the gentler classes, at any rate, from the abyss ofsordid and cynical materialism. Hesitating to announce the rupture ofthe engagement, she allowed it to remain in a state of suspendedanimation, and as a symbolic act, ceased to wear the ring. Nancy'staunts had goaded her to a more heroic attitude. The first person towhom she showed the newly-ringed hand was her mother. 

"The engagement isn't off until I declare it's off. I'm going to playthe game. "

"You know best, dear, " said the gentle Mrs. Conover. "But it's allvery upsetting. "

Then Doggie's letter brought comfort and gladness to the Deanery. Itreassured them as to his fate. It healed the wounded family honour. Itjustified Peggy in playing the game. 

She took the letter round to Dr. Murdoch's and thrust it into the handof an astonished Nancy, with whom since the quarrel she had not beenon speaking terms. 

"This is in Marmaduke's handwriting. You recognize it. Just read thetop line when I've folded it. 'I have enlisted in the 10th Wessex. 'See?" She withdrew the letter. "Now, what could a man, let alone anhonourable gentleman, do more? Say you're sorry for having saidbeastly things about him. "

Nancy, who had regretted the loss of a lifelong friendship, professedher sorrow. 

"The least you can do then, is to go round and spread the news, andsay you've seen the letter with your own eyes. "

To several others, on a triumphant round of visits, did she show thevindicating sentence. Any soft young fool, she asserted, with thedirectness and not unattractive truculence of her generation, can geta commission and muddle through, but it took a man to enlist as aprivate soldier. 

"Everybody recognizes now, darling, " said the reconciled Nancy a fewdays later, "that Doggie is a top-hole, splendid chap. But I think Iought to tell you that you're boring Durdlebury stiff. "

Peggy laughed. It was good to be engaged to a man no longer under acloud. 

"It will all come right, dear old thing, " she wrote to Doggie. "It's acinch, as the Americans say. You'll soon get used to it--especially ifyou can realize what it means to me. 'Saving face' has been an awfulbusiness. Now it's all over. Of course, I'll accept the two-seater. I've had lessons in driving since you went away--I had thoughts ofgoing out to France to drive Y. M. C. A. Cars, but that's off for thepresent. I'll love the two-seater. Swank won't be the word. But 'aparting gift' is all rot. The engagement stands and all Durdleburyknows it. .. " and so on, and so on. She set herself out, honestly, loyally, to be the kindest girl in the world to Doggie. Mrs. Conoverhappened to come into the drawing-room just as she was licking thestamp. She thumped it on the envelope with her palm and, looking roundfrom the writing-desk against the wall, showed her mother a flushedand smiling face. 

"If anybody says I'm not good--the goodest thing the cathedral hasturned out for half a dozen centuries--I'll tear her horrid eyes outfrom their sockets!"

"My dear!" cried her horrified mother. 

 * * * * *

Doggie kept the letter unopened in his tunic pocket until he couldfind solitude in which to read it. After morning parade he wandered tothe deserted trench at the end of the camp, where the stuffed sacks, representing German defenders, were hung for bayonet practice. It wasa noon of grey mist through which the alignments of huts and tentswere barely visible. Instinctively avoiding the wet earth of theparados, he went round, and, tired after the recent spell of physicaldrill, sat down on the equally wet sandbags of the model parapet, apathetic, lonely little khaki figure isolated for the moment by thekindly mist from an uncomprehending world. 

He read Peggy's letter several times. He recognized her goodness, herloyalty. The grateful tears even came to his eyes and he brushed themaway hurriedly with a swift look round. But his heart beat none thefaster. A long-faded memory of childhood came back to him in regainedcolour. Some quarrel with Peggy. What it was all about he had entirelyforgotten; but he remembered her little flushed face and her angrywords: "Well, I'm a sport and you ain't!" He remembered also rebukingher priggishly for unintelligible language and mincing away. He readthe letter again in the light of this flash of memory. The onlydifference between it and the childish speech lay in the fact thatinstead of a declaration of contrasts, she now uttered a declarationof similitudes. They were both "sports. " There she was wrong. Doggieshook his head. In her sense of the word he was not a "sport. " A sporttakes chances, plays the game with a smile on his lips. There was nosmile on his. He loathed the game with a sickening, shiveringloathing. He was engaged in it because a conglomeration ofirresistible forces had driven him into the _mêlée_. It neveroccurred to Doggie that he was under orders of his own soul. Thissimple yet stupendous fact never occurred to Peggy. 

He sat on the wet sandbags and thought and thought. Though hereproached himself for base ingratitude, the letter did not satisfyhim. It left his heart cold. What he sought in it he did not know. Itwas something he could not find, something that was not there. Thesea-mist thickened around him. Peggy seemed very far away. .. . He wasstill engaged to her--for it would be monstrous to persist in hiswithdrawal. He must accept the situation which she decreed. He owedthat to her loyalty. But how to continue the correspondence? It washard enough to write from Salisbury Plain; from here it was well-nighimpossible. 

Thus was Doggie brought up against a New Problem. He struggleddesperately to defer its solution. 

CHAPTER X

The regiments of the new armies have gathered into their rank and filea mixed crowd transcending the dreams of Democracy. At one end of thesocial scale are men of refined minds and gentle nurture, at the othercreatures from the slums, with slum minds and morals, and between themthe whole social gamut is run. Experience seems to show that neitherof the extreme elements tend, in the one case to elevate, or in theother to debase the battalion. Leading the common life, sharing thecommon hardships, striving towards common ideals, they inevitably, irresistibly tend to merge themselves in the average. The highest inthe scale sink, the lowest rise. The process, as far as the change ofsoul state is concerned, is infinitely more to the amelioration of thelowest than to the degradation of the highest. The one, also, is morereal, the other more apparent. In the one case, it is merely theshuffling-off of manners, of habits, of prejudices, and the assumingof others horribly distasteful or humorously accepted, according totemperament; in the other case, it is an enforced education. And allthe congeries of human atoms that make up the battalion, learn new andprecious lessons and acquire new virtues--patience, obedience, courage, endurance. .. . But from the point of view of a decoroustea-party in a cathedral town, the tone--or the standard of manners, or whatever you would like by way of definition of that vague andcomforting word--the tone of the average is deplorably low. Thehooligan may be kicked for excessive foulness; but the rider of thehigh horse is brutally dragged down into the mire. The curious part ofit all is that, the gutter element being eliminated altogether, thecorporate standard of the remaining majority is lower than thestandard of each individual. 

By developing a philosophical disquisition on some such lines didPhineas McPhail seek to initiate Doggie into the weird mysteries ofthe new social life. Doggie heard with his ears, but thought in termsof Durdlebury tea-parties. Nowhere in the mass could he find thespiritual outlook of his Irish poet-warrior. The individuals that mayhave had it kept it preciously to themselves. The outlook, as conveyedin speech, was grossly materialistic. From the language of the canteenhe recoiled in disgust. He could not reconcile it with the noblerattributes of the users. It was in vain for Phineas to plead that hemust accept the _lingua franca_ of the British Army like all otherthings appertaining thereto. Doggie's stomach revolted against most ofthe other things. The disregard (from his point of view) of personalcleanliness universal in the ranks, filled him with dismay. Even onSalisbury Plain he had managed to get a little hot water for hismorning tub. Here, save in the officers' quarters--curiously remote, inaccessible paradise!--there was not such a thing as a tub in theplace, let alone hot water to fill it. The men never dreamed of such athing as a tub. As a matter of fact, they were scrupulously cleanaccording to the lights of the British Tommy; but the lights were notthose of Marmaduke Trevor. He had learned the supreme wisdom ofkeeping lips closed on such matters and did not complain, but all hisfastidiousness rebelled. He hated the sluice of head and shoulderswith water from a bucket in the raw open air. His hands swelled, blistered and cracked; and his nails, once so beautifully manicured, grew rich black rims, and all the icy water in the buckets would notremove the grime. 

Now and then he went into the town and had a hot bath; but very few ofthe others ever seemed to think of such a thing. The habit of theBritish Army of going to bed in its day-shirt was peculiarlyrepellent. Yet Doggie knew that to vary from the sacred ways of hisfellow-men was to bring disaster on his head. 

Some of the men slept under canvas still. But Doggie, fortunately ashe reckoned (for he had begun to appreciate fine shades in misery), was put with a dozen others in a ramshackle hut of which the woodworkhad warped and let in the breezes above, below, and all round the sides. Doggie, though dismally cold, welcomed the air for obvious reasons. They were fortunate, too, in having straw palliasses--recentlyprovided when it was discovered that sleeping on badly boarded floorswith fierce draughts blowing upwards along human spines was strangelyfatal to human bodies--but Doggie found his bed very hard lying. Andit smelt sour and sickly. For nights, in spite of fatigue, he couldnot sleep. His mates sang and talked and bandied jests and sarcasms ofesoteric meaning. Some of the recruits from factories or farmssatirized their officers for peculiarities common to their socialcaste and gave grotesque imitations of their mode of speech. Doggiewondered, but held his peace. The deadly stupidity and weariness of itall! And when the talk stopped and they settled to sleep, the snoringsand mutterings and coughings began and kept poor Doggie awake most ofthe night. The irremediable, intimate propinquity with coarse humanityoppressed him. He would have given worlds to go out, even into thepouring rain, and walk about the camp or sleep under a hedge, so longas he could be alone. And he would think longingly of his satinwoodbedroom, with its luxurious bed and lavender-scented sheets, and ofhis beloved peacock and ivory room and its pictures and exquisitefurniture and the great fire roaring up the chimney, and deviseintricate tortures for the Kaiser who had dragged him down to thissqualor. 

The meals--the rough cooking, the primitive service--the table mannersof his companions, offended his delicate senses. He missed napkins. Never could he bring himself to wipe his mouth with the back of hishand and the back of his hand on the seat of his trousers. Nor couldhe watch with equanimity an honest soul pick his teeth with his littlefinger. But Doggie knew that acquiescence was the way of happiness andprotest the way of woe. 

At first he made few acquaintances beyond those with whom he wasintimately associated. It seemed more politic to obey his instinctsand remain unobtrusive in company and drift away inoffensively whenthe chance occurred. One of the men with whom he talked occasionallywas a red-headed little cockney by the name of Shendish. For somereason or the other--perhaps because his name conveyed a perfectlywrong suggestion of the Hebraic--he was always called "Mo" Shendish. 

"Don't yer wish yer was back, mate?" he asked one day, having waitedto speak till Doggie had addressed and stamped a letter which he waswriting at the end of the canteen table. 

"Where?" said Doggie. 

"'Ome, sweet 'ome. In the family castle, where gilded footmen 'andssausage and mash about on trays and quarts of beer all day long. Ido. "

"You're a lucky chap to have a castle, " said Doggie. 

Mo Shendish grinned. He showed little yellow teeth beneath a littlered moustache. 

"I ain't 'alf got one, " said he. "It's in Mare Street, Hackney. I wishI was there now. "

He sighed, and in an abstracted way he took a half-smoked cigarettefrom behind his ear and relit it. 

"What were yer before yer joined? Yer look like a clerk. " Hepronounced it as if it were spelt with a "u. "

"Something of the sort, " replied Doggie cautiously. 

"One can always tell you eddicated blokes. Making your five quid aweek easy, I suppose?"

"About that, " said Doggie. "What were you?"

"I was making my thirty bob a week regular. I was in the fishbusiness, I was. And now I'm serving my ruddy country at one andtwopence a day. Funny life, ain't it?"

"I can't say it's very enjoyable, " said Doggie. 

"Not the same as sitting in a snug orfis all day with a pen in yourlily-white 'and, and going 'ome to your 'igh tea in a top 'at. Whatmade you join up?"

"The force of circumstances, " said Doggie. 

"Same 'ere, " said Mo; "only I couldn't put it into such fancylanguage. First my pals went out one after the other. Then the gelsbegan to look saucy at me, and at last one particular bit of skirtwhat I'd been walking out with took to promenading with a blighter inkhaki. It'd have been silly of me to go and knock his 'ead off, so Ienlisted. And it's all right now. "

"Just the same sort of thing in my case, " replied Doggie. "I'm gladthings are right with the young lady. "

"First class. She's straight, she is, and no mistake abaht it. She'sa----"

He paused for a word to express the inexpressive she. 

"--A paragon--a peach?"--Doggie corrected himself. Then, as the suddenfrown of perplexed suspicion was swiftly replaced by a grin ofcontent, he was struck by a bright idea. 

"What's her name?"

"Aggie. What's yours?"

"Gladys, " replied Doggie with miraculous readiness of invention. 

"I've got her photograph, " Shendish confided in a whisper, and laidhis hand on his tunic pocket. Then he looked round at the half-filledcanteen to see that he was unobserved. "You won't give me away if Ishow it yer, will yer?"

Doggie swore secrecy. The photograph of Aggie, an angular, square-browed damsel, who looked as though she could guide the mostrecalcitrant of fishmongers into the paths of duty, was produced andthrust into Doggie's hand. He inspected it with polite appreciation, while his red-headed friend regarded him with fatuous anxiety. 

"Charming! charming!" said Doggie in his pleasantest way. "What's hercolouring?"

"Fair hair and blue eyes, " said Shendish. 

The kindly question, half idle yet unconsciously tactful, was one ofthose human things which cost so little but are worth so much. It gaveDoggie a devoted friend. 

"Mo, " said he, a day or two later, "you're such a decent chap. Why doyou use such abominable language?"

"Gawd knows, " smiled Mo, unabashed. "I suppose it's friendly like. " Hewrinkled his brow in thought for an instant. "That's where I thinkyou're making a mistake, old pal, if you don't mind my mentioning it. I know what yer are, but the others don't. You're not friendly enough. See what I mean? Supposin' you say as you would in a city restoorangwhen you're 'aving yer lunch, 'Will yer kindly pass me thesalt?'--well, that's standoffish--they say 'Come off it! 'But if youlook about and say, 'Where's the b----y salt?' that's friendly. Theyunderstand. They chuck it at you. "

Said Doggie, "It's very--I mean b----y--difficult. "

So he tried to be friendly; and if he met with no great positivesuccess, he at least escaped animosity. In his spare time he moonedabout by himself, shy, disgusted, and miserable. Once, when a group ofmen were kicking a football about, the ball rolled his way. Instead ofkicking it back to the expectant players, he picked it up and advancedto the nearest and handed it to him politely. 

"Thanks, mate, " said the astonished man, "but why didn't you kick it?"

He turned away without waiting for a reply. Doggie had not kicked itbecause he had never kicked a football in his life and shrank from anexhibition of incompetence. 

At drill things were easier than on Salisbury Plain, his actions beingveiled in the obscurity of squad or platoon or company. Many othersbesides himself were cursed by sergeants and rated by subalterns anddrastically entreated by captains. He had the consolation of communityin suffering. As a trembling officer he had been the only one, theonly one marked and labelled as a freak apart, the only one stuck inthe eternal pillory. Here were fools and incapables even more dull andineffective than he. A plough-boy fellow-recruit from Dorsetshire, Pugsley by name, did not know right from left, and having mastered theart of forming fours, could not get into his brain the reverse processof forming front. He wept under the lash of the corporal's tongue; andto Doggie these tears were healing dews of Heaven's distillation. Bydegrees he learned the many arts of war as taught to the privatesoldier in England. He could refrain from shutting his eyes when hepressed the trigger of his rifle, but to the end of his career hisshooting was erratic. He could perform with the weapon the othertricks of precision. Unencumbered he could march with the best. Thetorture of the heavy pack nearly killed him; but in time, as hismuscles developed, he was able to slog along under the burden. He evenlearned to dig. That was the worst and most back-breaking art of all. 

Now and then Phineas McPhail and himself would get together and walkinto the little seaside town. It was out of the season and there waslittle to look at save the deserted shops and the squall-fretted pierand the maidens of the place who usually were in company with lads inkhaki. Sometimes a girl alone would give Doggie a glance of shyinvitation, for Doggie in his short slight way was not a bad-lookingfellow, carrying himself well and wearing his uniform with instinctivegrace. But the damsel ogled in vain. 

On one such occasion Phineas burst into a guffaw. 

"Why don't you talk to the poor body? She's a respectable girl enough. Where's the harm?"

"Go 'square-pushing'?" said Doggie contemptuously, using the soldiers'slang for walking about with a young woman. "No, thank you. "

"And why not? I'm not counselling you, laddie, to plunge into a courseof sensual debauchery. But a wee bit gossip with a pretty innocentgirl----"

"My dear good chap, " Doggie interrupted, "what on earth should I havein common with her?"

"Youth. "

"I feel as old as hell, " said Doggie bitterly. 

"You'll be feeling older soon, " replied Phineas, "and able to lookdown on hell with feelings of superiority. "

Doggie walked on in silence for a few paces. Then he said:

"A thing I can't understand is this mania for picking up girls--justto walk about the streets with them. It's so inane. It's a disease. "

"Did you ever consider, " said Phineas, "how in a station less exaltedthan that which you used to adorn, the young of opposite sexes manageto meet, select and marry? Man, the British Army's going to be a grandeducation for you in sociology. "

"Well, at any rate, you don't suppose I'm going to select and marryout of the street?"

"You might do worse, " said Phineas. Then, after a slight pause, heasked: "Have you any news lately from Durdlebury?"

"Confound Durdlebury!" said Doggie. 

Phineas checked him with one hand and waved the other towards ahostelry on the other side of the street. "If you will give me themoney in advance, so as to evade the ungenerous spirit of theno-treating law, you can stand me a quart of ale at the Crown andSceptre and join me in drinking to its confusion. "

So they entered the saloon bar of the public-house. Doggie drank aglass of beer while Phineas swallowed a couple of pints. Two or threeother soldiers were there, in whose artless talk McPhail joinedlustily. Doggie, unobtrusive at the end of the bar, maintained adesultory and uncomfortable conversation with the barmaid, who was ofthe florid and hearty type, about the weather. 

Some days later, McPhail again made allusion to Durdlebury. Doggieagain confounded it. 

"I don't want to hear of it or think of it, " he exclaimed, in hisnervous way, "until this filthy horror is over. They want me to getleave and go down and stay. They're making my life miserable withkindness. I wish they'd let me alone. They don't understand a littlebit. I want to get through this thing alone, all by myself. "

"I'm sorry I persuaded you to join a regiment in which you wereinflicted with the disadvantage of my society, " said Phineas. 

Doggie threw out an impatient arm. "Oh, you don't count, " said he. 

A few minutes afterwards, repenting his brusqueness, he tried toexplain to Phineas why he did not count. The others knew nothing abouthim. Phineas knew everything. 

"And you know everything about Phineas, " said McPhail grimly. "Ay, ay, laddie, " he sighed, "I ken it all. When you're in Tophet, asympathetic Tophetuan with a wee drop of the milk of human kindness ismore comfort than a radiant angel who showers down upon you, from thecelestial Fortnum and Mason's, potted shrimps and caviare. "

The sombreness cleared for a moment from Doggie's young brow. 

"I never can make up my mind, Phineas, " said he, "whether you're avery wise man or an awful fraud. "

"Give me the benefit of the doubt, laddie, " replied McPhail. "It's thegrand theological principle of Christianity. "

Time went on. The regiment was moved to the East Coast. On the journeya Zeppelin raid paralysed the railway service. Doggie spent the nightunder the lee of the bookstall at Waterloo Station. Men huddled upnear him, their heads on their kit-bags, slept and snored. Doggiealmost wept with pain and cold and hatred of the Kaiser. On the EastCoast much the same life as on the South, save that the wind, as ifHun-sent, found its way more savagely to the skin. 

Then suddenly came the news of a large draft for France, whichincluded both McPhail and Shendish. They went away on leave. Thegladness with which he welcomed their return showed Doggie how great apart they played in his new life. In a day or two they would departGod knew whither, and he would be left in dreadful loneliness. Throughhim the two men, the sentimental Cockney fishmonger and the wastrelCambridge graduate, had become friends. He spent with them all hisleisure time. 

Then one of the silly tragi-comedies of life occurred. McPhail gotdrunk in the crowded bar of a little public-house in the village. Itwas the last possible drink together of the draft and their pals. Thedraft was to entrain before daybreak on the morrow. It was a foolish, singing, shouting khaki throng. McPhail, who had borrowed ten poundsfrom Doggie, in order to see him through the hardships of the Front, established himself close by the bar and was drinking whisky. He wasalso distributing surreptitious sixpences and shillings into eagerhands, which would convert them into alcohol for eager throats. Doggie, anxious, stood by his side. The spirit from which McPhail hadfor so long abstained, mounted to his unaccustomed brain. He began tohector, and, master of picturesque speech, he compelled an admiringaudience. Doggie did not realize the extent of his drunkenness until, vaunting himself as a Scot and therefore the salt of the army, hepicked a quarrel with a stolid Hampshire giant, who professed to haveno use for Phineas's fellow-countrymen. The men closed. Suddenly someone shouted from the doorway:

"Be quiet, you fools! The A. P. M. 's coming down the road. "

Now the Assistant Provost Marshal, if he heard hell's delight going onin a tavern, would naturally make an inquisitorial appearance. Thecombatants were separated. McPhail threw a shilling on the bar counterand demanded another whisky. He was about to lift the glass to hislips when Doggie, terrified as to what might happen, knocked the glassout of his hand. 

"Don't be an ass, " he cried. 

Phineas was very drunk. He gazed at his old pupil, took off his cap, and, stretching over the bar, hung it on the handle of a beer-pull. Then, staggering back, he pointed an accusing finger. 

"He has the audacity to call me an ass. Little blinking MarmadukeDoggie Trevor. Little Doggie Trevor, whom I trained up from infancy inthe way he shouldn't go----"

"Why Doggie Trevor?" some one shouted in inquiry. 

"Never mind, " replied Phineas with drunken impressiveness. "My oldfriend Marmaduke has spilled my whisky and called me an ass. I callhim Doggie, little Doggie Trevor. You all bear witness he knocked thedrink out of my mouth. I'll never forgive him. He doesn't like beingcalled Doggie--and I've no--no pred'lex'n to be called an ass. I'll bethinking I'm going just to strangle him. "

He struck out his bony claws towards the shrinking Doggie; but stoutarms closed round him and a horny hand was clamped over his mouth, andthey got him through the bar and the back parlour into the yard, wherethey pumped water on his head. And when the A. P. M. And his satellitespassed by, the quiet of The Whip in Hand was the holy peace of anunnery. 

Doggie and Mo Shendish and a few other staunch souls got McPhail backto quarters without much trouble. On parting, the delinquent, semi-sobered, shook Doggie by the hand and smiled with an air of greataffection. 

"I've been verra drunk, laddie. And I've been angry with you for thefirst time in my life. But when you knocked the glass out of my hand Ithought you were in danger of losing your good manners in the army. We'll have many a pow-wow together when you join me out there. "

The matter would have drifted out of Doggie's mind as one of noimportance had not the detested appellation by which Phineas hailedhim struck the imagination of his comrades. It filled a long-feltwant, no nickname for Private J. M. Trevor having yet been invented. Doggie Trevor he was and Doggie Trevor he remained for the rest of hisperiod of service. He resigned himself to the inevitable. The stinghad gone out of the name through his comrades' ignorance of itsorigin. But he loathed it as much as ever; it sounded in his ears aneverlasting reproach. 

In spite of the ill turn done in drunkenness, Doggie missed McPhail. He missed Mo Shendish, his more constant companion, even more. Theirplace was in some degree taken, or rather usurped, for it was withoutDoggie's volition, by "Taffy" Jones, once clerk to a firm of outsidebookmakers. As Doggie had never seen a racecourse, had never made abet, and was entirely ignorant of the names even of famous Derbywinners, Taffy regarded him as an astonishing freak worth theattention of a student of human nature. He began to cultivate Doggie'svirgin mind by aid of reminiscence, and of such racing news as was tobe found in the _Sportsman_. He was a garrulous person and Doggie agood listener. To please him Doggie backed horses, through the oldfirm, for small sums. The fact of his being a man of large independentmeans both he and Phineas (to his credit) had kept a close secret, hisclerkly origin divined and promulgated by Mo Shendish beingunquestioningly accepted, so the bets proposed by Taffy were of amodest nature. Once he brought off a forty to one chance. Taffy rushedto him with the news, dancing with excitement. Doggie's stoicalindifference to the winning of twenty pounds, a year's army pay, gavehim cause for great wonder. As Doggie showed similar equanimity whenhe lost, Taffy put him down as a born sportsman. He began to admirehim tremendously. 

This friendship with Taffy is worth special record, for it wasindirectly the cause of a little revolution in Doggie's regimentallife. Taffy was an earnest though indifferent performer on the pennywhistle. It was his constant companion, the solace of his leisuremoments and one of the minor tortures of Doggie's existence. Hisversion of the _Marseillaise_ was peculiarly excruciating. 

One day, when Taffy was playing it with dreadful variations of his ownto an admiring group in the Y. M. C. A. Hut, Doggie, his nerves rasped tothe raw by the false notes and maddening intervals, snatched it out ofhis hand and began to play himself. Hitherto, shrinking morbidly fromany form of notoriety, he had shown no sign of musical accomplishment. But to-day the musician's impulse was irresistible. He played the_Marseillaise_ as no one there had heard it on penny whistle before. The hut recognized a master's touch, for Doggie was a fine executantmusician. When he stopped there was a roar: "Go on!" Doggie went on. They kept him whistling till the hut was crowded. 

Thenceforward he was penny-whistler, by excellence, to the battalion. He whistled himself into quite a useful popularity. 

CHAPTER XI

"We're all very proud of you, Marmaduke, " said the Dean. 

"I think you're just splendid, " said Peggy. 

They were sitting in Doggie's rooms in Woburn Place, Doggie havingbeen given his three days' leave before going to France. Once againDurdlebury had come to Doggie and not Doggie to Durdlebury. AuntSophia, however, somewhat ailing, had stayed at home. 

Doggie stood awkwardly before them, conscious of swollen hands andbroken nails, shapeless ammunition boots and ill-fitting slacks;morbidly conscious, too, of his original failure. 

"You're about ten inches more round the chest than you were, " said theDean admiringly. 

"And the picture of health, " cried Peggy. 

"For anyone who has a sound constitution, " answered Doggie, "it isquite a healthy life. "

"Now that you've got into the way, I'm sure you must really love it, "said Peggy with an encouraging smile. 

"It isn't so bad, " he replied. 

"What none of us can quite understand, my dear fellow, " said the Dean, "is your shying at Durdlebury. As we have written you, everybody'ssinging your praises. Not a soul but would have given you a heartywelcome. "

"Besides, " Peggy chimed in, "you needn't have made an exhibition ofyourself in the town if you didn't want to. The poor Peddles arewoefully disappointed. "

"There's a war going on. They must bear up--like lots of otherpeople, " replied Doggie. 

"He's becoming quite cynical, " Peggy laughed. "But, apart from thePeddles, there's your own beautiful house waiting for you. It seems sofunny not to go to it, instead of moping in these fusty lodgings. "

"Perhaps, " said Doggie quietly, "if I went there I should never wantto come back. "

"There's something to be said from that point of view, " the Deanadmitted. "A solution of continuity is never quite without itsdangers. Even Oliver confessed as much. "

"Oliver?"

"Yes, didn't Peggy tell you?"

"I didn't think Marmaduke would be interested, " said Peggy quickly. "He and Oliver have never been what you might call bosom friends. "

"I shouldn't have minded about hearing of him, " said Doggie. "Whyshould I? What's he doing?"

The Dean gave information. Oliver, now a captain, had come home onleave a month ago, and had spent some of it at the Deanery. He hadseen a good deal of fighting, and had one or two narrow escapes. 

"Was he keen to get back?" asked Doggie. 

The Dean smiled. "I instanced his case in my remark as to the dangersof the solution of continuity. "

"Oh, rubbish, daddy, " cried his daughter, with a flush, "Oliver is askeen as mustard. " The Dean made a little gesture of submission. Shecontinued. "He doesn't like the beastliness out there for its ownsake, any more than Marmaduke will. But he simply loves his job. Hehas improved tremendously. Once he thought he was the only man in thecountry who had seen Life stark naked, and he put on frillsaccordingly Now that he's just one of a million who have been upagainst Life stripped to its skeleton, he's a bit subdued. "

"I'm glad of that, " said Doggie. 

The Dean, urbanely indulgent, joined his fingertips together andsmiled. "Peggy is right, " said he, "although I don't wholly approve ofher modern lack of reticence in metaphor. Oliver is coming out truegold from the fire. He's a capital fellow. And he spoke of you, mydear Marmaduke, in the kindest way in the world. He has a tremendousadmiration for your pluck. "

"That's very good of him, I'm sure, " said Doggie. 

Presently the Dean--good, tactful man--discovered that he must go outand have a prescription made up at a chemist's. That arch-Hun enemy, the gout, against which he must never be unprepared. He would be backin time for dinner. The engaged couple were left alone. 

"Well?" said Peggy. 

"Well, dear?" said Doggie. 

Her lips invited. He responded. She drew him to the saddle-bag sofa, and they sat down side by side. 

"I quite understand, dear old thing, " she said. "I know theresignation and the rest of it hurt you awfully. It hurt me. But it'sno use grousing over spilt milk. You've already mopped it all up. It'sno disgrace to be a private. It's an honour. There are thousands ofgentlemen in the ranks. Besides--you'll work your way up and they'lloffer you another commission in no time. "

"You're very good and sweet, dear, " said Doggie, "to have such faithin me. But I've had a year----"

"A year!" cried Peggy. "Good lord! so it is. " She counted on herfingers. "Not quite. But eleven months. It's eleven months since I'veseen you. Do you realize that? The war has put a stop to time. It isjust one endless day. "

"One awful, endless day, " Doggie acquiesced with a smile. "But I wassaying--I've had a year, or an endless day of eleven months, in whichto learn myself. And what I don't know about myself isn't knowledge. "

Peggy interrupted with a laugh. "You must be a wonder. Dad's alwayspreaching about self-knowledge. Tell me all about it. "

Doggie shook his head, at the same time passing his hand over it in afamiliar gesture. 

Then Peggy cried:

"I knew there was something wrong with you. Why didn't you tell me?You've had your hair cut--cut quite differently. "

It was McPhail, careful godfather, who had taken him as a recruit tothe regimental barber and prescribed a transformation from the sleeklong hair brushed back over the head to a conventional military cropwith a rudiment of a side parting. On the crown a few bristles stoodup as if uncertain which way to go. 

"It's advisable, " Doggie replied, "for a Tommy's hair to be cut asshort as possible. The Germans are sheared like convicts. "

Peggy regarded him open-eyed and puzzle-browed. He enlightened her nofurther, but pursued the main proposition. 

"I wouldn't take a commission, " said he, "if the War Office went madand sank on its knees and beat its head in the dust before me. "

"In Heaven's name, why not?"

"I've learned my place in the world, " said Doggie. 

Peggy shook him by the shoulder and turned on him her young eagerface. 

"Your place in the world is that of a cultivated gentleman of oldfamily, Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall. "

"That was the funny old world, " said he, "that stood on its legs--legswide apart with its hands beneath the tails of its dress-coat, infront of the drawing-room fire. The present world's standing on itshead. Everything's upside-down. It has no sort of use for MarmadukeTrevor of Denby Hall. No more use than for Goliath. By the way, how isthe poor little beast getting on?"

Peggy laughed. "Oh, Goliath is perfectly assured of his position. Hehas got it rammed into his mind that he drives the two-seater. " Shereturned to the attack. "Do you intend always to remain a private?"

"I do, " said he. "Not even a corporal. You see, I've learned to be aprivate of sorts, and that satisfies my ambition. "

"Well, I give it up, " said Peggy. "Though why you wouldn't let dad getyou a nice cushy job is a thing I can't understand. For the life of meI can't. "

"I've made my bed, and I must lie on it, " he said quietly. 

"I don't believe you've got such a thing as a bed. "

Doggie smiled. "Oh yes, a bed of a sort. " Then noting her puzzledface, he said consolingly: "It'll all come right when the war's over. "

"But when will that be? And who knows, my dear man, what may happen toyou?"

"If I'm knocked out, I'm knocked out, and there's an end of it, "replied Doggie philosophically. 

She put her hand on his. "But what's to become of me?"

"We needn't cry over my corpse yet, " said Doggie. 

The Dean, after awhile, returned with his bottle of medicine, which hedisplayed with conscientious ostentation. They dined. Peggy again wentover the ground of the possible commission. 

"I'm afraid she has set her heart on it, my boy, " said the Dean. 

Peggy cried a little on parting. This time Doggie was going, not tothe fringe, but to the heart of the Great Adventure. Into the thick ofthe carnage. A year ago, she said, through her tears, she would havethought herself much more fitted for it than Marmaduke. 

"Perhaps you are still, dear, " said Doggie, with his patient smile. 

He saw them to the taxi which was to take them to the familiarSturrocks's. Before getting in, Peggy embraced him. 

"Keep out of the way of shells and bullets as much as you can. "

The Dean blew his nose, God-blessed him, and murmured somethingincoherent about fighting for the glory of old England. 

"Good luck, " cried Peggy from the window. 

She blew him a kiss. The taxi drove off, and Doggie went back into thehouse with leaden feet. The meeting, which he had morbidly dreaded, had brought him no comfort. It had not removed the invisible barrierbetween Peggy and himself. But Peggy seemed so unconscious of it thathe began to wonder whether it only existed in his diseasedimagination. Though by his silences and reserves he had given hercause for resentment and reproach, her attitude was nothing less thanangelic. He sat down moodily in an arm-chair, his hands deep in histrousers pockets and his legs stretched out. The fault lay in himself, he argued. What was the matter with him? He seemed to have lost allhuman feeling, like the man with the stone heart in the old legend. Otherwise, why had he felt no prick of jealousy at Peggy's admiringcomprehension of Oliver? Of course he loved her. Of course he wantedto marry her when this nightmare was over. That went without saying. But why couldn't he look to the glowing future? A poet had called alover's mistress "the lode-star of his one desire. " That to him Peggyought to be. Lode-star. One desire. The words confused him. He had nolode-star. His one desire was to be left alone. Without doubt he wassuffering from some process of moral petrifaction. 

Doggie was no psychologist. He had never acquired the habit of turninghimself inside-out and gloating over the horrid spectacle. All hislife he had been a simple soul with simple motives and a simple thoughpossibly selfish standard to measure them. But now his soul wasknocked into a chaotic state of complexity, and his poor littlestandards were no manner of use. He saw himself as in a glass darkly, mystified by unknown change. 

He rose, sighed, shook himself. 

"I give it up, " said he, and went to bed. 

 * * * * *

Doggie went to France; a France hitherto undreamed of, either by himor by any young Englishman; a France clean swept and garnished forwar; a France, save for the ubiquitous English soldiery, of silenttowns and empty villages and deserted roads; a France of smilingfields and sorrowful faces of women and drawn patient faces of oldmen--and even then the women and old men were rarely met by day, forthey were at work on the land, solitary figures on the landscape, withvast spaces between them. In the quiet townships, English street signsand placards conflicted with the sense of being in friendly provincialFrance, and gave the impression of foreign domination. For beyond thatlong grim line of eternal thunder, away over there in the distance, which was called the Front, street signs and placards in yet anotheralien tongue also outraged the serene genius of French urban life. Yetour signs were a symbol of a mighty Empire's brotherhood, and thedimmed eyes that beheld the _Place de la Fontaine_ transformed into"Holborn Circus, " and the _Grande Rue_ into "Piccadilly, " smiled, andthe owners, with eager courtesy, directed the stray Tommy to "RegentStreet, " which they had known all their life as the _RueFeuillemaisnil_--a word which Tommy could not pronounce, still lessremember. It was as much as Tommy could do to get hold of anapproximation to the name of the town. And besides these renamings, other inscriptions flamed about the streets; alphabetical hieroglyphs, in which the mystic letters H. Q. Most often appeared; "This way to theY. M. C. A. Hut"; in many humble windows the startling announcement, "Washing done here. " British motor-lorries and ambulances crowding thelittle _place_ and aligned along the avenues. British faces, Britishvoices, everywhere. The blue uniform and blue helmet of a Frenchsoldier seemed as incongruous though as welcome as in London. 

And the straight endless roads, so French with their infinite borderof poplars, their patient little stones marking every hundred metresuntil the tenth rose into the proud kilometre stone proclaiming thedistance to the next stately town, rang too with the sound of Britishvoices, and the tramp of British feet, and the clatter of Britishtransport, and the screech and whir of cars, revealing as they passedthe flash of red and gold of the British staff. Yet the finelycultivated land remained to show that it was France; and the littlewhitewashed villages; the curé, in shovel-hat and rusty cassock; thechildren in blue or black blouses, who stared as the British troopswent by; the patient, elderly French Territorials in their old pre-waruniforms, guarding unthreatened culverts or repairing the roads; thehelpful signs set up in happier days by the Touring Club of France. 

Into this strange anomaly of a land came Doggie with his draft, stillhalf stupefied by the remorselessness of the stupendous machine inwhich he had been caught, in spite of his many months of training inEngland. He had loathed the East Coast camp. When he landed atBoulogne in the dark and the pouring rain and hunched his pack withthe others who went off singing to the rest camp, he regretted EastAnglia. 

"Give us a turn on the whistle, Doggie, " said a corporal. 

"I was sea-sick into it and threw it overboard, " he growled, stumblingover the rails of the quay. 

"Oh, you holy young liar!" said the man next him. 

But Doggie did not trouble to reply, his neighbour being only aprivate like himself. 

Then the draft joined its unit. In his youth Doggie had often wonderedat the meaning of the familiar inscription on every goods van inFrance: "40 Hommes. 8 Chevaux. " Now he ceased to wonder. He was one ofthe forty men. .. . At the rail-head he began to march, and at lastjoined the remnant of his battalion. They had been through hardfighting, and were now in billets. Until he joined them he had notrealized the drain there had been on the reserves at home. Very manyfamiliar faces of officers were missing. New men had taken theirplace. And very many of his old comrades had gone, some to Blighty, some West of that Island of Desire; and those who remained had theeyes of children who had passed through the Valley of the Shadow ofDeath. 

McPhail and Mo Shendish had passed through unscathed. In thereconstruction of the regiment chance willed that the three of themfound themselves in the same platoon of A Company. Doggie almostembraced them when they met. 

"Laddie, " said McPhail to him, as he was drinking a mahogany-colouredliquid that was known by the name of tea, out of a tin mug, and eatinga hunk of bread and jam, "I don't know whether or not I'm pleased tosee you. You were safer in England. Once I misspent many months of mylife in shielding you from the dangers of France. But France is a muchmore dangerous place nowadays, and I can't help you. You've come rightinto the thick of it. Just listen to the hell's delight that's goingon over yonder. "

The easterly wind brought them the roar streaked with stridence of theartillery duel in progress on the nearest sector of the Front. 

They were sitting in the cellar entrance to a house in a little townwhich had already been somewhat mauled. Just opposite was a shutteredhouse on the ground floor of which had been a hatter and hosier'sshop, and there still swung bravely on an iron rod the red brim ofwhat once had been a monstrous red hat. Next door, the façade of theupper stories had been shelled away and the naked interiors gave theimpression of a pathetic doll's house. Women's garments still hung onpegs. A cottage piano lurched forward drunkenly on three legs, withthe keyboard ripped open, the treble notes on the ground, the bassincongruously in the air. In the attic, ironically secure, hung acheap German print of blowsy children feeding a pig. The wideflagstoned street smelt sour. At various cavern doors sat groups ofthe billeted soldiers. Now and then squads marched up and down, monotonously clad in khaki and dun-coloured helmets. Officers, someonly recognizable by the Sam Browne belt, others spruce andpoint-device, passed by. Here and there a shop was open, and theelderly proprietor and his wife stood by the doorway to get theafternoon air. Women and children straggled rarely through thestreets. The Boche had left the little town alone for some time; theyhad other things to do with their heavy guns; and all the Frenchpopulation, save those whose homes were reduced to nothingness, hadremained. They took no notice of the distant bombardment. It had grownto be a phenomenon of nature like the wind and the rain. 

But to Doggie it was new--just as the sight of the wrecked houseopposite, with its sturdy crownless hat-brim of a sign, was new. Helistened, as McPhail had bidden him, to the artillery duel with an oddlittle spasm of his heart. 

"What do you think of that, now?" asked McPhail grandly, as if it wasThe Greatest Show on Earth run by him, the Proprietor. 

"It's rather noisy, " said Doggie, with a little ironical twist of hislips that was growing habitual. "Do they keep it up at night?"

"They do. "

"I don't think it's fair to interfere with one's sleep like that, "said Doggie. 

"You've got to adapt yourself to it, " said McPhail sagely. "No doubtyou'll be remembering my theory of adaptability. Through that I'vemade myself into a very brave man. When I wanted to run away--a verynatural desire, considering the scrupulous attention I've always paidto my bodily well-being--I reflected on the preposterous obstacles putin the way of flight by a bowelless military system, and adaptedmyself to the static and dynamic conditions of the trenches. "

"Gorblime!" said Mo Shendish, stretched out by his side, "just listento him!"

"I suppose you'll say you sucked honey out of the shells, " remarkedDoggie. 

"I'm no great hand at mixing metaphors----"

"What about drinks?" asked Mo. 

"Nor drinks either, " replied McPhail. "Both are bad for the brain. Butas to what you were saying, laddie, I'll not deny that I've derivedconsiderable interest and amusement from a bombardment. Yet it has itssad aspect. " He paused for a moment or two. "Man, " he continued, "whatan awful waste of money!"

"I don't know what old Mac is jawing about, " said Mo Shendish, "butyou can take it from me he's a holy terror with the bayonet. Onemoment he's talking to a Boche through his hat and the next the Bocheis wriggling like a worm on a bent pin. "

Mo winked at Phineas. The temptation to "tell the tale" to thenew-comer was too strong. 

Doggie grew very serious. "You've been killing men--like that?"

"Thousands, laddie, " replied Phineas, the picture of unboastfulveracity. "And so has Mo. "

Mo Shendish, helmeted, browned, dried, toughened, a very different Mofrom the pallid ferret whom Aggie had driven into the ranks of war, hunched himself up, his hands clasping his knees. 

"I don't mind doing it, when you're so excited you don't know whereyou are, " said he, "but I don't like thinking of it afterwards. "

As a matter of fact, he had only once got home with the bayonet andthe memory was unpleasant. 

"But you've just thought of it, " said Phineas. 

"It was you, not me, " said Mo. "That makes all the difference. "

"It's astonishing, " Phineas remarked sententiously, "how many peoplenot only refuse to catch pleasure as it flies, but spurn it when itsits up and begs at them. Laddie, " he turned to Doggie, "the more onewallows in hedonism, the more one realizes its unplumbed depths. "

A little girl of ten, neatly pigtailed but piteously shod, came nearand cast a child's envious eye on Doggie's bread and jam. 

"Approach, my little one, " Phineas cried in French words but with theaccent of Sauchiehall Street. "If I gave you a franc, what would youdo with it?"

"I should buy nourishment (_de la nourriture_) for _maman_. "

"Lend me a franc, laddie, " said McPhail, and when Doggie had slippedthe coin into his palm, he addressed the child in unintelligiblegrandiloquence and sent her on her way mystified but rejoicing. _Cesbons drôles d'Anglais!_

"Ah, laddie!" cried Phineas, stretching himself out comfortably by thejamb of the door, "you've got to learn to savour the exquisitepleasure of a genuinely kindly act. "

"Hold on!" cried Mo. "It was Doggie's money you were flinging about. "

McPhail withered him with a glance. 

"You're an unphilosophical ignoramus, " said he. 

CHAPTER XII

Perhaps one of the greatest influences which transformed Doggie into afairly efficient though undistinguished infantryman was a morbidsocial terror of his officers. It saved him from many a guard-room, and from many a heart-to-heart talk wherein the zealous lieutenantgets to know his men. He lived in dread lest military delinquency orcivil accomplishment should be the means of revealing the disgracewhich bit like an acid into his soul. His undisguisable air ofsuperior breeding could not fail to attract notice. Often his officersasked him what he was in civil life. His reply, "A clerk, sir, " had tosatisfy them. He had developed a curious self-protective faculty ofshutting himself up like a hedgehog at the approach of danger. Once abreezy subaltern had selected him as his batman; but Doggie'sagonized, "It would be awfully good of you, sir, if you wouldn't mindnot thinking of it, " and the appeal in his eyes, established thefreemasonry of caste and saved him from dreaded intimate relations. 

"All right, if you'd rather not, Trevor, " said the subaltern. "But whydoesn't a chap like you try for a commission?"

"I'm much happier as I am, sir, " replied Doggie, and that was the endof the matter. 

But Phineas, when he heard of it--it was on the East Coast--began: "Ifyou still consider yourself too fine to clean another man's boots----"

Doggie, in one of his quick fits of anger, interrupted: "If you thinkI'm just a dirty little snob, if you don't understand why I begged tobe let off, you're the thickest-headed fool in creation!"

"I'm nae that, laddie, " replied Phineas, with his usual ironicsubmissiveness. "Haven't I kept your secret all this time?"

Thus it was Doggie's fixed idea to lose himself in the locust swarm, to be prominent neither for good nor evil, even in the little clot offifty, outwardly, almost identical locusts that formed his platoon. Itbraced him to the performance of hideous tasks; it restrained him fromdisplay of superior intellectual power or artistic capability. Theworld upheaval had thrown him from his peacock and ivory room, withits finest collection on earth of little china dogs, into a horriblefetid hole in the ground in Northern France. It had thrown not theaverage young Englishman of comfortable position, who had toyed withæsthetic superficialities as an amusement, but a poor littleby-product of cloistered life who had been brought up from babyhood toregard these things as the nervous texture of his very existence. Hewas wrapped from head to heel in fine net, to every tiny mesh of whichhe was acutely sensitive. 

A hole in the ground in Northern France. The regiment, after its rest, moved on and took its turn in the trenches. Four days on; four daysoff. Four days on of misery inconceivable. Four days on, during whichthe officers watched the men with the unwavering vigilance of kindlycats:

"How are you getting along, Trevor?"

"Nicely, thank you, sir. "

"Feet all right?"

"Yes, thank you, sir. "

"Sure? If you want to grouse, grouse away. That's what I'm talking toyou for. "

"I'm perfectly happy, sir. "

"Darn sight more than I am!" laughed the subaltern, and with a cheerynod in acknowledgment of Doggie's salute, splashed down the muddytrench. 

But Doggie was chilled to the bone, and he had no feeling in his feet, which were under six inches of water, and his woollen gloves being wetthrough were useless, and prevented his numbed hands from feeling thesandbags with which he and the rest of the platoon were repairing theparapet; for the Germans had just consecrated an hour's general hateto the vicinity of the trench, and its exquisite symmetry, the prideof the platoon commander, had been disturbed. There had also been afew ghastly casualties. A shell had fallen and burst in the traverseat the far end of the trench. Something that looked like half a man'shead and a bit of shoulder had dropped just in front of the dug-outwhere Doggie and his section was sheltering. Doggie staring at it wasviolently sick. In a stupefied way he found himself mingling withothers who were engaged in clearing up the horror. A murmur reachedhim that it was Taffy Jones who had thus been dismembered. .. . Thebombardment over, he had taken his place with the rest in thereparation of the parapet; and as he happened to be at an end of theline, the officer had spoken to him. If he had been suffering torturesunknown to Attila, and unimagined by his successors, he would haveanswered just the same. 

 * * * * *

But he lamented Taffy's death to Phineas, who listenedsympathetically. Such a cheery comrade, such a smart soldier, such akindly soul. 

"Not a black spot in him, " said Doggie. 

"A year ago, laddie, " said McPhail, "what would have been your opinionof a bookmaker's clerk?"

"I know, " replied Doggie. "But this isn't a year ago. Just lookround. "

He laughed somewhat hysterically, for the fate of Taffy had unstrunghim for the time. Phineas contemplated the length of deep narrowditch, with its planks half swimming on filthy liquid, its wirerevetment holding up the oozing sides, the dingy parapet above whichit was death to put one's head, the grey free sky, the only thing freealong that awful row of parallel ditches that stretched from theBelgian coast to Switzerland, the clay-covered, shapeless figures ofmen, their fellows, almost undistinguishable even by features fromthemselves. 

"It has been borne upon me lately, " said Phineas, "that patriotism isan amazing virtue. "

Doggie drew a foot out of the mud so as to find a less precariouspurchase higher up the slope. 

"And I've been thinking, Phineas, whether it's really patriotism thathas brought you and me into this--what can we call it? Dante's Infernois child's play to it. "

"Dante had no more imagination, " said Phineas, "than a Free Kirkprecentor in Kirkcudbright. "

"But is it patriotism?" Doggie persisted. "If I thought it was, Ishould be happier. If we had orders to go over the top and attack andI could shout 'England for ever!' and lose myself just in the thick ofit----"

"There's a brass hat coming down the trench, " said Phineas, "and brasshats have no use for rhapsodical privates. "

They stood to attention as the staff officer passed by. Then Doggiebroke in impatiently:

"I wish to goodness you could understand what I'm trying to get at. "

A smile illuminated the gaunt, unshaven, mud-caked face of PhineasMcPhail. 

"Laddie, " said he, "let England, as an abstraction, fend for itself. But you've a bonny English soul within you, and for that you arefighting. And so had poor Taffy Jones. And I have a bonny Scottishthirst, the poignancy of which both of you have been happily spared. Iwill leave you, laddie, to seek in slumber a surcease from martyrdom. "

 * * * * *

Doggie had been out a long time. He had seen many places, muchfighting and endured manifold miseries. After one of the spells in thetrenches, the worst he had experienced, A Company was marched into newbillets some miles behind the lines, in the once prosperous village ofFrélus. They had slouched along dead tired, drooping under theirpacks, sodden with mud and sleeplessness, silent, with not a note of asong among them--but at the entrance to the village, quickened by aword or two of exhortation from officers and sergeants, they pulledthemselves together and marched in, heads up, forward, in faultlessstep. The C. O. Was jealous of the honour of his men. He assumed thathis predecessors in the village had been a "rotten lot, " and wasdetermined to show the inhabitants of Frélus what a crack Englishregiment was really like. Frélus was an unimportant, unheard-ofvillage; but the opinion of a thousand Fréluses made up France'sopinion of the British Army. Doggie, although half stupefied withfatigue, responded to the sentiment, like the rest. He was consciousof making part of a gallant show. It was only when they halted andstood easy that he lost count of things. The wide main street of thevillage swam characterless before his eyes. He followed, notdirections, but directed men, with a sheep-like instinct, and foundhimself stumbling through an archway down a narrow path. He had a dimconsciousness of lurching sideways and confusedly apologizing to awoman who supported him back to equilibrium. Then the next thing hesaw was a barn full of fresh straw, and when somebody pointed to avacant strip, he fell down, with many others, and went to sleep. 

The réveillé sounded a minute afterwards, though a whole night hadpassed; and there was the blessed clean water to wash in--he had longsince ceased to be fastidious in his ablutions--and there wasbreakfast, sizzling bacon and bread and jam. And there in front of thekitchen, aiding with the hot water for the tea, moved a slim girl, with dark, and as Doggie thought, tragic eyes. 

 * * * * *

Kit inspection, feet inspection, all the duties of the day and dinnerwere over. Most of the men returned to their billets to sleep. Some, including Doggie, wandered about the village, taking the air, andvisiting the little modest cafés and talking with indifferentsuccess, so far as the interchange of articulate ideas was concerned, with shy children. McPhail and Mo Shendish being among the sleepers, Doggie mooned about by himself in his usual self-effacing way. Therewas little to interest him in the long straggling village. He hadpassed through a hundred such. Low whitewashed houses, interspersedwith perky balconied buildings given over to little shops on theground floor, with here and there a discreet iron gate shutting offthe doctor's or the attorney's villa, and bearing the oval plateindicating the name and pursuit of the tenant; here and there, too, long whitewashed walls enclosing a dairy or a timber-yard stretched oneach side of the great high road, and the village gradually dwindledaway at each end into the gently undulating country. There were just aby-lane or two, one leading up to the little grey church andpresbytery and another to the little cemetery with its trim paths andblack and white wooden crosses and wirework pious offerings. At opendoors the British soldiers lounged at ease, and in the dim interiorsbehind them the forms of the women of the house, blue-aproned, movedto and fro. The early afternoon was warm, a westerly breeze deadenedthe sound of the distant bombardment to an unheeded drone, and a holypeace settled over the place. 

Doggie, clean, refreshed, comfortably drowsy, having explored thevillage, returned to his billet, and looking at it from the oppositeside of the way, for the first time realized its nature. The lane, into which he had stumbled the night before, ran under an archwaysupporting some kind of overhead chamber, and separated thedwelling-house from a warehouse wall on which vast letters proclaimedthe fact that Veuve Morin et Fils carried on therein the business ofhay and corn dealers. Hence, Doggie reflected, the fresh, deep strawon which he and his fortunate comrades had wallowed. The double gateunder the archway was held back by iron stanchions. The two-storiedhouse looked fairly large and comfortable. The front door stood wideopen, giving the view of a neat, stiff little hall or living-room. Anarticle of furniture caught his idle eye. He crossed the road in orderto have a nearer view. It was a huge polished mahogany cask standingabout three feet high and bound with shining brass bands, such as heremembered having seen once in Brittany. He advanced still closer, andsuddenly the slim, dark girl appeared and stood in the doorway, andlooked frankly and somewhat rebukingly into his inquisitive eyes. Doggie flushed as one caught in an unmannerly act. A crying fault ofthe British Army is that it prescribes for the rank and file no formof polite recognition of the existence of civilians. It is contrary toArmy Orders to salute or to take off their caps. They can only jerktheir heads and grin, an inelegant proceeding, which places them at adisadvantage with the fair sex. Doggie, therefore, sketched a vaguesalutation half-way between a salute and a bow, and began a profuseapology. Mademoiselle must pardon his curiosity, but as a lover of oldthings he had been struck by the beautiful _tonneau_. 

An amused light came into her sombre eyes and a smile flickered roundher lips. Doggie noted instantly how pale she was, and how tiny, faintlittle lines persisted at the corners of those lips in spite of thesmile. 

"There is no reason for excuses, monsieur, " she said. "The door wasopen to the view of everybody. "

"_Pourtant_, " said Doggie, "_c'était un peu mal élevé_. "

She laughed. "Pardon. But it's droll. First to find an English soldierapologizing for looking into a house, and then to find him talkingFrench like a _poilu_. "

Doggie said, with a little touch of national jealousy and a reversionto Durdlebury punctilio: "I hope, mademoiselle, you have always foundthe English soldier conduct himself like a gentleman. "

"_Mais oui, mais oui!_" she cried, "they are all charming. _Ils sontdoux comme des moutons. _ But this is a question of delicacy--somewhatexaggerated. "

"It's good of you, mademoiselle, to forgive me, " said Doggie. 

By all the rules of polite intercourse, either Doggie should have madehis bow and exit, or the maiden, exercising her prerogative, shouldhave given him the opportunity of a graceful withdrawal. But theyremained where they were, the girl framed by the doorway, the lithelittle figure in khaki and lichen-coloured helmet looking up at herfrom the foot of the two front steps. 

At last he said in some embarrassment: "That's a very beautiful caskof yours. "

She wavered for a few seconds. Then she said:

"You can enter, monsieur, and examine it, if you like. "

Mademoiselle was very amiable, said Doggie. Mademoiselle moved asideand Doggie entered, taking off his helmet and holding it under his armlike an opera-hat. There was nothing much to see in the littlevestibule-parlour: a stiff tasselled chair or two, a great oldlinen-press taking up most of one side of a wall, a cheap tablecovered with a chenille tablecloth, and the resplendent old cask, about which he lingered. He mentioned Brittany. Her tragic facelighted up again. Monsieur was right. Her aunt, Madame Morin, wasBreton, and had brought the cask with her as part of her dowry, together with the press and other furniture. Doggie alluded to thevastly lettered inscription, "Veuve Morin et Fils. " Madame Morin was, in a sense, his hostess. And the sons?

"One is in Madagascar, and the other--alas, monsieur!"

And Doggie knew what that "alas!" meant. 

"The Argonne, " she said. 

"And madame your aunt?"

She shrugged her thin though shapely shoulders. "It nearly killed her. She is old and an invalid. She has been in bed for the last threeweeks. "

"Then what becomes of the business?"

"It is I, monsieur, who am the business. And I know nothing about it. "She sighed. Then with her blue apron--otherwise she was dressed inunrelieved black--she rubbed an imaginary speck from the brass bandingof the cask. "This, I suppose you know, was for the best brandy, monsieur. "

"And now?" he asked. 

"A memory. A sentiment. A thing of beauty. "

In a feminine way, which he understood, she herded him to the door, byway of dismissal. Durdlebury helped him. A tiny French village has asmany slanderous tongues as an English cathedral city. He was preparingto take polite leave, when she looked swiftly at him and made thefaintest gesture of a detaining hand. 

"Now I remember. It was you who nearly fell into me last night, whenyou were entering through the gate. "

The dim recollection came back--the firm woman's arm round him for thefew tottering seconds. 

"It seems I am always bound to be impolite, for I don't think Ithanked you, " smiled Doggie. 

"You were at the end of your tether. " Then very gently, "_Pauvregarçon!_"

"The _sales Boches_ had kept us awake for four nights, " said Doggie. "That was why. "

"And you are rested now?"

He laughed. "Almost. "

They were at the door. He looked out and drew back. A knot of men weregathered by the gate of the yard. Apparently she had seen them too, for a flush rose to her pale cheeks. 

"Mademoiselle, " said Doggie, "I should like to creep back to the barnand sleep. If I pass my comrades they'll want to detain me. "

"That would be a pity, " she said demurely. "Come this way, monsieur. "

She led him through a room and a passage to the kitchen. They shared apleasurable sense of adventure and secrecy. At the kitchen door shepaused and spoke to an old woman chopping up vegetables. 

"Toinette, let monsieur pass. " To Doggie she said: "Au revoir, monsieur!" and disappeared. 

The old woman looked at him at first with disfavour. She did not holdwith Tommies needlessly tramping over the clean flags of her kitchen. But Doggie's polite apology for disturbing her and a youthful grace ofmanner--he still held his tin hat under his arm--caused her featuresto relax. 

"You are English?"

With a smile, he indicated his uniform. "Why, yes, madame. "

"How comes it, then, that you speak French?"

"Because I have always loved your beautiful France, madame. "

"France--_ah! la pauvre France_!" She sighed, drew a wisp of what hadbeen a cornet of snuff from her pocket, opened it, dipped in atentative finger and thumb and, finding it empty, gazed at it withdisappointment, sighed again and, with the methodical hopelessness ofage, folded it up into the neatest of little squares and thrust itback in her pocket. Then she went on with her vegetables. 

Doggie took his leave and emerged into the yard. 

He dozed pleasantly on the straw of the barn, but it was not the deadsleep of the night. Bits of his recent little adventure fitted intothe semi-conscious intervals. He heard the girl's voice saying sogently: "_Pauvre garçon!_" and it was very comforting. 

He was finally aroused by Phineas and Mo Shendish, who, having sleptlike tired dogs some distance off down the barn, now desired hiscompany for a stroll round the village. Doggie good-naturedlyassented. As they passed the house door he cast a quick glance. It wasopen, but the slim figure in black with the blue apron was not visiblewithin. The shining cask, however, seemed to smile a friendlygreeting. 

"If you believed the London papers, " said Phineas, "you'd think thatthe war-worn soldier coming from the trenches is met behind the lineswith luxurious Turkish baths, comfortable warm canteens, picturepalaces and theatrical entertainments. Can you perceive here any ofthose amenities of modern warfare?"

They looked around them, and admitted they could not. 

"Apparently, " said Phineas, "the Colonel, good but limited man, hasmissed all the proper places and dumps us in localities unrecognizedby the London Press. "

"Put me on the pier at Brighton, " sang Mo Shendish. "But I'd soonerhave Margit or Yarmouth any day. Brighton's too toffish for whelks. My! and cockles! I wonder whether we shall ever eat 'em again. " Afar-away, dreamy look crept into his eyes. 

"Does your young lady like cockles?" Doggie asked sympathetically. 

"Aggie? Funny thing, I was just thinking of her. She fair dotes on'em. We had a day at Southend just before the war----"

He launched into anecdote. His companions listened, Phineas ironicallycarrying out his theory of adaptability, Doggie with finer instinct. It appeared there had been an altercation over right of choice with anitinerant vendor in which, to Aggie's admiration, Mo had come offtriumphant. 

"You see, " he explained, "being in the fish trade myself, I could spotthe winners. "

James Marmaduke Trevor, of Denby Hall, laughed and slapped him on theback, and said indulgently: "Good old Mo!"

At the little school-house they stopped to gossip with some of theirfriends who were billeted there, and they sang the praises of theVeuve Morin's barn. 

"I wonder you don't have the house full of orficers, if it's sowonderful, " said some one. 

An omniscient corporal in the confidence of the quartermasterexplained that the landlady being ill in bed, and the place run by ayoung girl, the house had been purposely missed. Doggie drew a breathof relief at the news and attributed Madame Morin's malady to theintervention of a kindly providence. Somehow he did not fancy officershaving the run of the house. 

They strolled on and came to a forlorn little _Débit de Tabac_, showing in its small window some clay pipes and a few fly-blownpicture post-cards. Now Doggie, in spite of his training in adversity, had never resigned himself to "Woodbines, " and other such brandssupplied to the British Army, and Egyptian and Turkish being beyondhis social pale, he had taken to smoking French Régie tobacco, ofwhich he laid in a stock whenever he had the chance. So now he enteredthe shop, leaving Phineas and Mo outside. As they looked on Frenchcigarettes with sturdy British contempt, they were not interested inDoggie's purchases. A wan girl of thirteen rose from behind thecounter. 

"_Vous désirez, monsieur?_"

Doggie stated his desire. The girl was calculating the price of thepackets before wrapping them up, when his eyes fell upon a neat littlepile of cornets in a pigeon-hole at the back. They directly suggestedto him one of the great luminous ideas of his life. It was onlyafterwards that he realized its effulgence. For the moment he wasmerely concerned with the needs of a poor old woman who had sighedlamentably over an empty paper of comfort. 

"Do you sell snuff?"

"But yes, monsieur. "

"Give me some of the best quality. "

"How much does monsieur desire?"

"A lot, " said Doggie. 

And he bought a great package, enough to set the whole villagesneezing to the end of the war, and peering round the tiny shop andespying in the recesses of a glass case a little olive-wood boxornamented on the top with pansies and forget-me-nots, purchased thatalso. He had just paid when his companions put their heads in thedoorway. Mo, pointing waggishly to Doggie, warned the little girlagainst his depravity. 

"Mauvy, mauvy!" said he. 

"_Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?_" asked the child. 

"He's the idiot of the regiment, whom I have to look after and feedwith pap, " said Doggie, "and, being hungry, he is begging you not todetain me. "

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried the child. 

Doggie, always courteous, went out with a "_Bon soir, mademoiselle_, "and joined his friends. 

"What were you jabbering to her about?" Mo asked suspiciously. 

Doggie gave him the literal translation of his speech. Phineas burstinto loud laughter. 

"Laddie, " said he, "I've never heard you make a joke before. The idiotof the regiment, and you're his keeper! Man, that's fine. What hascome over you to-day?"

"If he'd said a thing like that in Mare Street, Hackney, I'd haveknocked his blinking 'ead orf, " declared Mo Shendish. 

Doggie stopped and put his parcel-filled hands behind his back. 

"Have a try now, Mo. "

But Mo bade him fry his ugly face, and thus established harmony. 

It was late that evening before Doggie could find an opportunity ofslipping, unobserved, through the open door into the house kitchendimly illuminated by an oil lamp. 

"Madame, " said he to Toinette, "I observed to-day that you had come tothe end of your snuff. Will you permit a little English soldier togive you some? Also a little box to keep it in. "

The old woman, spare, myriad-wrinkled beneath her peasant's _coiffe_, yet looking as if carved out of weather-beaten oak, glanced from thegift to the donor and from the donor to the gift. 

"But, monsieur--monsieur--why?" she began quaveringly. 

"You surely have some one--_là bas_--over yonder?" said Doggie witha sweep of his hand. 

"_Mais oui?_ How did you know? My grandson. _Mon petiot_----"

"It is he, my comrade, who sends the snuff to the _grand'mére_. " AndDoggie bolted. 

CHAPTER XIII

At breakfast next morning Doggie searched the courtyard in vain forthe slim figure of the girl. Yesterday she had stood just outside thekitchen door. To-day her office was usurped by a hefty cook with thesleeves of his grey shirt rolled up and his collar open and vast andtight-hitched braces unromantically strapped all over him. Doggie felta pang of disappointment and abused the tea. Mo Shendish stared, andasked what was wrong with it. 

"Rotten, " said Doggie. 

"You can't expect yer slap-up City A. B. C. Shops in France, " said Mo. 

Doggie, who was beginning to acquire a sense of rueful humour, smiledand was appeased. 

It was only in the afternoon that he saw the girl again. She wasstanding in the doorway of the house, with her hand on her bosom, asthough she had just come out to breathe fresh air, when Doggie and histwo friends emerged from the yard. As their eyes met, she greeted himwith her sad little smile. Emboldened, he stepped forward. 

"_Bon jour, mademoiselle. _"

"_Bon jour, monsieur. _"

"I hope madame your aunt is better to-day. "

She seemed to derive some dry amusement from his solicitude. 

"Alas, no, monsieur. "

"Was that why I had not the pleasure of seeing you this morning?"

"Where?"

"Yesterday you filled our tea-kettles. "

"But, monsieur, " she replied primly, "I am not the _vivandière_ ofthe regiment. "

"That's a pity, " laughed Doggie. 

Then he became aware of the adjacent forms and staring eyes of Phineasand Mo, who for the first time in their military career beheld him oneasy terms with a strange and prepossessing young woman. After asecond's thought he came to a diplomatic decision. 

"Mademoiselle, " said he, in his best Durdlebury manner, "may I dare topresent my two comrades, my best friends in the battalion, MonsieurMcPhail, Monsieur Shendish?"

She made them each a little formal bow, and then, somewhatmaliciously, addressing McPhail, as the bigger and the elder of thetwo:

"I don't yet know the name of your friend. "

Phineas put his great hand on Doggie's shoulder. 

"James Marmaduke Trevor. "

"Otherwise called Doggie, miss, " said Mo. 

She made a little graceful gesture of non-comprehension. 

"_Non compree?_" asked Mo. 

"No, monsieur. "

Phineas explained, in his rasping and consciously translated French:

"It is a nickname of the regiment. Doggie. "

The flushed and embarrassed subject of the discussion saw her lipsmove silently to the word. 

"But his name is Trevor. Monsieur Trevor, " said Phineas. 

She smiled again. And the strange thing about her smile was that itwas a matter of her lips and rarely of her eyes, which alwaysmaintained the haunting sadness of their tragic depths. 

"Monsieur Trevor, " she repeated imitatively. "And yours, monsieur?"

"McPhail. "

"Mac-Fêle; _c'est assez difficile_. And yours?"

Mo guessed. "Shendish, " said he. 

She repeated that also, whereat Mo grinned fatuously, showing hislittle yellow teeth beneath his scrubby red moustache. 

"My friends call me Mo, " said he. 

She grasped his meaning. "Mo, " she said; and she said it so funnilyand softly, and with ever so little a touch of quizzicality, that thesentimental warrior roared with delight. 

"You've got it right fust time, miss. "

From her two steps' height of vantage, she looked down on the threeupturned British faces--and her eyes went calmly from one to theother. 

She turned to Doggie. "One would say, monsieur, that you were theThree Musketeers. "

"Possibly, mademoiselle, " laughed Doggie. He had not felt solight-hearted for many months. "But we lack a d'Artagnan. "

"When you find him, bring him to me, " said the girl. 

"Mademoiselle, " said Phineas gallantly, "we would not be suchimbeciles. "

At that moment the voice of Toinette came from within. 

"Ma'amselle Jeanne! Ma'amselle Jeanne!"

"_Oui, oui, j'y viens_, " she cried. "_Bon soir, messieurs_, " and shewas gone. 

Doggie looked into the empty vestibule and smiled at the friendlybrandy cask. Provided it is pronounced correctly, so as to rhyme withthe English "Anne, " it is a very pretty name. Doggie thought shelooked like Jeanne--a Jeanne d'Arc of this modern war. 

"Yon's a very fascinating lassie, " Phineas remarked soberly, as theystarted on their stroll. "Did you happen to observe that all the timeshe was talking so prettily she was looking at ghosts behind us?"

"Do you think so?" asked Doggie, startled. 

"Man, I know it, " replied Phineas. 

"Ghosts be blowed!" cried Mo Shendish. "She's a bit of orl right, she is. What I call class. Doesn't chuck 'erself at yer 'ead, like some of 'em, and, on the other 'and, has none of yer blooming stand-orfishness. Seewhat I mean?" He clutched them each by an arm--he was between them. "Look 'ere. How do you think I could pick up this blinkinglingo--quick?"

"Make violent love to Toinette and ask her to teach you. There'snothing like it, " said Doggie. 

"Who's Toinette?"

"The nice old lady in the kitchen. "

Mo flung his arm away. "Oh, go and boil yourself!" said he. 

 * * * * *

But the making of love to the old woman in the kitchen led topossibilities of which Mo Shendish never dreamed. They never dawned onDoggie until he found himself at it that evening. 

It was dusk. The men were lounging and smoking about the courtyard. Doggie, who had long since exchanged poor Taffy Jones's imperfectpenny whistle for a scientific musical instrument ordered from BondStreet, was playing, with his sensitive skill, the airs they loved. Hehad just finished "Annie Laurie"--"Man, " Phineas used to declare, "when Doggie Trevor plays 'Annie Laurie, ' he has the power to takeyour heart by the strings and drag it out through your eyes"--he hadjust come to the end of this popular and gizzard-piercing tune andreceived his meed of applause, when Toinette came out of the kitchen, two great zinc crocks in her hands, and crossed to the pump in thecorner of the yard. Three or four would-be pumpers, among them Doggie, went to her aid. 

"All right, mother, we'll see to it, " said one of them. 

So they pumped and filled the crocks, and one man got hold of one andDoggie got hold of another, and they carried them to the kitchensteps. 

"_Merci, monsieur_, " said Toinette to the first; and he went away witha friendly nod. But to Doggie she said, "_Entrez, monsieur_. " Andmonsieur carried the two crocks over the threshold and Toinette shutthe door behind him. And there, sitting over some needlework in acorner of the kitchen by a lamp, sat Jeanne. 

She looked up rather startled, frowned for the brief part of a second, and regarded him inquiringly. 

"I brought in monsieur to show him the photograph of _mon petiot_, thecomrade who sent me the snuff, " explained Toinette, rummaging in acupboard. 

"May I stay and look at it?" asked Doggie, buttoning up his tunic. 

"_Mais parfaitement, monsieur_, " said Jeanne. "It is Toinette'skitchen. "

"_Bien sûr_, " said the old woman, turning with the photograph, thatof a solid young infantryman. Doggie made polite remarks. Toinette puton a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles and scanned the picture. Thenshe handed it to Jeanne. 

"Don't you think there is a great deal of resemblance?"

Jeanne directed a comparing glance at Doggie and smiled. 

"Like two little soldiers in a pod, " she said. 

Toinette talked of her _petiot_ who was at St. Mihiel. It was faraway, very far. She sighed as though he were fighting remote in theCaucasus. 

Presently came the sharp ring of a bell. Jeanne put aside her work androse. 

"It is my aunt who has awakened. "

But Toinette was already at the door. "I will go up, Ma'amselleJeanne. Do not derange yourself. "

She bustled away. Once more the pair found themselves alone together. 

"If you don't continue your sewing, mademoiselle, " said Doggie, "Ishall think that I am disturbing you, and must bid you good night. "

Jeanne sat down and resumed her work. A sensation, more like laughterthan anything else, fluttered round Doggie's heart. 

"_Voulez-vous vous asseoir, Monsieur--Trevor?_"

"_Vous êtes bien aimable, Mademoiselle Jeanne_, " said Doggie, sittingdown on a straight-backed chair by the oilcloth-covered kitchen tablewhich was between them. 

"May I move the lamp slightly?" he asked, for it hid her from hisview. 

He moved it somewhat to her left. It threw shadows over her features, accentuating their appealing sadness. He watched her, and thought ofMcPhail's words about the ghosts. He noted too, as the needle went inand out of the fabric, that her hands, though roughened by coarsework, were finely made, with long fingers and delicate wrists. Hebroke a silence that grew embarrassing. 

"You seem to have suffered greatly, Mademoiselle Jeanne, " he saidsoftly. 

Her lips quivered. "_Mais oui, monsieur. _"

"Monsieur Trevor, " he said. 

She put her hands and needlework in her lap and looked at him full. 

"And you too have suffered?"

"I? Oh no. "

"But, yes. I have seen too much of it not to know. I see in the eyes. Your two comrades to-day--they are good fellows--but they have notsuffered. You are different. "

"Not a bit, " he declared. "We're just little indistinguishable bits ofthe conglomerate Tommy. "

"And I, monsieur, have the honour to say that you are different. "

This was very flattering. More--it was sweet unction, grateful to manya bruise. 

"How?" said he. 

"You do not belong to their world. Your Tommies are wonderful in theirkindness and chivalry--until I met them I had never seen an Englishmanin my life--I had imbecile ideas--I thought they would be withoutmanners--_un peu insultants_. I found I could walk among them, withoutfear, as if I were a princess. It is true. "

"It is because you have the air of a princess, " said Doggie; "a sadlittle disguised princess of a fairy-tale, who is recognized by allthe wild boars and rabbits in the wood. "

She glanced aside. "There isn't a woman in Frélus who is differentlytreated. I am only an ignorant girl, half bourgeoise, half peasant, monsieur, but I have my woman's knowledge--and I know there is adifference between you and the others. You are a son of good family. It is evident. You have a delicacy of mind and of feeling. You werenot born to be a soldier. "

"Mademoiselle Jeanne, " cried Doggie, "do I appear as bad as that? Doyou take me for an _embusqué manqué_?"

Now an _embusqué_ is a slacker who lies in the safe ambush of a softjob. And an _embusqué manqué_ is a slacker who fortuitously hasfailed to win the fungus wreath of slackerdom. 

She flushed deep red. 

"_Je ne suis pas malhonnête, monsieur. _"

Doggie spread himself elbow-wise over the table. The girl's visibleregister of moods was fascinating. 

"Pardon, Mademoiselle Jeanne. You are quite right. But it's not aquestion of what I was born to be--but what I was trained to be. Iwasn't trained to be a soldier. But I do my best. "

She looked at him waveringly. 

"Forgive me, mademoiselle. "

"But you flash out on the point of honour. "

Doggie laughed. "Which shows that I have the essential of thesoldier. "

Doggie's manner was not without charm. She relented. 

"You know very well what I mean, " she said rebukingly. "And you don'tdeserve that I should tell it to you. It was my intention to say thatyou have sacrificed many things to make yourself a simple soldier. "

"Only a few idle habits, " said Doggie. 

"You joined, like the rest, as a volunteer. "

"Of course. "

"You abandoned everything to fight for your country?"

Under the spell of her dark eyes Doggie spoke according to Phineasafter the going West of Taffy Jones, "I think, Mademoiselle Jeanne, itwas rather to fight for my soul. "

She resumed her sewing. "That's what I meant long ago, " she remarkedwith the first draw of the needle. "No one could fight for his soulwithout passing through suffering. " She went on sewing. Doggie, shrinking from a reply that might have sounded fatuous, remainedsilent; but he realized a wonderful faculty of comprehension inJeanne. 

After awhile he said: "Where did you learn all your wisdom, Mademoiselle Jeanne?"

"At the convent, I suppose. My father gave me a good education. "

"An English poet has said, 'Knowledge comes, but Wisdomlingers'"--Doggie had rather a fight to express the meaning exactly inFrench--"You don't gather wisdom in convents. "

"It is true. Since then I have seen many things. "

She stared across the room, not at Doggie, and he thought again of theghosts. 

"Tell me some of them, Mademoiselle Jeanne, " he said in a low voice. 

She shot a swift glance at him and met his honest brown eyes. 

"I saw my father murdered in front of me, " she said in a harsh voice. 

"My God!" said Doggie. 

"It was on the Retreat. We lived in Cambrai, my father and mother andI. He was a lawyer. When we heard the Germans were coming, my father, somewhat of an invalid, decided to fly. He had heard of what they hadalready done in Belgium. We tried to go by train. _Pas moyen. _ We tookto the road, with many others. We could not get a horse--we hadpostponed our flight till too late. Only a handcart, with a fewnecessaries and precious things. And we walked until we nearly died ofheat and dust and grief. For our hearts were very heavy, monsieur. Theroads, too, were full of the English in retreat. I shall not tell youwhat I saw of the wounded by the roadside. I sometimes see them now inmy dreams. And we were helpless. We thought we would leave the mainroads, and at last we got lost and found ourselves in a little wood. We sat down to rest and to eat. It was cool and pleasant, and Ilaughed, to cheer my parents, for they knew how I loved to eat underthe freshness of the trees. " She shivered. "I hope I shall never haveto eat a meal in a wood again. We had scarcely begun when a body ofcavalry, with strange pointed helmets, rode along the path and, seeingus, halted. My mother, half dead with terror, cried out, '_Mon Dieu, ce sont des Uhlans!_' The leader, I suppose an officer, called outsomething in German. My father replied. I do not understand German, soI did not know and shall never know what they said. But my fatherprotested in anger and stood in front of the horse making gestures. And then the officer took out his revolver and shot him through theheart, and he fell dead. And the murderer turned his horse's headround and he laughed. He laughed, monsieur. "

"Damn him!" said Doggie, in English. "Damn him!"

He gazed deep into Jeanne's dark tearless eyes. She continued in thesame even voice:

"My mother became mad. She was a peasant, a Bretonne, where the bloodis fierce, and she screamed and clung to the bridle of the horse. Andhe rode her down and the horse trampled on her. Then he pointed at me, who was supporting the body of my father, and three men dismounted. But suddenly he heard something, gave an order, and the men mountedagain, and they all rode away laughing and jeering, and the last man, in bad French, shouted at me a foul insult. And I was there, MonsieurTrevor, with my father dead and my mother stunned and bruised andbleeding. "

Doggie, sensitive, quivered to the girl's tragedy: he said, with tenseface:

"God give me strength to kill every German I see!"

She nodded slowly. "No German is a human being. If I were God, I wouldexterminate the accursed race like wolves. "

"You are right, " said Doggie. A short silence fell. He asked: "Whathappened then?"

"_Mon Dieu_, I almost forget. I was overwhelmed with grief and horror. Some hours afterwards a small body of English infantry came--many ofthem had bloodstained bandages. An officer who spoke a little Frenchquestioned me. I told him what had happened. He spoke with anotherofficer, and because I recognized the word 'Uhlans, ' I knew they wereanxious about the patrol. They asked me the way to some place--Iforget where. But I was lost. They looked at a map. Meanwhile mymother had recovered consciousness. I gave her a little wine from thebottle we had opened for our repast. I happened to look at the officerand saw him pass his tongue over his cracked lips. All the men hadthrown themselves down by the side of the road. I handed him thebottle and the little tin cup. To my surprise, he did not drink. Hesaid: 'Mademoiselle, this is war, and we are all in very great peril. My men are dying of thirst, and if you have any more of the wine, giveit to them and they will do their utmost to conduct your mother andyourself to a place of safety. ' Alas! there were only three bottles inour little basket of provisions. Naturally I gave it all--togetherwith the food. He called a sergeant, who took the provisions anddistributed them, while I was tending my mother. But I noticed thatthe two officers took neither bite nor sup. It was only afterwards, Monsieur Trevor, that I realized I had seen your great Englishgentlemen. .. . Then they dug a little grave, for my father. .. . It wassoon finished . .. The danger was grave . .. And some soldiers took arope and pulled the handcart, with my mother lying on top of ourlittle possessions, and I walked with them, until the whole of my lifewas blotted out with fatigue. We got on to the Route Nationale againand mingled again with the Retreat. And in the night, as we were stillmarching, there was a halt. I went to my mother. She was cold, monsieur, cold and stiff. She was dead. "

She paused tragically. After a few moments she continued:

"I fainted. I do not know what happened till I recovered consciousnessat dawn. I found myself wrapped in one of our blankets, lying underthe handcart. It was the market-square of a little town. And therewere many--old men and women and children, refugees like me. I roseand found a paper--a leaf torn from a notebook--fixed to the handcart. It was from the officer, bidding me farewell. Military necessityforced him to go on with his men--but he had kept his word, andbrought me to a place of safety. .. . That is how I first met theEnglish, Monsieur Trevor. They had carried me, I suppose, on thehandcart, all night, they who were broken with weariness. I owe themmy life and my reason. "

"And your mother?"

"How should I know? _Elle est restée là-bas_, " she replied simply. 

She went on with her sewing. Doggie wondered how her hand could be sosteady. There was a long silence. What words, save vain imprecationson the accursed race, were adequate? Presently her glance rested for asecond or two on his sensitive face. 

"Why do you not smoke, Monsieur Trevor?"

"May I?"

"Of course. It calms the nerves. I ought not to have saddened you withmy griefs. "

Doggie took out his pink packet and lit a cigarette. 

"You are very understanding, Mademoiselle Jeanne. But it does aselfish man like me good to be saddened by a story like yours. I havenot had much opportunity in my life of feeling for another'ssuffering. And since the war--I am _abruti_. "

"You? Do you think if I had not found you just the reverse, I shouldhave told you all this?"

"You have paid me a great compliment, Mademoiselle Jeanne. " Then, after awhile, he asked, "From the market-square of the little town youfound means to come here?"

"Alas, no!" she said, putting her work in her lap again. "I made myway, with my handcart--it was easy--to our original destination, alittle farm belonging to the eldest brother of my father. The Farm ofLa Folette. He lived there alone, a widower, with his farm-servants. He had no children. We thought we were safe. Alas! news came that theGermans were always advancing. We had time to fly. All the farm-handsfled, except Père Grigou, who loved him. But my uncle was obstinate. To a Frenchman, the soil he possesses is his flesh and his blood. Hewould die rather than leave it. And my uncle had the murder of myfather and mother on his brain. He told Père Grigou to take me away, but I stayed with him. It was Père Grigou who forced us to hide. Thatlasted two days. There was a well in the farm, and one night PèreGrigou tied up my money and my mother's jewellery and my father'spapers, _enfin_, all the precious things we had, in a packet ofwaterproof and sank it with a long string down the well, so that theGermans could not find it. It was foolish, but he insisted. One day myuncle and Père Grigou went out of the little copse where we had beenhiding, in order to reconnoitre, for he thought the Germans might begoing away; and my uncle, who would not listen to me, took his gun. Presently I heard a shot--and then another. You can guess what itmeant. And soon Père Grigou came, white and shaking with terror. '_Ilen a tué un, et on l'a tué!_'"

"My God!" said Doggie again. 

"It was terrible, " she said. "But they were in their right. "

"And then?"

"We lay hidden until it was dark--how they did not find us I don'tknow--and then we escaped across country. I thought of coming here tomy Aunt Morin, which is not far from La Folette, but I reflected thatsoon the Boches would be here also. And we went on. We got to a highroad--and once more I was among troops and refugees. I met some kindfolks in a carriage, a Monsieur and Madame Tarride, and they took mein. And so I got to Paris, where I had the hospitality of a friend ofthe Convent who was married. "

"And Père Grigou?"

"He insisted on going back to bury my uncle. Nothing could move him. He had not parted from him all his life. They were foster-brothers. Where he is now, who knows?" She paused, looked again at her ghosts, and continued: "That is all, Monsieur Trevor. The Germans passedthrough here and repassed on their retreat, and, as soon as it wassafe, I came to help my aunt, who was _souffrante_, and had lost herson. Also because I could not live on charity on my friend, for, _voyez-vous_, I was without a sou--all my money having been hidden inthe well by Père Grigou. "

Doggie leant his elbows on the table. 

"And you have come through all that, Mademoiselle Jeanne, just as youare----?"

"How, just as I am?"

"So gentle and kind and comprehending?"

Her cheek flushed. "I am not the only Frenchwoman who has passedthrough such things and kept herself proud. But the struggle has beenvery hard. "

Doggie rose and clenched his fists and rubbed his head from front toback in his old indecisive way, and began to swear incoherently inEnglish. She smiled sadly. 

"_Ah, mon pauvre ami!_"

He wheeled round: "Why do you call me '_mon pauvre ami_'?"

"Because I see that you would like to help me and you can't. "

"Jeanne, " cried Doggie, bending half over the table which was betweenthem. 

She rose too, startled, on quick defensive. He said, in reply to herglance:

"Why shouldn't I call you Jeanne?"

"You haven't the right. "

"What if I gain it?"

"How?"

"I don't know, " said Doggie. 

The door burst suddenly open and the anxious face of Mo Shendishappeared. 

"'Ere, you silly cuckoo, don't yer know you're on guard to-night?You've just got about thirty seconds. "

"Good lord!" cried Doggie, "I forgot. _Bon soir, mademoiselle. Servicemilitaire_, " and he rushed out. 

Mo lingered, with a grin, and jerked a backward thumb. 

"If it weren't for old Mo, miss, I don't know what would happen to ourfriend Doggie. I got to look after him like a baby, I 'ave. He's on torelieve guard, and if old Mac--that's McPhail"--she nodded recognitionof the name--"and I hadn't remembered, miss, he'd 'ave been in whatyer might call a 'ole. Compree?"

"_Oui. _ Yes, " she said. "_Garde. Sentinelle. _"

"Sentinel. Sentry. Right. "

"He--was--late, " she said, picking out her few English words frommemory. 

"Yuss, " grinned Mo. 

"He--guard--house?"

"Bless you, miss, you talk English as well as I do, " cried theadmiring Mo. "Yuss. When his turn comes, up and down in the street, bythe gate. " He saw her puzzled look. "Roo. Port, " said he. 

"_Ah! oui, je comprends_, " smiled Jeanne. "_Merci, monsieur, et bonsoir. _"

"Good night, miss, " said Mo. 

Some time later he disturbed Phineas, by whose side he slept, from hisinitial preparation for slumber. 

"Mac! Is there any book I could learn this blinking lingo from?"

"Try Ovid--'Art of Love, '" replied Phineas sleepily. 

CHAPTER XIV

The spell of night sentry duty had always been Doggie's black hour. Tomost of the other military routine he had grown hardened or deadened. In the depths of his heart he hated the life as much as ever. He hadschooled himself to go through it with the dull fatalism of a convict. It was no use railing at inexorable laws, irremediable conditions. Theonly alternative to the acceptance of his position was militarypunishment, which was far worse--to say nothing of the outrage to hispride. It was pride that kept the little ironical smile on his lipswhile his nerves were almost breaking with strain. The first time hecame under fire he was physically sick--not from fear, for he stood itbetter than most, keeping an eye on his captain, whose function it wasto show an unconcerned face--but from sheer nervous reaction againstthe hideous noise, the stench, the ghastly upheaval of the earth, thesight of mangled men. When the bombardment was over, if he had beenalone, he would have sat down and cried. Never had he grown accustomedto the foulness of the trenches. The sounder his physical condition, the more did his delicately trained senses revolt. It was only whenfierce animal cravings dulled these senses that he could throw himselfdown anywhere and sleep, that he could swallow anything in the way offood or drink. The rats nearly drove him crazy. .. . Yet, what had oncebeen to him a torture, the indecent, nerve-rasping publicity of thesoldier's life, had now become a compensation. It was not so much incompanionship, like his friendly intercourse with Phineas and Mo, thathe found an anodyne, but in the consciousness of being magneticallyaffected by the crowd of his fellows. They offered him protectionagainst himself. Whatever pangs of self-pity he felt, whatever wanlittle pleadings for the bit of fine porcelain compelled to a roughusage which vessels of coarser clay could disregard came lingeringlyinto his mind, he dared not express them to a living soul around. Onthe contrary, he set himself assiduously to cultivate the earthenwarehabit of spirit; not to feel, not to think, only to endure. To ahumorously incredulous Jeanne he proclaimed himself _abruti_. Finally, the ceaseless grind of the military machine left him little time tothink. 

But in the solitary sleepless hours of sentry duty there was nothingto do but think; nothing wherewith to while away the time but an orgyof introspection. First came the almost paralysing sense ofresponsibility. He must keep, not only awake, but alert to theslightest sound, the slightest movement. Lives of men depended on hisvigilance. A man can't screw himself up to this beautifully emotionalpitch for very long and be an efficient sentry. If he did, he wouldchallenge mice and shoot at cloud-shadows and bring the deuce of acommotion about his ears. And this Doggie, who did not lack ordinaryintelligence, realized. So he strove to think of other things. And theother things all focussed down upon his Doggie self. And he never knewwhat to make of his Doggie self at all. For he would curse the thingsthat he once loved as being the cause of his inexpiable shame, and atthe same time yearn for them with an agony of longing. 

And he would force himself to think of Peggy and her unswervingloyalty. Of her weekly parcel of dainty food, which had arrived thatmorning. Of the joy of Phineas and the disappointment of theunsophisticated Mo over the _pâté de foie gras_. But his mindwandered back to his Doggie self and its humiliations and its needsand its yearnings. He welcomed enemy flares and star-shells andexcursions and alarms. They kept him from thinking, enabled him topass the time. But in the dead, lonely, silent dark, the hours werelike centuries. He dreaded them. 

 * * * * *

To-night they fled like minutes. It was a pitch-black night, spittingfine rain. It was one of Doggie's private grievances that itinvariably rained when he was on sentry duty. One of Heaven's littleways of strafing him for Doggieism. But to-night he did not heed it. Often the passage of transport had been a distraction for which he hadlonged and which, when it came, was warmly welcome. But to-night, during his spell, the roadway of the village was as still as death, and he loved the stillness and the blackness. Once he had welcomedfamiliar approaching steps. Now he resented them. 

"Who goes there?"

"Rounds. "

And the officer, recognized, flashing an electric torch, passed on. The diminuendo of his footsteps was agreeable to Doggie's ear. Therain dripped monotonously off his helmet on to his sodden shoulders, but Doggie did not mind. Now and then he strained an eye upwards tothat part of the living-house that was above the gateway. Littlestreaks of light came downwards through the shutter slats. Now itrequired no great intellectual effort to surmise that the lightproceeded, not from the bedroom of the invalid Madame Morin, who wouldnaturally have the best bedroom situated in the comfortable main blockof the house, but from that of somebody else. Madame Morin wastherefore ruled out. So was Toinette--ridiculous to think of herkeeping all night vigil. There remained only Jeanne. 

It was supremely silly of him to march with super-martiality of treadup the pavement; but then, it is often the way of young men to dosupremely silly things. 

 * * * * *

The next day was fuss and bustle, from the private soldier's point ofview. They were marching back to the trenches that night, and a crackcompany must take over with flawless equipment and in flawless bodilyhealth. In the afternoon Doggie had a breathing spell of leisure. Hewalked boldly into the kitchen. 

"Madame, " said he to Toinette, "I suppose you know that we are leavingto-night?"

The old woman sighed. "It is always like that. They come, they makefriends, they go, and they never return. "

"You mustn't make the little soldier weep, _grand'mère_, " saidDoggie. 

"No. It is the _grand'mères_ who weep, " replied Toinette. 

"I'll come back all right, " said he. "Where is Mademoiselle Jeanne?"

"She is upstairs, monsieur. "

"If she had gone out, I should have been disappointed, " smiled Doggie. 

"You desire to see her, monsieur?"

"To thank her before I go for her kindness to me. "

The old face wrinkled into a smile. 

"It was not then for the _beaux yeux_ of the _grand'mère_ that youentered?"

"_Si, si!_ Of course it was, " he protested. "But one, nevertheless, must be polite to mademoiselle. "

"_Aïe! aïe!_" said the old woman, bustling out: "I'll call her. "

Presently Jeanne came in alone, calm, cool, and in her plain blackdress, looking like a sweet Fate. From the top of her dark brown hairto her trim, stout shoes, she gave the impression of being exquisitelyordered, bodily and spiritually. 

"It was good of you to come, " he cried, and they shook handsinstinctively, scarcely realizing it was for the first time. But hewas sensitive to the frank grip of her long and slender fingers. 

"Toinette said you wished to see me. "

"We are going to-night. I had to come and bid you _au revoir_!"

"Is the company returning?"

"So I hear the quartermaster says. Are you glad?"

"Yes, I am glad. One doesn't like to lose friends. "

"You regard me as a friend, Jeanne?"

"_Pour sûr_, " she replied simply. 

"Then you don't mind my calling you Jeanne?" said he. 

"What does it matter? There are graver questions at stake in theworld. "

She crossed the kitchen and opened the yard door which Doggie hadclosed behind him. Meeting a query in his glance, she said:

"I like the fresh air, and I don't like secrecy. "

She leaned against the edge of the table and Doggie, emboldened, seated himself on the corner by her side, and they looked out into thelittle flagged courtyard in which the men, some in grey shirt-sleeves, some in tunics, were lounging about among the little piles ofaccoutrements and packs. Here and there a man was shaving by the aidof a bit of mirror supported on a handcart. Jests and laughter wereflung in the quiet afternoon air. A little group were feeding pigeonswhich, at the sight of crumbs, had swarmed iridescent from the tall_colombier_ in the far corner near the gabled barn. As Jeanne did notspeak, at last Doggie bent forward and, looking into her eyes, foundthem moist with tears. 

"What is the matter, Jeanne?" he asked in a low voice. 

"The war, _mon ami_, " she replied, turning her face towards him, "thehaunting tragedy of the war. I don't know how to express what I mean. If all those brave fellows there went about with serious faces, Ishould not be affected. _Mais, voyez-vous, leur gaieté fait peur. _"

_Their laughter frightened her. _ Doggie, with his quickresponsiveness, understood. She had put into a phrase the hauntingtragedy of the war. The eternal laughter of youth quenched in a gurgleof the throat. 

He said admiringly: "You are a wonderful woman, Jeanne. "

Her delicate shoulders moved, ever so little. "A woman? I suppose Iam. The day before we fled from Cambrai it was my _jour de fête_. Iwas eighteen. "

Doggie drew in his breath with a little gasp. He had thought she wasolder than he. 

"I am twenty-seven, " he said. 

She looked at him calmly and critically. "Yes. Now I see. Until now Ishould have given you more. But the war ages people. Isn't it true?"

"I suppose so, " said Doggie. Then he had a brilliant idea. "But whenthe war is over, we'll remain the same age for ever and ever. "

"Do you think so?"

"I'm sure of it. We'll still both be in our twenties. Let us supposethe war puts ten years of experience and suffering, and what not, onto our lives. We'll only then be in our thirties--and nothing possiblycan happen to make us grow any older. At seventy we shall still bethirty. "

"You are consoling, " she admitted. "But what if the war had addedthirty years to one's life? What if I felt now an old woman of fifty?But yes, it is quite true. I have the feelings and the disregard ofconvention of a woman of fifty. If there had been no war, do you thinkI could have gone among an English army--_sans gêne_--like an oldmatron? Do you think a _jeune fille française bien élevée_ couldhave talked to you alone as I have done the past two days? Absurd. Theexplanation is the war. "

Doggie laughed. "_Vive la guerre!_" said he. 

"_Mais non!_ Be serious. We must come to an understanding. "

In her preoccupation she forgot the rules laid down for the guidanceof _jeunes filles bien élevées_, and unthinkingly perched herselffull on the kitchen table on the corner of which Doggie sat in aone-legged way. Doggie gasped again. All her assumed age fell from herlike a garment. Youth proclaimed itself in her attitude and the supplelines of her figure. She was but a girl after all, a girl with asteadfast soul that had been tried in unutterable fires; but a girlappealing, desirable. He felt mighty protective. 

"An understanding? All right, " said he. 

"I don't want you to go away and think ill of me--that I am one ofthose women--_les affranchies_ I think they call them--who thinkthemselves above social laws. I am not. I am _bourgeoise_ to myfinger-tips, and I reverence all the old maxims and prejudices inwhich I was born. But conditions are different. It is just like thepriests who have been called into the ranks. To look at them from theoutside, you would never dream they were priests--but their hearts andtheir souls are untouched. "

She was so earnest, in her pathetic youthfulness, to put herself rightwith him, so unlike the English girls of his acquaintance, who wouldhave taken this chance companionship as a matter of course, that hisface lost the smile and became grave, and he met her sad eyes. 

"That was very bravely said, Jeanne. To me you will be always the mostwonderful woman I have ever known. "

"What caused you to speak to me the first day?" she asked, after apause. 

"I explained to you--to apologize for staring rudely into your house. "

"It was not because you said to yourself, 'Here is a pretty girllooking at me. I'll go and talk to her'?"

Doggie threw his leg over the corner of the table and stood onindignant feet. 

"Jeanne! How could you----?" he cried. 

She leaned back, her open palms on the table. The rare light came intoher eyes. 

"That's what I wanted to know. Now we understand each other, MonsieurTrevor. "

"I wish you wouldn't call me Monsieur Trevor, " said he. 

"What else can I call you? I know no other name. "

Now he had in his pocket a letter from Peggy, received that morning, beginning "My dearest Marmaduke. " Peggy seemed far away, and the namestill farther. He was deliberating whether he should say "_Appelez-moiJames_" or "_Appelez-moi Jacques_, " and inclining to the latter asbeing more picturesque and intimate, when she went on:

"_Tenez_, what is it your comrades call you? 'Doggie'?"

"Say that again. "

"Dog-gie. "

He had never dreamed that the hated appellation could sound soadorable. Well--no one except his officers called him by any othername, and it came with a visible charm from her lips. It brought aboutthe most fascinating flash of the tips of her white teeth. He laughed. 

"_A la guerre comme à la guerre. _ If you call me that, you belong tothe regiment. And I promise you, it is a fine regiment. "

"_Eh bien_, Monsieur Dog-gie----"

"There's no monsieur about it, " he declared, very happily. "Tommiesare not _messieurs_. "

"I know one who is, " said Jeanne. 

So they talked in a young and foolish way, and Jeanne for a whileforgot the tragedies that had gone and the tragedies that might come;and Doggie forgot both the peacock and ivory room and the fetid holeinto which he would have to creep when the night's march was over. They talked of simple things. Of Toinette, who had been with AuntMorin ever since she could remember. 

"You have won her heart with your snuff. "

"She has won mine with her discretion. "

"Oh-h!" said Jeanne, shocked. 

And so on and so forth, as they sat side by side on the kitchen table, swinging their feet. After a while they drifted to graver questions. 

"What will happen to you, Jeanne, if your aunt dies?"

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Jeanne----

"But you will inherit the property, and the business?"

By no means. Aunt Morin had still a son, who was already very old. Hemust be forty-six. He had expatriated himself many years ago and wasin Madagascar. The son who was killed was her Benjamin, the child ofher old age. But all her little fortune would go to the colonialGaspard, whom Jeanne had never seen. 

But the Farm of La Folette?

"It has been taken and retaken by Germans and French and English, _monpauvre ami_, until there is no farm left. You ought to understandthat. "

It was a thing that Doggie most perfectly understood: a patch ofhideous wilderness, of poisoned, shell-scarred, ditch-defiled, barren, loathsome earth. 

And her other relations? Only an uncle, her father's youngest brother, a curé in Douai in enemy occupation. She had not heard of him sincethe flight from Cambrai. 

"But what is going to become of you?"

"So long as one keeps a brave heart what, does it matter? I am strong. I have a good enough education. I can earn my living. Oh, don't makeany mistake. I have no pity for myself. Those who waste efforts inpitying themselves are not of the stuff to make France victorious. "

"I am afraid I have done a lot of self-pitying, Jeanne. "

"Don't do it any more, " she said gently. 

"I won't, " said he. 

"If you keep to the soul you have gained, you can't, " said Jeanne. 

"_Toujours la sagesse. _"

"You are laughing at me. "

"God forbid, " said Doggie. 

Phineas and Mo came strolling towards the kitchen door. 

"My two friends, to pay their visit of adieu, " said he. 

Jeanne slid from the table and welcomed the newcomers in her calm, dignified way. Once more Doggie found himself regarding her as hissenior in age and wisdom and conduct of life. The pathetic girlishnesswhich she had revealed to him had gone. The age-investing ghosts hadreturned. 

Mo grinned, interjected a British Army French word now and then, andmanifested delight when Jeanne understood. Phineas talked laboriously, endeavouring to expound his responsibility for Doggie's welfare. Hehad been his tutor. He used the word "_tuteur_. "

"That's a guardian, you silly ass, " cried Doggie. "He means'_instituteur_. ' Go on. Or, rather, don't go on. The lady isn'tinterested. "

"_Mais si_, " said Jeanne, catching at the last English word. "Itinterests me greatly. "

"_Merci, mademoiselle_, " said Phineas grandly. "I only wish to explainto you that while I live you need have no fear for Doggie. I willprotect him with my body from shells and promise to bring him safeback to you. And so will Monsieur Shendish. "

"What's that?" asked Mo. 

Phineas translated. 

"_Oui, oui, oui!_" said Mo, nodding vigorously. 

A spot of colour burned on Jeanne's pale cheek, and Doggie grew redunder his tanned skin. He cursed Phineas below his breath, andexchanged a significant glance with Mo. Jeanne said, in her evenvoice:

"I hope all the Three Musketeers will come back safe. "

Mo extended a grimy hand. "Well, good-bye, miss! McPhail here and Imust be going. "

She shook hands with both, wishing them _bonne chance_, and theystrolled away. Doggie lingered. 

"You mustn't mind what McPhail says. He's only an old imbecile. "

"You have two comrades who love you. That is the principal thing. "

"I think they do, each in his way. As for Mo----"

"Mo?" She laughed. "He is delicious. "

"Well----" said he reluctantly, after a pause, "good-bye, Jeanne. "

"_Au revoir_--Dog-gie. "

"If I shouldn't come back--I mean if we were billeted somewhereelse--I should like to write to you. "

"Well--Mademoiselle Bossière, chez Madame Morin, Frélus. That is theaddress. "

"And will you write too?"

Without waiting for a reply, he scribbled what was necessary on asheet torn from a notebook and gave it to her. Their hands met. 

"_Au revoir_, Jeanne. "

"_Au revoir_, Dog-gie. But I shall see you again to-night. "

"Where?"

"It is my secret. _Bonne chance. _"

She smiled and turned to leave the kitchen. Doggie clattered into theyard. 

"Been doin' a fine bit o' coartin', Doggie, " said Private Appleyardfrom Taunton, who was sitting on a box near by and writing a letter onhis knees. 

"Not so much of your courting, Spud, " replied Doggie cheerfully. "Whoare you writing to? Your best girl?"

"I be writin' to my own lawful mizzus, " replied Spud Appleyard. 

"Then give her my love. Doggie Trevor's love, " said Doggie, andmarched away through the groups of men. 

At the entrance to the barn he fell in with Phineas and Mo. 

"Laddie, " said the former, "although I meant it at the time as atestimony of my affection, I've been thinking that what I said to theyoung leddy may not have been over-tactful. "

"It was taking it too much for granted, " explained Mo, "that you andher were sort of keeping company. "

"You're a pair of idiots, " said Doggie, sitting down between them, andtaking out his pink packet of Caporal. "Have a cigarette?"

"Not if I wos dying of----Look 'ere, " said Mo, with the light on hisface of the earnest seeker after Truth. "If a chap ain't got no food, he's dying of 'unger. If he ain't got no drink, he's dying of thirst. What the 'ell is he dying of if he ain't got no tobakker?"

"Army Service Corps, " said Phineas, pulling out his pipe. 

 * * * * *

It was dark when A Company marched away. Doggie had seen nothing moreof Jeanne. He was just a little disappointed; for she had promised. Hecould not associate her with light words. Yet perhaps she had kept herpromise. She had said "_Je vous verrai. _" She had not undertaken toexhibit herself to him. He derived comfort from the thought. Therewas, indeed, something delicate and subtle and enchanting in thenotion. As on the previous day, the fine weather had changed with thenight and a fine rain was falling. Doggie, an indistinguishablepack-laden ant in the middle of the four-abreast ribbon of similarpack-laden ants, tramped on in silence, thinking his own thoughts. Aregiment going back to the trenches in the night is, from the point ofview of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, a very lugubriousprocession. The sight of it would have hurt an old-time poet. Anexperienced regiment has no lovely illusions. It knows what it isgoing to, and the knowledge makes it serious. It would much rather bein bed or on snug straw than plodding through the rain to four daysand nights of eternal mud and stinking high-explosive shell. It setsits teeth and is a very stern, silent, ugly conglomeration of men. 

"---- (_the adjective_) night, " growled Doggie's right-hand neighbour. 

"---- (_the adjective_)" Doggie responded mechanically. 

But to Doggie it was less "----" (_adjective as before_) than usual. Jeanne's denunciation of self-pity had struck deep. Compared with hercalamities, half of which would have been the stock-in-trade of aGreek dramatist wherewith to wring tears from mankind for a couple ofthousand years, what were his own piffling grievances? As for the"----" night, instead of a drizzle he would have welcomed awaterspout. Something that really mattered. .. . Let the heavens or theHun rain molten lead. Something that would put him on an equality withJeanne. .. . Jeanne, with her dark haunting eyes and mobile lips, andher slim young figure and her splendid courage. A girl apart from thegirls he had known, apart from the women he had known, the women whomhe had imagined--and he had not imagined many--his training hadatrophied such imaginings of youth. Jeanne. Again her name conjured upvisions of the Great Jeanne of Domrémy. If only he could have seenher once again!

At the north end of the village the road took a sharp twist, skirtinga bit of rising ground. There was just a glimmer of a warning lightwhich streamed athwart the turning ribbon of laden ants. And as Doggiewheeled through the dim ray he heard a voice that rang out clear:

"_Bonne chance!_"

He looked up swiftly. Caught the shadow of a shadow. But it wasenough. It was Jeanne. She had kept her promise. The men respondedincoherently, waving their hands, and Doggie's shout of "_Merci!_" waslost. But though he knew, with a wonderful throbbing knowledge, thatJeanne's cry was meant for him alone, he was thrilled by his comrades'instant response to Jeanne's voice. Not a man but he knew that it wasJeanne. But no matter. The company paid homage to Jeanne. Jeanne whohad come out in the rain and the wind and the dark, and had waited, waited, to redeem her promise. "_C'est mon secret. _"

He ploughed on. Left, right! Thud, thud! Left, right! Jeanne, Jeanne!

CHAPTER XV

In the village of Frélus life went on as before. The same men, thougha different regiment, filled its streets and its houses; for by whatsigns could the inhabitants distinguish one horde of Englishinfantrymen from another? Once a Highland battalion had been billetedon them, and for the first day or so they derived some excitement fromthe novelty of the costume; the historic Franco-Scottish traditionstill lingered, and they welcomed the old allies of France withespecial kindliness; but they found that the habits and customs of themen in kilts were identical, in their French eyes, with those of themen in trousers. It is true the Scotch had bagpipes. The villageturned out to listen to them in whole-eyed and whole-eared wonder. Andthe memory of the skirling music remained indelible. Otherwise therewas little difference. And when a Midland regiment succeeded a SouthCoast regiment, where was the difference at all? They might be thesame men. 

Jeanne, standing by the kitchen door, watching the familiar scene inthe courtyard, could scarcely believe there had been a change. Now andagain she caught herself wondering why she could not pick out any oneof her Three Musketeers. There were two or three soldiers, as usual, helping Toinette with her crocks at the well. There she was, herself, moving among them, as courteously treated as though she were aprincess. Perhaps these men, whom she heard had come frommanufacturing centres, were a trifle rougher in their manners than herlate guests; but the intention of civility and rude chivalry was noless sincere. They came and asked for odds and ends very politely. Toall intents and purposes they were the same set of men. Why was notDoggie among them? It seemed very strange. 

After a while she made some sort of an acquaintance with a sergeantwho had a few words of French and appeared anxious to improve hisknowledge of the language. He explained that he had been a teacher inwhat corresponded to the French _Ecoles Normales_. He came fromBirmingham, which he gave her to understand was a glorified Lille. Shefound him very earnest, very self-centred in his worship ofefficiency. As he had striven for his class of boys, so now was hestriving for his platoon of men. In a dogmatic way he expounded to herideals severely practical. In their few casual conversations heinterested her. The English, from the first terrible day of theirassociation with her, had commanded her deep admiration. But untillately--in the most recent past--her sex, her national aloofness andher ignorance of English, had restrained her from familiar talk withthe British Army. But now she keenly desired to understand thisstrange, imperturbable, kindly race. She put many questions to thesergeant--always at the kitchen door, in full view of the courtyard, for she never thought of admitting him into the house--and hisanswers, even when he managed to make himself intelligible, puzzledher exceedingly. One of his remarks led her to ask for what he wasfighting, beyond his apparently fixed idea of the efficiency of themen under his control. What was the spiritual idea at the back of him?

"The democratization of the world and the universal brotherhood ofmankind. "

"When the British Lion shall lie down with the German Lamb?"

He flashed a suspicious glance. Strenuous schoolmasters in primaryschools have little time for the cultivation of a sense of humour. 

"Something of the sort must be the ultimate result of the war. "

"But in the meantime you have got to change the German wolf into the_petit mouton_. How are you going to do it?"

"By British efficiency. By proving to him that we are superior to himin every way. We'll teach him that it doesn't pay to be a wolf. "

"And do you think he will like being transformed into a lamb, whileyou remain a lion?"

"I don't suppose so, but we'll give him his chance to try to become alion too. "

Jeanne shook her head. "No, monsieur, wolf he is and wolf he willremain. A wolf with venomous teeth. The civilized world must see thatthe teeth are always drawn. "

"I'm speaking of fifty years hence, " said the sergeant. 

"And I of three hundred years hence. "

"You're mistaken, mademoiselle. "

Jeanne shook her head. "No. I'm not mistaken. Tell me. Why do you wantto become brother to the Boche?"

"I'm not going to be his brother till the war's over, " said thesergeant stolidly. "At present I am devoting all my faculties tokilling as many of him as I can. "

She smiled. "Sufficient for the day is the good thereof. Go on killingthem, monsieur. The more you kill the fewer there will be for yourchildren and your grandchildren to lie down with. "

She left him and tried to puzzle out his philosophy. For the ordinaryFrench philosophy of the war is very simple. They have nohigh-falutin, altruistic ideas of improving the Boche. They don't carea tinker's curse what happens to the unholy brood beyond the Rhine, solong as they are beaten, humiliated, subjected: so long as there is nochance of their ever deflowering again with their brutality the sacredsoil of France. The French mind cannot conceive the idea of thisbeautiful brotherhood; but, on the contrary, rejects it as somethingloathsome, something bordering on spiritual defilement. .. . 

No; Jeanne could not accept the theory that we were waging war for theultimate chastening and beatification of Germany. She preferredDoggie's reason for fighting. For his soul. There was something whichshe could grip. And having gripped it, it was something around whichher imagination could weave a web of noble fancy. After all, when shecame to think of it, every one of the Allies must be fighting for hissoul. For his soul's sake had not her father died? Although she knewno word of German, it was obvious that the Uhlan officer had murderedhim because he had refused to betray his country. And her uncle. Tofight for his soul, had he not gone out with his heroic but futilesporting gun? And this pragmatical sergeant? What else had led himfrom his schoolroom to the battlefield? Why couldn't he be honestabout it, like Doggie?

She missed Doggie. He ought to be there, as she had often seen himunobserved, talking with his friends or going about his militaryduties, or playing the flageolet with the magical touch of themusician. She knew far more of Doggie than he was aware of . .. And atnight she prayed for the little English soldier who was facing Death. 

She had much time to think of him during the hours when she sat by thebedside of Aunt Morin, who talked incessantly of François-Marie whowas killed on the Argonne, and Gaspard who, as a _territorial_, was nodoubt defending Madagascar from invasion. And it was pleasant to thinkof him, because he was a new distraction from tragical memories. Heseemed to lay the ghosts . .. He was different from all the Englishmenshe had met. The young officers who had helped her in her flight, hadvery much the same charm of breeding, very much the same intonation ofvoice; instinctively she knew him to be of the same social caste; butthey, and the officers whom she saw about the street and in thecourtyard, when duty called them there, had the military air ofcommand. And this her little English soldier had not. Of course, hewas only a private, and privates are trained to obedience. She knewthat perfectly well. But why was he not commanding instead of obeying?There was a reason for it. She had seen it in his eyes. She wished shehad made him talk more about himself. Perhaps she had beenunsympathetic and selfish. He assumed, she reflected, a certain_crânerie_ with his fellows--and _crânerie_ is "swagger" bereft ofvulgarity--we have no word to connote its conception in a Frenchmind--and she admired it; but her swift intuition pierced theassumption. She divined a world of hesitancies behind the Musketeerswing of the shoulders. He was so gentle, so sensitive, so quick tounderstand. And yet so proud. And yet again so unconfessedlydependent. Her woman's protective instinct responded to a mute appeal. 

"But, Ma'amselle Jeanne, you are wet through, you are perished withcold. What folly have you been committing?" Toinette scolded, when shereturned after wishing Doggie the last "_bonne chance_. "

"The folly of putting my Frenchwoman's heart (_mon coeur deFrançaise_) into the hands of a brave little soldier to fight withhim in the trenches. "

"_Mon Dieu, ma'amselle_, you had better go straight to bed, and I willbring you a _bon tilleul_, which will calm your nerves and produce agood perspiration. "

So Toinette put Jeanne to bed and administered the infallible infusionof lime leaves, and Jeanne was never the worse for her adventure. Butthe next day she wondered a little why she had undertaken it. She hada vague idea that it paid a little debt of sympathy. 

An evening or two afterwards Jeanne was sewing in the kitchen whenToinette, sitting in the arm-chair by the extinct fire, fished out ofher pocket the little olive-wood box with the pansies andforget-me-nots on the lid, and took a long pinch of snuff. She did itwith somewhat of an air which caused Jeanne to smile. 

"_Dites donc_, Toinette, you are insupportable with your snuff-box. One would say a marquise of the old school. "

"Ah, Ma'amselle Jeanne, " said the old woman, "you must not laugh atme. I was just thinking that, if anything happened to the _petitmonsieur_, I couldn't have the heart to go on putting his snuff up myold nose. "

"Nothing will happen to him, " said Jeanne. 

The old woman sighed and re-engulfed the snuff-box. "Who knows? Fromone minute to another who knows whether the little ones who are dearto us are alive or dead?"

"And this _petit monsieur_ is dear to you, Toinette?" Jeanne asked, inher even voice, without looking up from her sewing. 

"Since he resembles my _petiot_. "

"He will come back, " said Jeanne. 

"I hope so, " said the old woman mournfully. 

In spite of manifold duties, Jeanne found the days curiously long. Sheslept badly. The tramp of the sentry below her window over the archwaybrought her no sense of comfort, as it had done for months before thecoming of Doggie. All the less did it produce the queer little thrillof happiness which was hers when, looking down through the shutterslats she had identified in the darkness, on a change of guard, thelittle English soldier to whom she had spoken so intimately. And whenhe had challenged the rounds, she had recognized his voice. .. . If shehad obeyed an imbecile and unmaidenly impulse, she would have drawnopen the shutter and revealed herself. But apart from maidenlyshrinkings, familiarity with war had made her realize the sacredduties of a sentry, and she had remained in discreet seclusion, awakeuntil his spell was over. But now the rhythmical beat of the heavyboots kept her from sleeping and would have irritated her nervesintolerably had not her sound common sense told her that the stoutfellow who wore them was protecting her from the Hun, together with amillion or so of his fellow-countrymen. 

She found herself counting the days to Doggie's return. 

"At last, it is to-morrow!" she said to Toinette. 

"What is it to-morrow?" asked the old woman. 

"The return of our regiment, " replied Jeanne. 

"That is good. We have a regiment now, " said Toinette ironically. 

The Midland company marched away--as so many had marched away before;but Jeanne did not go to the little embankment at the turn of the roadto wish anyone good luck. She stood at the house door, as she hadalways done, to watch them pass in the darkness; for there is alwayssomething in the sight of men going into battle which gives you a lumpin the throat. For Jeanne it had almost grown into a religiouspractice. 

The sergeant had told her that the new-comers would arrive at dawn. She slept a little; awoke with a start as day began to break; dressedswiftly, and went downstairs to wait. And then her ear caught therumble and the tramp of the approaching battalion. Presently transportrolled by, and squads of men, haggard in the grey light, bendingdouble under their packs, staggered along to their billets. And thencame a rusty crew, among whom she recognized McPhail's tall gauntfigure. She stood by the gateway, bareheaded, in her black dress andblue apron, defying the sharp morning air, and watched them passthrough. She saw Mo Shendish, his eyes on the heels of the man infront. She recognized nearly all. But the man she looked for was notthere. 

He could not have passed without her seeing him; but as soon as thegateway was clear, she ran into the courtyard and fled across it tocut off the men. There was no Doggie. Blank disappointment wassucceeded by sudden terror. 

Phineas saw her coming. He stumbled up to her, dropped his pack at herfeet, and spread out both his hands. She lost sight of the horde ofweary clay-covered men around her. She cried:

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. "

"He is dead?"

"No one knows. "

"But you must know, you!" cried Jeanne, with a new fear in her eyeswhich Phineas could not bear to meet. "You promised to bring himback. "

"It was not my fault, " said Phineas. "He was out last night--no, thenight before, this is morning--repairing barbed wire. I was not withhim. "

"_Mais, mon Dieu_, why not?"

"Because the duties of soldiers are arranged for them by theirofficers, mademoiselle. "

"It is true. Pardon. But continue. "

"A party went out to repair wire. It was quite dark. Suddenly a Germanrifle-shot gave the alarm. The enemy threw up star-shells and thefront trenches on each side opened fire. The wiring party, of course, lay flat on the ground. One of them was wounded. When it was allover--it didn't last long--our men got back, bringing the woundedman. "

"He is severely wounded? Speak, " cried Jeanne. 

"The wounded man was not Doggie. Doggie went out with the party, buthe did not come back. That's why I said no one knows where he is. "

She stiffened. "He is lying out there. He is dead. "

"Shendish and I and Corporal Wilson over there, who was with theparty, got permission to go out and search. We searched all roundwhere the repair had been going on. But we could not find him. "

"_Merci!_ I ought not to have reproached you, " she said steadily. "_C'est un grand malheur. _"

"You are right. Life for me is no longer of much value. "

She looked at him in her penetrating way. 

"I believe you, " she said. "For the moment, _au revoir_. You must beworn out with fatigue. "

She left him and walked through the straggling men, who maderespectful way for her. All knew of her friendship with Doggie Trevorand all realized the nature of this interview. They liked Doggiebecause he was good-natured and plucky, and never complained and wouldplay the whistle on march as long as breath enough remained in hisbody. As his uncle, the Dean, had said, breed told. In a curious, half-grudging way they recognized the fact. They laughed at hissingular inefficiency in the multitudinous arts of the handy-man, proficiency in which is expected from the modern private, but theyknew that he would go on till he dropped. And knowing that, they savedhim from many a reprimand which his absurd efforts in the artsaforesaid would have brought upon him. And now that Doggie was gone, they deplored his loss. But so many had gone. So many had beendeplored. Human nature is only capable of a certain amount ofdeploring while retaining its sanity. The men let the pale Frenchgirl, who was Doggie Trevor's friend, pass by in respectfulsilence--and that, for them, was their final tribute to Doggie Trevor. 

Jeanne passed into the kitchen. Toinette drew a sharp breath at thesight of her face. 

"_Quoi? Il n'est pas là?_"

"No, " said Jeanne. "He is wounded. " It was impossible to explain toToinette. 

"Badly?"

"They don't know. "

"_Oh, là, là!_" sighed Toinette. "That always happens. That is whatI told you. "

"We have no time to think of such things, " said Jeanne. 

The regimental cooks came up for the hot water, and soon the hungry, weary, nerve-racked men were served with the morning meal. And Jeannestood in the courtyard in front of the kitchen door and helped withthe filling of the tea-kettles, as though no little English soldiercalled "Dog-gie" had ever existed in the regiment. 

The first pale shaft of sunlight fell upon the kitchen side of thecourtyard, and in it Jeanne stood illuminated. It touched the shadesof gold in her dark brown hair, and lit up her pale face and greatunsmiling eyes. But her lips smiled valiantly. 

"What do yer think, Mac, " said Mo Shendish, squatting on theflagstones, "do you think she was really sweet on him?"

"Man, " replied Phineas, similarly engaged, "all I know is that she hasadded him to her collection of ghosts. It's not an over-braw companyfor a lassie to live with. "

And then, soon afterwards, the trench-broken men stumbled into thebarn to sleep, and all was quiet again, and Jeanne went about herdaily tasks with the familiar hand of death once more closing icilyaround her heart. 

CHAPTER XVI

The sick-room was very hot, and Aunt Morin very querulous. Jeanneopened a window, but Aunt Morin complained of currents of air. DidJeanne want to kill her? So Jeanne closed the window. The internalmalady from which Aunt Morin suffered, and from which it was unlikelythat she would recover, caused her considerable pain from time totime; and on these occasions she grew fractious and hard to bear with. The retired septuagenarian village doctor who had taken the modestpractice of his son, now far away with the Army, advised an operation. But Aunt Morin, with her peasant's prejudice, declined flatly. Sheknew what happened in those hospitals where they cut people up justfor the pleasure of looking at their insides. She was not going to leta lot of butchers amuse themselves with her old carcass. _Oh non!_When it pleased the _bon Dieu_ to take her, she was ready: the _bonDieu_ required no assistance from _ces messieurs_. And even if she hadconsented, how to take her to Paris, and once there, how to get theoperation performed, with all the hospitals full and all the surgeonsat the Front? The old doctor shrugged his shoulders and kept life inher as best he might. 

To-day, in the close room, she told a long story of the doctor'sneglect. The medicine he gave her was water and nothing else--waterwith nothing in it. And to ask people to pay for that! She would notpay. What would Jeanne advise?

"_Oui, ma tante_, " said Jeanne. 

"_Oui, ma tante?_ But you are not listening to what I say. At theleast one can be polite. "

"I am listening, _ma tante_. "

"You should be grateful to those who lodge and nourish you. "

"I am grateful, _ma tante_, " said Jeanne patiently. 

Aunt Morin complained of being robbed on all sides. The doctor, Toinette, Jeanne, the English soldiers--the last the worst of all. Besides not paying sufficiently for what they had, they were sowasteful in the things they took for nothing. If they begged for a fewfaggots to make a fire, they walked away with the whole woodstack. Sheknew them. But all soldiers were the same. They thought that in timeof war civilians had no rights. One of these days she would get up andcome downstairs and see for herself the robbery that was going on. 

The windows were tightly sealed. The sunlight hurting Aunt Morin'seyes, the outside shutters were half closed. The room felt like astuffy, overheated, overcrowded sepulchre. An enormous oak press, partof her Breton dowry, took up most of the side of one wall. This, and agreat handsome chest, a couple of tables, a stiff arm-chair, were alltoo big for the moderately sized apartment. Coloured prints of sacredsubjects, tilted at violent angles, seemed eager to occupy as muchair-space as possible. And in the middle of the floor sprawled thevast oaken bed, with its heavy green brocade curtains falling tentwisefrom a great tarnished gilt crown in the ceiling. 

Jeanne said nothing. What was the good? She shifted the invalid's hotpillow and gave her a drink of tisane, moving about theover-furnished, airless room in her calm and efficient way. Her faceshowed no sign of trouble, but an iron band clamped her forehead aboveher burning eyes. She could perform her nurse's duties, but it wasbeyond her power to concentrate her mind on the sick woman's unendinglitany of grievances. Far away beyond that darkened room, beyond thatfretful voice, she saw vividly a hot waste, hideous with holes andrusted wire and shapes of horror; and in the middle of it lay huddledup a little khaki-clad figure with the sun blazing fiercely in hisunblinking eyes. And his very body was beyond the reach of man, evenof the most lion-hearted. 

"_Mais qu'as-tu, ma fille?_" asked Aunt Morin. "You do not speak. Whenpeople are ill they need to be amused. "

"I am sorry, _ma tante_, but I am not feeling very well to-day. Itwill pass. "

"I hope so. Young people have no business not to feel well. Otherwisewhat is the good of youth?"

"It is true, " Jeanne assented. 

But what, she thought, was indeed the good of youth, in these terribledays of war? Her own was but a panorama of death. .. . And now one morefigure, this time one of youth too, had joined it. 

Toinette came in. 

"Ma'amselle Jeanne, there are two English officers downstairs who wishto speak to you. "

"What do they want?" Jeanne asked wearily. 

"They do not say. They just ask for Ma'amselle Bossière. "

"They never leave one in peace, _ces gens-là_, " grumbled Aunt Morin. "If they want more concessions in price, do not let them frighten you. Go to Monsieur le Maire to have it arranged with justice. These peoplewould eat the skin off your back. Remember, Jeanne. "

"_Bien, ma tante_, " said Jeanne. 

She went downstairs, conscious of gripping herself in order to discusswith the officers whatever business of billeting was in hand. For shehad dealt with all such matters since her arrival in Frélus. Shereached the front door and saw a dusty car with a military chauffeurat the wheel and two officers, standing on the pavement at the foot ofthe steps. One she recognized as the commander of the company to whichher billeted men belonged. The other was a stranger, a lieutenant, with a different badge on his cap. They were talking and laughingtogether, like old friends newly met, which by one of the myriadcoincidences of the war was really the case. On the appearance ofJeanne they drew themselves up and saluted politely. 

"Mademoiselle Bossière?"

"_Oui, monsieur. _" Then, "Will you enter, messieurs?"

They entered the vestibule where the great cask gleamed in itspolished mahogany and brass. She bade them be seated. 

"Mademoiselle, Captain Willoughby tells me that you had billeted herelast week a soldier by the name of Trevor, " said the stranger, inexcellent French, taking out notebook and pencil. 

Jeanne's lips grew white. She had not suspected their errand. 

"_Oui, monsieur. _"

"Did you have much talk with him?"

"Much, monsieur. "

"Pardon my indiscretion, mademoiselle--it is military service, and Iam an Intelligence officer--but did you tell him about your privateaffairs?"

"Very intimately, " said Jeanne. 

The Intelligence officer made a note or two and smiled pleasantly--butJeanne could have struck him for daring to smile. "You had everyreason for thinking him a man of honour?"

"What's the good of asking her that, Smithers?" Captain Willoughbyinterrupted in English. "Haven't I given you my word? The man's amysterious little devil, but any fool can see that he's a gentleman. "

"What do you say?" Jeanne asked tensely. 

"_Je parle français très peu_, " replied Captain Willoughby with anair of regret. 

Smithers explained. "Monsieur le Capitaine says that he guarantees thehonesty of the soldier, Trevor. "

Jeanne flashed, rigid. "Who could doubt it, monsieur? He was agentleman, a _fils de famille_, of the English aristocracy. "

"Excuse me for a moment, " said Smithers. 

He went out. Jeanne, uncomprehending, sat silent. Captain Willoughby, cursing an idiot education, composed in his head a polite Frenchsentence concerning the weather, but before he had finished Smithersreappeared with a strange twisted packet in his hand. He held it outto Jeanne. 

"Mademoiselle, do you recognize this?"

She looked at it dully for a moment; then suddenly sprang to her feetand clenched her hands and stared open-mouthed. She nodded. She couldnot speak. Her brain swam. They had come to her about Doggie, who wasdead, and they showed her Père Grigou's packet. What was theconnection between the two?

Willoughby rose impulsively. "For God's sake, Smithers, let her downeasy. She'll be fainting all over the place in a minute. "

"If this is your property, mademoiselle, " said Smithers, laying thepacket on the chenille-covered table, "you have to thank your friendTrevor for restoring it to you. "

She put up both hands to her reeling head. 

"But he is dead, monsieur!"

"Not a bit of it. He's just as much alive as you or I. "

Jeanne swayed, tried to laugh, threw herself half on a chair, halfover the great cask, and broke down in a passion of tears. 

The two men looked at each other uncomfortably. 

"For exquisite tact, " said Willoughby, "commend me to an Intelligenceofficer. "

"But how the deuce was I to know?" Smithers muttered with an injuredair. "My instructions were to find out the truth of a cock-and-bullstory--for that's what it seemed to come to. And a girl inbillets--well--how was I to know what she was like?"

"Anyhow, here we've got hysterics, " said Willoughby. 

"But who told her the fellow was dead?"

"Why, his pals. I thought so myself. When a man's missing where's oneto suppose him to be--having supper at the Savoy?"

"Well, I give women up, " said Smithers. "I thought she'd be glad. "

"I believe you're a married man?"

"Yes, of course. "

"Well, I ain't, " said Willoughby, and in a couple of strides he stoodclose to Jeanne. He laid a gentle hand on her heaving shoulders. 

"_Pas tué! Soolmong blessé_, " he shouted. 

She sprang, as it were, to attention, like a frightened recruit. 

"He is wounded?"

"Not very seriously, mademoiselle. " Smithers, casting an indignantglance at his superior officer's complacent smile, reassumed masteryof the situation. "A Boche sniper got him in the leg. It will put himout of service for a month or two. But there is no danger. "

"_Grâce à  Dieu!_" said Jeanne. 

She leaned for a while against the cask, her hands behind her, lookingaway from the two men. And the two young men stood, somewhatembarrassed, looking away from her and from each other. At last shesaid, with an obvious striving for the even note in her voice:

"I ask your pardon, messieurs, but sometimes sudden happiness is moreoverwhelming than misfortune. I am now quite at your service. "

"My God! she's a wonder, " murmured Willoughby, who was fair, unmarried, and impressionable. "Go on with your dirty work. "

Smithers, conscious of linguistic superiority--in civil life he hadbeen concerned with the wine trade in Bordeaux--proceeded to carry outhis instructions. He turned over a leaf in his notebook and poised aready pencil. 

"I must ask you, mademoiselle, some formal questions. "

"Perfectly, monsieur, " said Jeanne. 

"Where was this packet when last you saw it?"

She made her statement, calmly. 

"Can you tell me its contents?"

"Not all, monsieur. I, as a young girl, was not in the full confidenceof my parents. But I remember my uncle saying there were about twentythousand francs in notes, some gold--I know not how much--somejewellery of my mother's--oh, a big handful!--rings--one a hoop ofemeralds and diamonds--a brooch with a black pearl belonging to mygreat-grandmother----"

"It is enough, mademoiselle, " said Smithers, jotting down notes. "Anything else besides money and jewellery?"

"There were papers of my father, share certificates, bonds--_quesais-je, moi_?"

Smithers opened the packet, which had already been examined. 

"You're a witness, sir, to the identification of the property. "

"No, " said Willoughby, "I'm just a baby captain of infantry, andwonder why the brainy Intelligence department doesn't hand the girlher belongings and decently clear out. "

"I've got to make my report, sir, " said Smithers stiffly. 

So the schedule was produced and the notes were solemnly counted, twenty-one thousand five hundred francs, and the gold four hundredfrancs, and the jewels were identified, and the bonds, of which Jeanneknew nothing, were checked by a list in her father's handwriting, andJeanne signed a paper with Smithers's fountain-pen, and Willoughbywitnessed her signature, and thus she entered into possession of herheritage. 

The officers were about to depart, but Jeanne detained them. 

"Messieurs, you must pardon me, but I am quite bewildered. As far as Ican understand, Monsieur Trevor rescued the packet from the well at myuncle's farm of La Folette, and got wounded in doing so. "

"That is quite so, " said Smithers. 

"But, monsieur, they tell me he was with a party in front of histrench mending wire. How did he reach the well of La Folette? I don'tcomprehend at all. "

Smithers turned to Willoughby. 

"Yes. How the dickens did he know the exact spot to go for?"

"We had taken over a new sector, and I was getting the topographyright with a map. Trevor was near by doing nothing, and as he's a manof education, I asked him to help me. There was the site of the farmmarked by name, and the ruined well away over to the left in No Man'sLand. I remember the beggar calling out 'La Folette!' in a startledvoice, and when I asked him what was the matter, he said 'Nothing, sir!'"

Smithers translated, and continued: "You see, mademoiselle, this iswhat happened, as far as I am concerned. I belong to the LancashireFusiliers. Our battalion is in the trenches farther up the line thanour friends. Well, just before dawn yesterday morning a man rolledover the parapet into our trench, and promptly fainted. He had beenwounded in the leg, and was half dead from loss of blood. Under histunic was this package. We identified him and his regiment, and fixedhim up and took him to the dressing-station. But things looked verysuspicious. Here was a man who didn't belong to us with a littlefortune in loot on his person. As soon as he was fit to beinterrogated, the C. O. Took him in hand. He told the C. O. About youand your story. He regarded the nearness of the well as something todo with Destiny, and resolved to get you back your property--if it wasstill there. The opportunity occurred when the wiring party wasalarmed. He crept out to the ruins by the well, fished out the packet, and a sniper got him. He managed to get back to our lines, having losthis way a bit, and tumbled into our trench. "

"But he was in danger of death all the time, " said Jeanne, losing thesteadiness of her voice. 

"He was. Every second. It was one of the most dare-devil, scatter-brained things I've ever heard of. And I've heard of many, mademoiselle. The only pity is that instead of being rewarded, he willbe punished. "

"Punished?" cried Jeanne. 

"Not very severely, " laughed Smithers. "Captain Willoughby will see tothat. But reflect, mademoiselle. His military duty was to remain withhis comrades, not to go and risk his life to get your property. Anyhow, it is clear that he was not out for loot. .. . Of course, theysent me here as Intelligence officer, to get corroboration of hisstory. " He paused for a moment. Then he added: "Mademoiselle, I mustcongratulate you on the restoration of your fortune and the possessionof a very brave friend. "

For the first time the red spots burned on Jeanne's pale face. 

"_Je vous remercie infiniment, monsieur. _"

"_Il sera_ all right, " said Willoughby. 

The officers saluted and went their ways. Jeanne took up her packetand mounted to her little room in a dream. Then she sat down on herbed, the unopened packet by her side, and strove to realize it all. But the only articulate thought came to her in the words which sherepeated over and over again:

"_Il a fait cela pour moi! Il a fait cela pour moi!_"

He had done that for her. It was incredible, fantastic, thrillinglytrue, like the fairy-tales of her childhood. The little sensitiveEnglish soldier, whom his comrades protected, whom she herself in afeminine way longed to protect, had done this for her. In a shy, almost reverent way, she opened out the waterproof covering, as thoughto reassure herself of the reality of things. For the first time sinceshe left Cambrai a smile came into her eyes, together with gratefultears. 

"_Il a fait cela pour moi! Il a fait cela pour moi!_"

 * * * * *

A while later she relieved Toinette's guard in the sick-room. 

"_Eh bien?_ And the two officers?" queried Aunt Morin, after Toinettehad gone. "They have stayed a long time. What did they want?"

Jeanne was young. She had eaten the bread of dependence, which AuntMorin, by reason of racial instinct and the stress of sorrow andinfirmity, had contrived to render very bitter. She could not repressan exultant note in her voice. Doggie, too, accounted for something;for much. 

"They came to bring good news, _ma tante_. The English have found allthe money and the jewels and the share certificates that Père Grigouhid in the well of La Folette. "

"_Mon Dieu!_ It is true?"

"_Oui, ma tante. _"

"And they have restored them to you?"

"Yes. "

"It is extraordinary. It is truly extraordinary. At last these Englishseem to be good for something. And they found that and gave it to youwithout taking anything?"

"Without taking anything, " said Jeanne. 

Aunt Morin reflected for a few moments, then she stretched out a thinhand. 

"_Ma petite Jeanne chérie_, you are rich now. "

"I don't know exactly, " replied Jeanne, with a mingling of truth andcaution. "I have enough for the present. "

"How did it all happen?"

"It was part of a military operation, " said Jeanne. 

Perhaps later she might tell Aunt Morin about Doggie. But now thething was too sacred. Aunt Morin would question, question maddeningly, until the rainbow of her fairy-tale was unwoven. The salient fact ofthe recovery of her fortune should be enough for Aunt Morin. It was. The old woman of the pain-pinched features looked at her wistfullyfrom sunken grey eyes. 

"And now that you are rich, my little Jeanne, you will not leave yourpoor old aunt, who loves you so much, to die alone?"

"_Ah, mais non! mais non! mais non!_" cried Jeanne indignantly. "Whatdo you think I am made of?"

"Ah!" breathed Aunt Morin, comforted. 

"Also, " said Jeanne, in the matter-of-fact French way, "_Si tu veux_, I will henceforward pay for my lodging and nourishment. "

"You are very good, my little Jeanne, " said Aunt Morin. "That will bea great help, for, _vois-tu_, we are very poor. "

"_Oui, ma tante. _ It is the war. "

"Ah, the war, the war; this awful war! One has nothing left. "

Jeanne smiled. Aunt Morin had a very comfortably invested fortuneleft, for the late Monsieur Morin, corn, hay and seed merchant, hadbeen a very astute person. It would make little difference to thecomfort of Aunt Morin, or to the prospects of Cousin Gaspard inMadagascar, whether the present business of Veuve Morin et Fils wenton or not. Of this Aunt Morin, in lighter moods, had boasted manytimes. 

"Every one must do what they can, " said Jeanne. 

"Perfectly, " said Aunt Morin. "You are a young girl who wellunderstands things. And now--it is not good for young people to stayin a sick-room--one needs the fresh air. _Va te distraire, ma petite. _I am quite comfortable. "

So Jeanne went out to distract a self already distraught with greatwonder, great pride and great fear. 

He had done that for her. The wonder of it bewildered her, the prideof it thrilled her. But he was wounded. Fear smothered her joy. Theyhad said there was no danger. But soldiers always made light ofwounds. It was their way in this horrible war, in the intimate midstof which she had her being. If a man was not dead, he was alive, andthereby accounted lucky. In their gay optimism they had given him amonth or two of absence from the regiment. But even in a month ortwo--where would the regiment be? Far, far away from Frélus. Wouldshe ever see Doggie again?

To distract herself she went down the village street, bareheaded, andup the lane that led to the little church. The church was empty, cool, and smelt of the hill-side. Before the tinsel-crowned, mild-facedimage of the Virgin were spread the poor votive offerings of thevillage. And Jeanne sank on her knees, and bowed her head, and, without special prayer or formula of devotion, gave herself into thehands of the Mother of Sorrows. 

She walked back comforted, vaguely conscious of a strengthening ofsoul. In the vast cataclysm of things her own hopes and fears anddestiny mattered very little. If she never saw Doggie again, if Doggierecovered and returned to the war and was killed, her own griefmattered very little. She was but a stray straw, and mattered verylittle. But what mattered infinitely, what shone with an immortalflame, though it were never so tiny, was the Wonderful SpiritualSomething that had guided Doggie through the jaws of death. 

 * * * * *

That evening she had a long talk in the kitchen with Phineas. The newsof Doggie's safety had been given out by Willoughby, without anydetails. Mo Shendish had leaped about her like a fox-terrier, and shehad laughed, with difficulty restraining her tears. But to Phineasalone she told her whole story. He listened in bewilderment. And thegreater the bewilderment, the worse his crude translations of Englishinto French. She wound up a long, eager speech by saying:

"He has done this for me. Why?"

"Love, " replied Phineas bluntly. 

"It is more than love, " said Jeanne, thinking of the WonderfulSpiritual Something. 

"If you could understand English, " said Phineas, "I would enter intothe metaphysics of the subject with pleasure, but in French it isbeyond me. "

Jeanne smiled, and turned to the matter-of-fact. 

"He will go to England now that he is wounded?"

"He's on the way now, " said Phineas. 

"Has he many friends there? I ask, because he talks so little ofhimself. He is so modest. "

"Oh, many friends. You see, mademoiselle, " said Phineas, with a viewto setting her mind at rest, "Doggie's an important person in his partof the country. He was brought up in luxury. I know, because I livedwith him as his tutor for seven years. His father and mother are dead, and he could go on living in luxury now, if he liked. "

"He is then, rich--Doggie?"

"He has a fine house of his own in the country, with many servants andautomobiles, and--wait"--he made a swift arithmetical calculation--"andan income of eighty thousand francs a year. "

"_Comment?_" cried Jeanne sharply, with a little frown. 

Phineas McPhail was enjoying himself, basking in the sunshine ofDoggie's wealth. Also, when conversation in French resolved itselfinto the statement of simple facts, he could get along famously. Sothe temptation of the glib phrase outran his discretion. 

"Doggie has a fortune of about two million francs. "

"_Il doit faire un beau mariage_, " said Jeanne, with stony calm. 

Phineas suddenly became aware of pitfalls and summoned his craft andastuteness and knowledge of affairs. He smiled, as he thought, encouragingly. 

"The only fine marriage is with the person one loves. "

"Not always, monsieur, " said Jeanne, who had watched the gathering ofthe sagacities with her deep eyes. "In any case"--she rose and heldout her hand--"our friend will be well looked after in England. "

"Like a prince, " said Phineas. 

He strode away greatly pleased with himself, and went and found MoShendish. 

"Man, " said he, "have you ever reflected that the dispensing ofhappiness is the cheapest form of human diversion?"

"What've you been doin' now?" asked Mo. 

"I've just left a lassie tottering over with blissful dreams. "

"Gorblime!" said Mo, "and to think that if I could sling the lingo, Imight've done the same!"

But Phineas had knocked all the dreams out of Jeanne. The Britishhappy-go-lucky ways of marriage are not those of the French_bourgeoisie_, and Jeanne had no notion of British happy-go-luckyways. Phineas had knocked the dream out of Jeanne by kicking Doggieout of her sphere. And there was a girl in England in Doggie's spherewhom he was to marry. She knew it. A man does not gather hissagacities in order to answer crookedly a direct challenge, unlessthere is some necessity. 

Well. She would never see Doggie again. He would pass out of her life. His destiny called him, if he survived the slaughter of the war, tothe shadowy girl in England. Yet he had done _that_ for her. For noother woman could he ever in this life do _that_ again. It was pastlove. Her brain boggled at an elusive spiritual idea. She was veryyoung, flung cleanly trained from the convent into the war's terrifictragedy, wherein maiden romantic fancies were scorched in the tenderbud. Only her honest traditions of marriage remained. Of love she knewnothing. She leaped beyond it, seeking, seeking. She would never seehim again. There she met the Absolute. But he had done _that_ forher--that which, she knew not why, but she knew--he would do for noother woman. The Splendour of it would be her everlasting possession. 

She undressed that night, proud, dry-eyed, heroical, and went to bed, and listened to the rhythmic tramp of the sentry across the gatewaybelow her window, and suddenly a lump rose in her throat and she fellto crying miserably. 

CHAPTER XVII

"How are you feeling, Trevor?"

"Nicely, thank you, Sister. "

"Glad to be in Blighty again?"

Doggie smiled. 

"Good old Blighty!"

"Leg hurting you?"

"A bit, Sister, " he replied with a little grimace. 

"It's bound to be stiff after the long journey, but we'll soon fix itup for you. "

"I'm sure you will, " he said politely. 

The nurse moved on. Doggie drew the cool clean sheet around hisshoulders and gave himself up to the luxury of bed--real bed. Themorning sunlight poured through the open windows, attended by adelicious odour which after a while he recognized as the scent of thesea. Where he was he had no notion. He had absorbed so much of Tommy'sphilosophy as not to care. He had arrived with a convoy the nightbefore, after much travel in ambulances by land and sea. If he hadbeen a walking case, he might have taken more interest in things; butthe sniper's bullet in his thigh had touched the bone, and in spite ofbeing carried most tenderly about like a baby, he had suffered greatpain and longed for nothing and thought of nothing but a permanentresting-place. Now, apparently, he had found one, and looking abouthim he felt peculiarly content. He seemed to have seen no cleaner, whiter, brighter place in the world than this airy ward, swept by thesea-breeze. He counted seven beds besides his own. On a table runningdown the ward stood a vase of sweet-peas and a bowl of roses. Hethought there was never in the world so clean and cool a figure as thegrey-clad nurse in her spotless white apron, cuffs and cap. 

When she passed near him again, he summoned her. She came to hisbedside. 

"What do you call this particular region of fairyland?"

She stared at him for a moment, adjusting things in her mind; for hisname and style were 35792 Private Trevor, J. M. , but his voice andphrase were those of her own social class. Then she smiled, and toldhim. The corner of fairyland was a private auxiliary hospital in aLancashire seaside town. 

"Lancashire, " said Doggie, knitting his brow in a puzzled way, "butwhy have they sent me to Lancashire? I belong to a West Countryregiment, and all my friends are in the South. "

"What's he grousing about, Sister?" suddenly asked the occupant of thenext bed. "He's the sort of chap that doesn't know when he's in luckand when he isn't. I'm in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, I am, and when I was hit before, they sent me to a military hospital inInverness. That'd teach you, my lad. This for me every time. You oughtto have something to grouse at. "

"I'm not grousing, you idiot!" said Doggie. 

"'Ere--who's he calling an idjit?" cried the Duke of Cornwall's LightInfantryman, raising himself on his elbow. 

The nurse intervened; explained that no one could be said to grumbleat a hospital when he called it fairyland. Trevor's question was thatof one in search of information. He did not realize that in assigningmen to the various hospitals in the United Kingdom, the authoritiescould not possibly take into account an individual man's localassociation. 

"Oh well, if it's only his blooming ignorance----"

"That's just it, mate, " smiled Doggie, "my blooming ignorance. "

"That's all right, " said the nurse. "Now you're friends. "

"He had no right to call me an idjit, " said the Duke of Cornwall'sLight Infantryman. He was an aggressive, red-visaged man with bristlyblack hair and stubbly black moustache. 

"If you'll agree that he wasn't grousing, Penworthy, I'm sure Trevorwill apologize for calling you an idiot. "

And into the nurse's eyes crept the queer smile of the woman learnedin the ways of children. 

"Didn't I say he wasn't grousing? It was only his ignorance?"

Doggie responded. "I meant no offence, mate, in what I said. "

The other growled an acceptance, whereupon the nurse smiled an ironicbenediction and moved away. 

"Where did you get it?" asked Penworthy. 

Doggie gave the information and, in his turn, made the politecounter-inquiry. 

Penworthy's bit of shrapnel, which had broken a rib or two, had beenacquired just north of Albert. When he left, he said, we were puttingit over in great quantities. 

"That's where the great push is going to be in a few days. "

"Aren't you sorry you're out of it?"

"Me?" The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantryman shook his head. "I takethings as I finds 'em, and I finds this quite good enough. "

So they chatted and, in the soldier's way, became friends. Later, thesurgeon arrived and probed Doggie's wound and hurt him exquisitely, sothat the perspiration stood out on his forehead, and his jaws achedafterwards from his clenching of them. While his leg was being dressedhe reflected that, a couple of years ago, if anyone had inflicted atwentieth part of such torture on him he would have yelled the housedown. He remembered, with an inward grin, the anguished precautions onwhich he had insisted whenever he sat down in the chair of hisexpensive London dentist. 

"It must have hurt like fun, " said the nurse, busily engaged with thegauze dressing. 

"It's all in the day's work, " replied Doggie. 

The nurse pinned the bandage and settled him comfortably in bed. 

"No one will worry you till dinner-time. You'd better try to have asleep. "

So Doggie nodded and smiled and curled up as best he could and sleptthe heavy sleep of the tired young animal. It was only when he awoke, physically rested and comparatively free from pain, that his mind, hitherto confused, began to work clearly, to straighten out the threedays' tangle. Yes, just three days. A fact almost impossible torealize. Till now it had seemed an eternity. 

He lay with his arms crossed under his head and stared at the bluesky--a soft, comforting English sky. The ward was silent. Only twobeds were occupied, one by a man asleep, the other by a man reading anovel. His other room-mates, including his neighbour Penworthy, wereso far convalescent as to be up and away, presumably by thelife-giving sea, whose rhythmic murmur he could hear. For the firsttime since he awoke to find himself bandaged up in a strange dug-out, and surrounded by strange faces, did the chaos of his ideas resolveitself into anything like definite memories. Yet many of them werestill vague. 

He had been out there, with the wiring party, in the dark. He had beenglad, he remembered, to escape from the prison of the trench into theopen air. He was having some difficulty with a recalcitrant bit ofwire that refused to come straight and jabbed him diabolically inunexpected places, when a shot rang out and German flares went up andeverybody lay flat on the ground, while bullets spat about them. As helay on his stomach, a flare lit up the ruined well of the farm of LaFolette. And the well and his nose and his heels were in a bee-line. The realization of the fact was the inception of a fascinating idea. He remembered that quite clearly. Of course his discovery, two daysbefore, of the spot where Jeanne's fortune lay hidden, when CaptainWilloughby, with map and periscope, had called him into consultation, had set his heart beating and his imagination working. But not tillthat moment of stark opportunity had he dreamed of the mad adventurewhich he undertook. There in front of him, at the very farthest threehundred yards away, in bee-line with nose and heels--that was thepeculiar and particular arresting fact--lay Jeanne's fortune. Inthinking of it he lost count of shots and star-shells, and heard noorders and saw no dim forms creeping back to the safety of the trench. And then all was darkness and silence. 

Doggie lay on his back and stared at the English sky and wondered howhe did it. His attitude was that of a man who cannot reconcile hissober self with the idiot hero of a drunken freak. And yet, at thetime, the journey to the ruined well seemed the simplest thing in theworld. The thought of Jeanne's delight shone uppermost in his mind. .. . Oh! he was forgetting the star, which hung low beneath a canopy ofcloud, the extreme point of the famous feet, nose and well bee-line. He made for it, now and then walking low, now and then crawling. Hedid not mind his clothes and hands being torn by the unseen refuse ofNo Man's Land. His chief sensation was one of utter loneliness, mingled with exultance at freedom. He did not remember feeling afraid:which was odd, because when the star-shells had gone up and the Germantrenches had opened fire on the wiring party, his blood had turned towater and his heart had sunk into his boots and he had been deucedlyfrightened. 

Heaven must have guided him straight to the well. He had known allalong that he merely would have to stick his hand down to find therope . .. And he felt no surprise when the rope actually came incontact with his groping fingers; no surprise when he pulled andpulled and fished up the packet. It had all been preordained. That wasthe funny part of the business which Doggie now could not understand. But he remembered that when he had buttoned his tunic over theprecious packet, he had been possessed of an insane desire to sing anddance. He repressed his desire to sing, but he leaped about andstarted to run. Then the star in which he trusted must have betrayedhim. It must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him avisible object; for, suddenly, _ping!_ something hit him violently onthe leg and bowled him over like a rabbit into a providentialshell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacyof his adventure coarsely and unsentimentally revealed itself. 

As to the rest, he was in a state of befogged memory. Only oneincident in that endless, cruel crawl home remained as a landmark inhis mind. He had paused to take breath, almost ready to give up theimpossible flight--it seemed as though he were dragging behind him aton of red-hot iron--when he became conscious of a stench violent inhis nostrils. He put out a hand. It encountered a horrible, once humanface, and his fingers touched a round recognizable cap. Horror drovehim away from the dead German and inspired him with the strength ofdespair. .. . Then all was fog and dark again until he recoveredconsciousness in the strange dug-out. 

There the doctor had said to him: "You must have a cast-ironconstitution, my lad. "

The memory caused a flicker round his lips. It wasn't everybody whocould crawl on his belly for nearly a quarter of a mile with a bulletthrough his leg, and come up smiling at the end of it. A cast-ironconstitution! If he had only known it fifteen, even ten years ago, what a different life he might have led. The great disgrace wouldnever have come upon him. 

And Jeanne? What of Jeanne? After he had told his story, they hadgiven him to understand that an officer would be sent to Frélus tocorroborate it, and, if he found it true, that Jeanne would enter intopossession of her packet. And that was all he knew, for they hadbundled him out of the front trenches as quickly as possible; and onceout he had become a case, a stretcher case, and although he had beentreated, as a case, with almost superhuman tenderness, not a soulregarded him as a human being with a personality or a history--noteven with a military history. And this same military history hadvaguely worried him all the time, and now that he could think clearly, worried him with a very definite worry. In leaving his firing-party hehad been guilty of a crime. Every misdemeanour in the Army is termed acrime--from murder to appearing buttonless on parade. Was itdesertion? If so, he might be shot. He had not thought of that when hestarted on his quest. It had seemed so simple to account for half anhour's absence by saying that he had lost his way in the dark. Butnow, that plausible excuse was invalid. .. . 

Doggie thought terribly hard that quiet, sea-scented morning. Afterall, it did not very much matter what they did to him. Sticking him upagainst a wall and shooting him was a remote possibility; he was inthe British and not the German Army. Field punishments of unpleasantkinds were only inflicted on people convicted of unpleasantdelinquencies. If he were a sergeant or a corporal, he doubtless wouldbe broken. But such is the fortunate position of a private, that hecannot be degraded to an inferior rank. At the worst they might givehim cells when he recovered. Well, he could stick it. It didn'tmatter. What really mattered was Jeanne. Was she in undisputedpossession of her packet? When it was a question of practical warfare, Doggie had blind faith in his officers--a faith perhaps even morechildlike than that of his fellow-privates, for officers were the menwho had come through the ordeal in which he had so lamentably failed;but when it came to administrative affairs, he was more critical. Hehad suffered during his military career from more than one subalternon whose arid consciousness the brain-wave never beat. He had nevermet even a field officer before whom, in the realm of intellect, hehad stood in awe. If any one of those dimly envisaged and still moredimly remembered officers of the Lancashire Fusiliers had ordered himto stand on his head on top of the parapet, he would have obeyed incheerful confidence; but he was not at all certain that, in the effortto deliver the packet to Jeanne, they would not make an unholy mess ofthings. He saw stacks of dirty yellowish bits of paper, with A. F. No. Something or the other, floating between Frélus and the LancashireBattalion H. Q. And the Brigade H. Q. And the Divisional H. Q. , and so onthrough the majesty of G. H. Q. To the awful War Office itself. Inpessimistic mood he thought that if Jeanne recovered her propertywithin a year, she would be lucky. 

What a wonderful creature was Jeanne! He shut his eyes to the blue skyand pictured her as she stood in the light, on the ragged escarpment, with her garments beaten by wind and rain. And he remembered the wearythud, thud of railway and steamer, which had resolved itself, like therhythmic tramp of feet that night, into the ceaseless refrain: "Jeanne!Jeanne!"

He opened his eyes again and frowned at the blue English sky. It hadno business to proclaim simple serenity when his mind was in such astate of complex tangle. It was all very well to think ofJeanne--Jeanne, whom it was unlikely that Fate would ever allow him tosee again, even supposing the war ended during his lifetime; but therewas Peggy--Peggy, his future wife, who had stuck to him loyallythrough good and evil repute. Yes, there was Peggy--not the faintestshadow of doubt about it. Doggie kept on frowning at the blue sky. Blighty was a very desirable country, but in it you were compelled tothink. And enforced thought was an infernal nuisance. The beastlytrenches had their good points after all. There you were not calledupon to think of anything; the less you thought, the better for yourjob; you just ate your bully-beef and drank your tea and cursedwhizz-bangs and killed a rat or two, and thanked God you were alive. 

Now that he came to look at it in proper perspective, it wasn't at alla bad life. When had he been worried to death, as he was now? Andthere were his friends: the humorous, genial, deboshed, yetever-kindly Phineas; dear old Mo Shendish, whose material feet werehankering after the vulgar pavement of Mare Street, Hackney, but whosespiritual tread rang on golden floors dimly imagined by the Seer ofPatmos; Barrett, the D. C. M. , the miniature Hercules, who, accordingto legend, though, modestly, he would never own to it, seized twoBoches by the neck and knocked their heads together till they died, and who, musically inclined, would sit at his, Doggie's, feet while heplayed on his penny whistle all the sentimental tunes he had everheard of; Sergeant Ballinghall, a tower of a man, a champion amateurheavy-weight boxer, with a voice compared with which a megaphonesounded like a maiden's prayer, and a Bardolphian nose and an eagleeye and the heart of a broody hen, who had not only given him boxinglessons, but had pulled him through difficult places innumerable . .. And scores of others. He wondered what they were doing. He also wasfoolish enough to wonder whether they missed him, forgetting for themoment that if a regiment took seriously to missing their comradessent to Kingdom Come or Blighty, they would be more like weepingwillows than destroyers of Huns. 

All the same, he knew that he would always live in the hearts of twoor three of them, and the knowledge brought him considerable comfort. It was strange to realize how the tentacles of his being stretched outgropingly towards these (from the old Durdlebury point of view)impossible friends. They had grafted themselves on to his life. Or wasthat a correct way of putting it? Had they not, rather, all graftedthemselves on to a common stock of life, so that the one common sapran through all their veins?

It took him a long time to get this idea formulated, fixed andaccepted. But Doggie was not one to boggle at the truth, as he saw it. And this was the truth. He, James Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall, wasa Tommy of the Tommies. He had lived the Tommy life intensely. He wasliving it now. And the extraordinary part of it was that he didn'twant to be anything else but a Tommy. From the social or gregariouspoint of view his life for the past year had been one of uncloudedhappiness. The realization of it, now that he was clearly sizing upthe ramshackle thing which he called his existence, hit him like thebutt-end of a rifle. Hardship, cold, hunger, fatigue, stench, rats, the dread of inefficiency--all these had been factors of misery whichhe could never eliminate from his soldier's equation; but such free, joyous, intimate companionship with real human beings he had neverenjoyed since he was born. He longed to be back among them, doing thesame old weary, dreary, things, eating the same old Robinson Crusoekind of food, crouching with them in the same old beastly hole in theground, while the Boche let loose hell on the trench. Mo Shendish'sgrin and his "'Ere, get in aht of the rain, " and his grip on hisshoulder, dragging him a few inches farther into shelter, were aspiritual compensation transcending physical discomfitures and perils. 

"It's all dam funny, " he said half aloud. 

But this was England, and although he was hedged about, protected andrestricted by War Office Regulation Red Tape twisted round to thestrength of steel cables, yet he was in command of telegraphs, oftelephones, and, in a secondary degree, of the railway system of theUnited Kingdom. 

He found himself deprecating the compulsory facilities ofcommunication in the civilized world. The Deanery must be informed ofhis home-coming. 

As soon as he could secure the services of a nurse he wrote out threetelegrams: one addressed "Conover, The Deanery, Durdlebury"; one toPeddle at Denby Hall, and one to Jeanne. The one to Jeanne was thelongest, and was "Reply paid. "

"This is going to cost a small fortune, young man, " said the nurse. 

Doggie smiled as he drew out a £1 treasury note from his soldier'spocket-book, the pathetic object containing a form of Will on theright-hand flap and on the left the directions for the making of theWill, concluding with the world-famous typical signature of ThomasAtkins. 

"It's a bust, Sister, " said he. "I've been saving up for it formonths. "

Then, duty accomplished, he reconciled himself to the corner offairyland in which he had awoke that morning. Things must take theircourse, and while they were taking it, why worry? So long as theydidn't commit the outrage of giving him bully-beef for dinner, thepresent coolness and comfort sufficed for his happiness. 

CHAPTER XVIII

The replies to the telegrams were satisfactory. Peggy, adjuring him towrite a full account of himself, announced her intention of coming upto see him as soon as he could guarantee his fitness to receive visitors. Jeanne wired: "_Paquet reçu. Mille remerciements. _" The news cheeredhim exceedingly. It was worth a hole in the leg. Henceforward Jeannewould be independent of Aunt Morin, of whose generous affection, inspite of Jeanne's loyal reticence, he had formed but a poor opinion. Now the old lady could die whenever she liked, and so much the betterfor Jeanne. Jeanne would then be freed from the unhealthy sick-room, from dreary little Frélus, and from enforced consorting with theriff-raff (namely, all other regiments except his own) of the BritishArmy. Even as it was, he did not enjoy thinking of her ashail-fellow-well-met with his own fellow-privates--perhaps with theexception of Phineas and Mo, who were in a different position, havingbeen formally admitted into a peculiar intimacy. Of course, if Doggiehad possessed a more analytical mind, he would have been greatlysurprised to discover that these feelings arose from a healthy, barbaric sense of ownership of Jeanne; that Mo and Phineas were in aspecial position because they humbly recognized this fact of ownershipand adopted a respectful attitude towards his property, and that ofall other predatory men in uniform he was distrustful and jealous. ButDoggie was a simple soul and went through a great many elementaryemotions, just as Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose, _sans le savoir_. Without knowing it, he would have gone to the ends of the earth forJeanne, have clubbed over the head any fellow-savage who should seekto rob him of Jeanne. It did not occur to him that savage instinct hadalready sent him into the jaws of death, solely in order to establishhis primitive man's ownership of Jeanne. When he came to reflect, inhis Doggie-ish way, on the motives of his exploit, he was somewhatbaffled. Jeanne, with her tragic face, and her tragic history, and hersteadfast soul shining out of her eyes, was the most wonderful womanhe had ever met. She personified the heroic womanhood of France. Thefoul invader had robbed her of her family and her patrimony. The deadwere dead, and could not be restored; but the material wealth, God--who else?--had given him this miraculous chance to recover; andhe had recovered it. National pride helped to confuse issues. He, anEnglishman, had saved this heroic daughter of France from poverty. .. . 

If only he could have won back to his own trench, and, later, when thecompany returned to Frélus, he could have handed her the packet andseen the light come into those wonderful eyes!

 * * * * *

Anyhow, she had received it. She sent him a thousand thanks. How didshe look, what did she say when she cut the string and undid the sealsand found her little fortune?

Translate Jeanne into a princess, the dirty waterproof package into agolden casket, himself into a knight disguised as a squire of lowdegree, and what more could you want for a first-class fairy-tale? Theidea struck Doggie at the moment of "lights out, " and he laughedaloud. 

"It doesn't take much to amuse some people, " growled his neighbour, Penworthy. 

"Sign of a happy disposition, " said Doggie. 

"What've you got to be happy about?"

"I was thinking how alive we are, and how dead you and I might be, "said Doggie. 

"Well, I don't think it funny thinking how one might be dead, " repliedPenworthy. "It gives me the creeps. It's all very well for you. You'llstump around for the rest of your life like a gentleman on a woodenleg. Chaps like you have all the luck; but as soon as I get out ofthis, I'll be passed fit for active service . .. And not so much ofyour larfing at not being dead. See?"

"All right, mate, " said Doggie. "Good night. "

Penworthy made no immediate reply; but presently he broke out:

"What d'you mean by talking like that? I'd hate being dead. "

A voice from the far end of the room luridly requested that theconversation should cease. Silence reigned. 

 * * * * *

A letter from Jeanne. The envelope bore a French stamp with theFrélus postmark, and the address was in a bold feminine hand. Fromwhom could it be but Jeanne? His heart gave a ridiculous leap and hetore the envelope open as he had never torn open envelope of Peggy's. But at the first two words the leap seemed to be one in mid-air, andhis heart went down, down, down like an aeroplane done in, and arrivedwith a hideous bump upon rocks. 

"_Cher Monsieur_"

_Cher Monsieur_ from Jeanne--Jeanne who had called him "Dog-gie" inaccents that had rendered adorable the once execrated syllables. _CherMonsieur!_

And the following, in formal French--it might have been a conventexercise in composition--is what she said:

 "The military authorities have remitted into my possession the package which you so heroically rescued from the well of the farm of La Folette. It contains all that my father was able to save of his fortune, and on consultation with Maître Pépineau here, it appears that I have sufficient to live modestly for the rest of my life. For the marvellous devotion of you, monsieur, an English gentleman, to the poor interests of an obscure young French girl, I can never be sufficiently grateful. There will never be a prayer of mine, until I die, in which you will not be mentioned. To me it will be always a symbolic act of your chivalrous England in the aid of my beloved France. That you have been wounded in this noble and selfless enterprise, is to me a subject both of pride and terrifying dismay. I am moved to the depths of my being. But I have been assured, and your telegram confirms the assurance, that your wound is not dangerous. If you had been killed while rendering me this wonderful service, or incapacitated so that you could no longer strike a blow for your country and mine, I should never have forgiven myself. I should have felt that I had robbed France of a heroic defender. I pray God that you may soon recover, and in fighting once more against our common enemy, you may win the glory that no English soldier can deserve more than you. Forgive me if I express badly the emotions which overwhelm me. It is impossible that we shall meet again. One of the few English novels I have tried to read, _à coups de dictionnaire_, was _Ships that Pass in the Night_. In spite of the great thing that you have done for me, it is inevitable that we should be such passing vessels. It is life. If, as I shall ceaselessly pray, you survive this terrible war, you will follow your destiny as an Englishman of high position, and I that which God marks out for me. 

 "I ask you to accept again the expression of my imperishable gratitude. Adieu. 

 "JEANNE BOSSIÈRE. "

The more often Doggie read this perfectly phrased epistle, the greaterwaxed his puzzledom. The gratitude was all there; more than enough. Itwas gratitude and nothing else. He had longed for a human storytelling just how the thing had happened, just how Jeanne had felt. Hehad wanted her to say: "Get well soon and come back, and I'll tell youall about it. " But instead of that she dwelt on the difference oftheir social status, loftily announced that they would never meetagain and that they would follow different destinies, and bade him the_adieu_ which in French is the final leave-taking. All of which toDoggie, the unsophisticated, would have seemed ridiculous, had it notbeen so tragic. He couldn't reconcile the beautiful letter, written infaultless handwriting and impeccable French, with the rain-swept girlon the escarpment. What did she mean? What had come over her?

But the ways of Jeannes are not the ways of Doggies. How was he toknow of the boastings of Phineas McPhail, and the hopelessness withwhich they filled Jeanne's heart? How was he to know that she had satup most of the night in her little room over the gateway, drafting andredrafting this precious composition, until, having reduced it tosoul-devastating correctitude, and, with aching eyes and head, made afair and faultless copy, she had once more cried herself intomiserable slumber?

At once Doggie called for pad and pencil, and began to write:

 "MY DEAR JEANNE, --

 "I don't understand. What fly has stung you? (_Quelle mouche vous a piquée?_) Of course we shall meet again. Do you suppose I am going to let you go out of my life?"

(He sucked his pencil. Jeanne must be spoken to severely. )

 "What rubbish are you talking about my social position? My father was an English parson (_pasteur anglais_) and yours a French lawyer. If I have a little money of my own, so have you. And we are not ships and we have not passed in the night. And that we should not meet again is not Life. It is absurdity. We are going to meet as soon as wounds and war will let me, and I am not your '_Cher Monsieur_, ' but your '_Cher Dog-gie_, ' and----"

"Here is a letter for you, brought by hand, " said the nurse, bustlingto his bedside. 

It was from Peggy. 

"Oh, lord!" said Doggie. 

Peggy was there. She had arrived from Durdlebury all alone, the nightbefore, and was putting up at an hotel. The venerable idiot, with redcrosses and bits of tin all over her, who seemed to run the hospital, wouldn't let her in to see him till the regulation visiting hour ofthree o'clock. That she, Peggy, was a Dean's daughter, who hadtravelled hundreds of miles to see the man she was engaged to, did notseem to impress the venerable idiot in the least. Till three o'clockthen. With love from Peggy. 

"The lady, I believe, is waiting for an answer, " said the nurse. 

"Oh, my hat!" said Doggie below his breath. 

To write the answer, he had to strip from the pad the page on which hehad begun the letter to Jeanne. He wrote: "Dearest Peggy. " Then thepencil-point's impress through the thin paper stared at him. Almostevery word was decipherable. Recklessly he tore the pad in half and ona virgin page scribbled his message to Peggy. The nurse departed withit. He took up the flimsy sheet containing his interrupted letter toJeanne and glanced at it in dismay. For the first time it struck himthat such words, to a girl even of the lowest intelligence, could onlyhave one interpretation. Doggie said, "Oh, lord!" and "Oh, my hat!"and Oh all sorts of unprintable things that he had learned in thearmy. And he put to himself the essential question: What the Hades washe playing at?

Obviously, the first thing to do was to destroy the letter to Jeanneand the tell-tale impress. This he forthwith did. He tore the sheetsinto the tiniest fragments, stretched out his arm to put the handfulon the table by the bed, missed his aim and dropped it on the floor. Whereby he incurred the just wrath of the hard-worked nurse. 

Again he took up Jeanne's letter. After all, what was wrong with it?He must look at things from her point of view. What had reallyhappened? Let him set out the facts judicially. They had struck up aday or two's friendship. She had told him, as she might have told anydecent soul, her sad and romantic story. The English during the greatretreat had rendered her unforgettable services. She was a girl of agenerously responsive nature. She would pay her debt of gratitude tothe English soldier. Her fine _vale_ on the memorable night of rainwas part payment of her debt to England. Yes. Let him get things inthe right perspective. .. . She had made friends with him because he wasone of the few private soldiers who could speak her language. It wasbut natural that she should tell him of the sunken packet. It was oneof the most vital facts of her life. But just an outside fact: nothingto do with any shy mysterious workings of her woman's soul. She mighthave told the story to any man in the company without derogation fromher womanly dignity. And any man Jack of them, having Jeanne'sconfidence, having the knowledge of the situation of the ruined well, having the God-sent opportunity of recovering the treasure, would, ofabsolute certainty, have done exactly what he, Doggie, had done. Supposing Mo Shendish had been the privileged person, instead ofhimself. What, by way of thanks, could Jeanne have written? A letterpractically identical. 

Practically. A very comfortable sort of word; but Doggie's cultivatedmind disliked it. It was a slovenly word, a makeshift for the hardbroom of clean thought. This infernal "practically" begged the wholequestion. Jeanne would not have sentimentalized to Mo Shendish aboutships passing in the night. No, she wouldn't, in spite of all hisefforts to persuade himself that she would. Well, perhaps dear old Mowas a rough, uneducated sort of chap. He could not have establishedwith Jeanne such delicate relations of friendship as exist betweensocial equals. Obviously the finer shades of her letter would havevaried according to the personality of the recipient. Jeanne andhimself, owing to the abnormal conditions of war, had suddenly becomevery intimate friends. The war, as she imagined, must part them forever. She bade him a touching and dignified farewell, and that was theend of the matter. It had all been an idyllic episode; beginning, middle, and end; neatly rounded off; a thing done, and donewith--except as a strange romantic memory. It was all over. As long ashe remained in the army, a condition for which, as a private soldier, he was not responsible, how could he see Jeanne again? By the time herejoined, the regiment would be many miles away from Frélus. This, inher clear, steady way, she realized. Her letter must be final. 

It had to be final. Was not Peggy coming at three o'clock?

Again Doggie thought, somewhat wistfully, of the old care-free, fullphysical life, and again he murmured:

"It's all dam funny!"

 * * * * *

Peggy stood for a moment at the door scanning the ward; thenperceiving him, she marched down with a defiant glance at nurses andblue-uniformed comrades and men in bed and other strangers, swung achair and established herself by his bedside. 

"You dear old thing, I couldn't bear to think of you lying herealone, " she said, with the hurry that seeks to cover shyness. "I hadto come. Mother's gone _fut_ and can't travel, and Dad's running allthe parsons' shows in the district. Otherwise one of them would havecome too. "

"It's awfully good of you, Peggy, " he said, with a smile, for fair andflushed she was pleasant to look upon. "But it must have been afiendish journey. "

"Rotten!" said Peggy. "But that's a trifle. You're the all-importantthing. Tell me straight. You're not badly hurt, are you?"

"Lord, no, " he replied cheerfully. "Just the fleshy part of the leg--aclean bullet-wound. Bone touched; but they say I'll be fit quitesoon. "

"Sure? They're not going to cut off your leg or do anything horrid?"

He laughed. "Sure, " said he. 

"That's all right. "

There was a pause. Now that they had met they seemed to have little tosay. She looked around. Presently she remarked:

"Everything looks quite fresh and clean. "

"It's perfect. "

"Rather public, though, " said Peggy. 

"Publicity is the paradoxical condition of the private's life, "laughed Doggie. 

Another pause. 

"Well, how are you feeling?"

"First-rate, " said Doggie. "It's nothing to fuss over. I hope to beout again in a month or two. "

"Out where?"

"In France--with the regiment. "

Peggy drew a little breath of astonishment and sat up on her chair. His surprising statement seemed to have broken up the atmosphere ofrestraint. 

"Do you mean to say you _want_ to go back to the trenches?"

Conscientious Doggie knitted his brows. A fervent "Yes" would proclaimhim a modern Paladin, eager to slay Huns. Now, as a patrioticEnglishman he loved Huns to be slain, but as the survivor of JamesMarmaduke Trevor, dilettante expert on the theorbo and the viol dagamba and owner of the peacock and ivory room in Denby Hall, to saynothing of the collector of little china dogs, he could not honestlydeclare that he enjoyed the various processes of slaying them. 

"I can't explain, " he replied, after a while. "When I was out, Ithought I hated every minute of it. Now I look back, I find I've hadquite a good time. I've not once really been sick or sorry. Forinstance, I've often thought myself beastly miserable with wet and mudand east wind--but I've never had even a cold in the head. I neverknew how good it was to feel fit. And there are other things. When Ileft Durdlebury, I hadn't a man friend in the world. Now I have a lotof wonderful pals who would go through hell for one another--and forme. "

"Tommies?"

"Of course--Tommies. "

"You mean gentlemen in the ranks?"

"Not a bit of it. Or yes. All are gentlemen in the ranks. All sortsand conditions of men. The man whom I honour and love more than anyoneelse, comes from a fish-shop in Hackney. That's the fascinating partof it. Do understand me, Peggy, " he continued, after a short silence, during which she regarded him almost uncomprehendingly. "I don't sayI'm yearning to sleep in a filthy dug out or to wallow in the groundunder shell-fire, or anything of that sort. That's beastly. There'sonly one other word for it, which begins with the same letter, and thesuperior kind of private doesn't use it in ladies' society. .. . Butwhile I'm lying here I wonder what all the other fellows aredoing--they're such good chaps--real, true, clean men--out there youseem to get to essentials--all the rest is leather and prunella--and Iwant to be back among them again. Why should I be in clover whilethey're in choking dust--a lot of it composed of desiccated Boches?"

"How horrid!" cried Peggy, with a little shiver. 

"Of course it's horrid. But they've got to stick it, haven't they? Andthen there's another thing. Out there one hasn't any worries. "

Peggy pricked up her ears. "Worries? What kind of worries?"

Doggie became conscious of indiscretion. He temporized. 

"Oh, all kinds. Every man with a sort of trained intellect must havethem. You remember John Stuart Mill's problem: 'Which would you soonerbe--a contented hog, or a discontented philosopher?' At the Front youhave all the joys of the contented hog. "

Instinctively he stretched out his hand for a cigarette. She bentforward, gripped a matchbox, and lit the cigarette for him. 

Doggie thanked her politely; but in a dim way he felt conscious ofsomething lacking in her little act of helpfulness. It had beenperformed with the unsmiling perfunctoriness of the nurse; an act ofduty, not of tenderness. As she blew out the match, which she did withan odd air of deliberation, her face wore the same expression ofhardness it had done on that memorable day when she had refused himher sympathy over the white feather incident. 

"I can't understand your wanting to go back at all. Surely you've doneyour bit, " she said. 

"No one has done his bit who's alive and able to carry on, " repliedDoggie. 

Peggy reflected. Yes. There was some truth in that. But she thought itrather hard lines on the wounded to be sent back as soon as they werepatched up. Most of them hated the prospect. That was why she couldn'tunderstand Doggie's desire. 

"Anyhow, it's jolly noble of you, dear old thing, " she declared withrather a spasmodic change of manner, "and I'm very proud of you. "

"For God's sake, don't go imagining me a hero, " cried Doggie in alarm, "for I'm not. I hate the fighting like poison. The only reason I don'trun away is because I can't. It would be far more dangerous thanstanding still. It would mean an officer's bullet through my head atonce. "

"Any man who is wounded in the defence of his country is a hero, " saidPeggy defiantly. 

"Rot!" said Doggie. 

"And all this time you haven't told me how you got it. How did you?"

Doggie squirmed. The inevitable and dreaded question had come at last. 

"I just got sniped when I was out, at night, with a wiring party, " hesaid hurriedly. 

"But that's no description at all, " she objected. 

"I'm afraid it's all I can give, " Doggie replied. Then, by way ofsalve to a sensitive conscience, he added: "There was nothing brave orheroic about it, at all--just a silly accident. It was as safe astying up hollyhocks in a garden. Only an idiot Boche let off his gunon spec and got me. Don't let us talk about it. "

But Peggy was insistent. "I'm not such a fool as not to know whatmending barbed wire at night means. And whatever you may say, you gotwounded in the service of your country. "

It was on Doggie's agitated lips to shout a true "I didn't!" For thatwas the devil of it. Had he been so wounded, he could have purredcontentedly while accepting the genuine hero's meed of homage andconsolation. But he had left his country's service to enter that ofJeanne. In her service he had been shot through the leg. He had nobusiness to be wounded at all. Jeanne saw that very clearly. To haveexposed himself to the risk of his exploit was contrary to all hiscountry's interests. His wound had robbed her of a fighting man, not aparticularly valuable warrior, but a soldier in the firing line allthe same. If every man went off like that on private missions of hisown and got properly potted, there would be the end of the Army. Itwas horrible to be an interesting hero under false pretences. 

Of course he might have been George Washingtonian enough to shout: "Icannot tell a lie. I didn't. " But that would have meant relating thewhole story of Jeanne. And would Peggy have understood the story ofJeanne? Could Peggy, in her plain-sailing, breezy British way, haveappreciated all the subtleties of his relations with Jeanne? She wouldask pointed, probably barbed, questions about Jeanne. She would tearthe whole romance to shreds. Jeanne stood too exquisite a symbol forhim to permit the sacrilege of Peggy's ruthless vivisection. Forvivisect she would, without shadow of doubt. His long and innocentfamiliarity with womankind in Durdlebury had led him instinctively tothe conclusion formulated by one of the world's greatest cynics in hisadvice to a young man: "If you care for happiness, never speak to awoman about another woman. "

Doggie felt uncomfortable as he looked into Peggy's clear blue eyes;not conscience-stricken at the realization of himself as a scoundrellyDon Juan--that never entered his ingenuous mind; but he hated hisenforced departure from veracity. The one virtue that had dragged thetoy Pom successfully along the Rough Road of the soldier's life washis uncompromising attitude to Truth. It cost him a sharp strugglewith his soul to reply to Peggy:

"All right. Have it so if it pleases you, my dear. But it was an idiotfluke all the same. "

"I wonder if you know how you've changed, " she said, after a while. 

"For better or worse?"

"The obvious thing to say would be 'for the better. ' But I wonder. Doyou mind if I'm frank?"

"Not a bit. "

"There's something hard about you, Marmaduke. "

Doggie wrinkled lips and brow in a curious smile. "I'll be frank too. You see, I've been living among men, instead of a pack of old women. "

"I suppose that's it, " Peggy said thoughtfully. 

"It's a dud sort of place, Durdlebury, " said he. 

"Dud?"

He laughed. "It never goes off. "

"You used to say, in your letters, that you longed for it. "

"Perhaps I do now--in a way. I don't know. "

"I bet you'll settle down there after the war, just as though nothinghad happened. "

"I wonder, " said Doggie. 

"Of course you will. Do you remember our plans for the reconstructionof Denby Hall, which were knocked on the head? All that'll have to begone into again. "

"That doesn't mean that we need curl ourselves up there for ever likecaterpillars in a cabbage. "

She arched her eyebrows. "What would you like to do?"

"I think I'll want to go round and round the world till I'm dizzy. "

At this amazing pronouncement from Marmaduke Trevor, Peggy gasped. Italso astonished Doggie himself. He had not progressed so far on theroad to self-emancipation as to dream of a rupture of his engagement. His marriage was as much a decree of destiny as had been hisenlistment when he walked to Peter Pan's statue in Kensington Gardens. But the war had made the prospect a distant one. In the vague futurehe would marry and settle down. But now Peggy brought it into alarmingnearness, thereby causing him considerable agitation. To go back tovegetation in Durdlebury, even with so desirable a companion cabbageas Peggy, just when he was beginning to conjecture what there might beof joy and thrill in life--the thought dismayed him; and the suddendismay found expression in his rhetorical outburst. 

"Oh, if you want to travel for a year or two, I'm all for it, " criedPeggy. "I can't say I've seen much of the world. But we'll soon getsick of it, and yearn for home. There'll be lots of things to do. We'll take up our position as county people--no more of the stuffy oldwomen you're so down on--and you'll get into Parliament and sit oncommittees, and so on, and altogether we'll have a topping time. "

Doggie had an odd sensation that a stranger spoke through Peggy'sfamiliar lips. Well, perhaps, not a stranger, but a half-forgottendead and gone acquaintance. 

"Don't you think the war will change things--if it hasn't changed themalready?"

"Not a bit, " Peggy replied. "Dad's always talking learnedly aboutsocial reconstruction, whatever that means. But if people have gotmoney and position and all that sort of thing, who's going to take itaway from them? You don't suppose we're all going to turn socialistsand pool the wealth of the country, and everybody's going to live in agarden-city and wear sandals and eat nuts?"

"Of course not, " said Doggie. 

"Well, how are people like ourselves going to feel any difference inwhat you call social conditions?"

Doggie lit another cigarette, chiefly in order to gain time forthought; but an odd instinct made him secure the matchbox before hepicked out the cigarette. Superficially, Peggy's proposition wasincontrovertible. Unless there happened some social cataclysm, involving a newly democratized world in ghastly chaos, which after allwas a remote possibility, the externals of gentle life would undergovery slight modification. Yet there was something fundamentally wrongin Peggy's conception of post-war existence. Something wrong inessentials. Now, a critical attitude towards Peggy, whose presence wasa proof of her splendid loyalty, seemed hateful. But there wassomething wrong all the same. Something wrong in Peggy herself thatput her into opposition. In one aspect, she was the pre-war Peggy, with her cut-and-dried little social ambitions and her definiteprojects of attainment; but in another she was not. The pre-war Peggyhad swiftly turned into the patriotic English girl who had hounded himinto the army. He found himself face to face with an amorphous, characterless sort of Peggy whom he did not know. It was perplexing, baffling. Before he could formulate an idea, she went on:

"You silly old thing, what change is there likely to be? What changeis there now, after all? There's a scarcity of men. Naturally. They'reout fighting. But when they come home on leave, life goes on just thesame as before--tennis parties, little dances, dinners. Of course, lots of people are hard hit. Did I tell you that Jack Paunceby waskilled--the only son? The war's awful and dreadful, I know--but if wedon't go through with it cheerfully, what's the good of us?"

"I think I'm pretty cheerful, " said Doggie. 

"Oh, you're not grousing and you're making the best of it. You'reperfectly splendid. But you're philosophizing such a lot over it. Theonly thing before us is to do in Germany, Prussian militarism, and soon, and then there'll be peace, and we'll all be happy again. "

"Have you met many men who say that?" he asked. 

"Heaps. Oliver was only talking about it the other day. "

"Oliver?"

At his quick challenge he could not help noticing a little cloud, asof vexation, pass over her face. 

"Yes, Oliver, " she replied, with an unnecessary air of defiance. "Hehas been over here on short leave. Went back a fortnight ago. He's ascheerful as cheerful can be. Jollier than ever he was. I took him outin the dear old two-seater and he insisted on driving to show how theydrove at the Front--and it's only because the Almighty must have kepta special eye on a Dean's daughter that I'm here to tell the tale. "

"You saw a lot of him, I suppose?" said Doggie. 

A flush rose on Peggy's cheek. "Of course. He was staying at theDeanery most of his time. I wrote to you about it. I've made a pointof telling you everything. I even told you about the two-seater. "

"So you did, " said Doggie. "I remember. " He smiled. "Your descriptionmade me laugh. Oliver's a major now, isn't he?"

"Yes. And just before he got his majority they gave him the MilitaryCross. "

"He must be an awful swell, " said Doggie. 

She replied with some heat. "He hasn't changed the least little bit inthe world. "

Doggie shook his head. "No one can go through it, really go throughit, and come back the same. "

"You don't insinuate that Oliver hasn't really gone through it?"

"Of course not, Peggy dear. They don't throw M. C. 's about like IronCrosses. In order to get it Oliver must have looked into the jaws ofhell. They all do. But no man is the same afterwards. Oliver has whatthe French call _panache_----"

"What's _panache_?"

"The real heroic swagger--something spiritual about it. Oliver's notgoing to let you notice the change in him. "

"We went to the Alhambra, and he laughed as if such a thing as war hadnever been heard of. "

"Naturally, " said Doggie. "All that's part of the _panache_. "

"You're talking through your hat, Marmaduke, " she exclaimed with someirritation. "Oliver's a straight, clean, English soldier. "

"I've been doing my best to tell you so, " said Doggie. 

"But you seem to be criticizing him because he's concealing somethingbehind what you call his _panache_. "

"Not criticizing, dear. Only stating. I think I'm more Oliverian thanyou. "

"I'm not Oliverian, " cried Peggy, with burning cheeks. "And I don'tsee why we should discuss him like this. All I said was that Oliver, who has made himself a distinguished man and will be even moredistinguished, and, at any rate, knows what he's talking about, doesn't worry his head with social reconstruction and all that sort ofrot. I've come here to talk about you, not about Oliver. Let us leavehim out of the question. "

"Willingly, " said Doggie. "I never had any reason to love Oliver; butI must do him justice. I only wanted to show you that he must be abigger man than you imagine. "

"I'm glad to hear you say so, " cried Peggy, with a flash of the eyes. "I hope it's true. "

"The war's such a whacking big thing, you see, " he said with aconciliatory smile. "No one can prophesy exactly what's going to comeout of it. But the whole of human society . .. The world, the whole ofcivilization, is being stirred up like a Christmas pudding. The war'sbound to change the trend of all human thought. There must be anentire rearrangement of social values. "

"I'm sorry; but I don't see it, " said Peggy. 

Doggie again wrinkled his brow and looked at her, and she returned hisglance stonily. 

"You think I'm mulish. "

She had interpreted Doggie's thought, but he raised a hand in protest. 

"No, no. "

"Yes, yes. Every man looks at a woman like that when he thinks her amule or an idiot. We get to learn it in our cradles. But in spite ofyour superior wisdom, I know I'm right. After the war there won't be abit of change, really. A duke will be a duke, and a costermonger acostermonger. "

"These are extreme cases. The duke may remain a duke, but he won't besuch a little tin god on wheels. He'll find himself in the position ofa democratic country gentleman. And the costermonger will rise to thepolitical position of an important tradesman. But between the twothere'll be any old sort of flux. "

"Did you learn all this horrible, rank socialism in France?"

"Perhaps, but it seems so obvious. "

"It's only because you've been living among Tommies, who've got thesestupid ideas into their heads. If you had been living among yoursocial equals----"

"In Durdlebury?"

She flashed rebellion. "Yes. In Durdlebury. Why not?"

"I'm afraid, Peggy dear, " he said, with his patient, pleasant smile, "you are rather sheltered from the war in Durdlebury. "

She cried out indignantly. 

"Indeed we're not. The newspapers come to Durdlebury, don't they? Andeverybody's doing something. We have the war all around us. We've evensucceeded in getting wounded soldiers in the Cottage Hospital. NancyMurdoch is a V. A. D. And scrubs floors. Cissy James is driving aY. M. C. A. Motor-car in Calais. Jane Brown-Gore is nursing in Salonika. We read all their letters. Personally, I can't do much, because motherhas crocked up and I've got to run the Deanery. But I'm slaving frommorning to night. Only last week I got up a concert for the wounded. Alone I did it--and it takes some doing in Durdlebury, now that you'reaway and the Musical Association has perished of inanition. Old Dr. Flint's no earthly good, since Tom, the eldest son--you remember--waskilled in Mesopotamia. So I did it all, and it was a great success. Wenetted four hundred and seventy pounds. And whenever I can get achance, I go round the hospital and talk and read to the men and writetheir letters, and hear of everything. I don't think you've any rightto say we're out of touch with the war. In a sort of way, I know asmuch about it as you do. "

Doggie in some perplexity scratched his head, a thing which he wouldnever have done at Durdlebury. With humorous intent he asked:

"Do you know as much as Oliver?"

"Oliver's a field officer, " she replied tartly, and Doggie feltsnubbed. "But I'm sure he agrees with everything I say. " She pausedand, in a different tone, went on: "Don't you think it's rather rottento have this piffling argument when I've come all this long way to seeyou?"

"Forgive me, Peggy, " he said penitently; "I appreciate your comingmore than I can say. "

She was not appeased. "And yet you don't give me credit for playingthe game. "

"What game?" he asked with a smile. 

"Surely you ought to know. "

He reached out his hand and took hers. "Am I worth it, Peggy?"

Her lips twitched and tears stood in her eyes. 

"I don't know what you mean?"

"Neither do I quite, " he replied simply. "But it seems that I'm aTommy through and through, and that I'll never get Tommy out of mysoul. "

"That's nothing to be ashamed of, " she declared stoutly. 

"Of course not. But it makes one see all sorts of things in adifferent light. "

"Oh, don't worry your head about that, " she said, with patheticmisunderstanding. "We'll put you all right as soon as we get you backto Durdlebury. I suppose you won't refuse to come this time. "

"Yes, I'll come this time, " said Doggie. 

So he promised, and the talk drifted on to casual lines. She gave himthe mild chronicle of the sleepy town, described plays which she hadseen on her rare visits to London, sketched out a programme for hisall too short visit to the Deanery. 

"And in the meanwhile, " she remarked, "try to get these morbid ideasout of your silly old head. "

Time came for parting. She rose and shook hands. 

"Don't think I've said anything in depreciation of Tommies. Iunderstand them thoroughly. They're wonderful fellows. Good-bye, oldboy. Get well soon. "

She kissed her hand to him at the door, and was gone. 

It was now that Doggie began to hate himself. For all the time thatPeggy had been running on, eager to convince him that his imputationof aloofness from the war was undeserved, the voice of one who, knowing its splendours and its terrors, had pierced to the heart ofits mysteries, ran in his ears. 

"_Leur gaieté fait peur. _"

CHAPTER XIX

The X-rays showed the tiniest splinter of bone in Doggie's thigh. Thesurgeon fished it up and the clean wound healed rapidly. The gloomyPenworthy's prognostication had not come true. Doggie would not stumpabout at ease on a wooden leg; but in all probability would soon findhimself back in the firing line--a prospect which brought great cheerto Penworthy. Also to Doggie. For, in spite of the charm of the prettyhospital, the health-giving sea air, the long rest for body andnerves, life seemed flat and unprofitable. 

He had written a gay, irreproachable letter to Jeanne, to whichJeanne, doubtless thinking it the last word of the episode, had notreplied. Loyalty to Peggy forbade further thought of Jeanne. He musthenceforward think of Peggy and her sturdy faithfulness as hard as hecould. But the more he thought, the more remote did Peggy seem. Ofcourse the publicity of the interview had invested it with a certainconstraint, knocked out of it any approach to sentimentality orromance. They had not even kissed. They had spent most of the timearguing from different points of view. They had been near toquarrelling. It was outrageous of him to criticize her; yet how couldhe help it? The mere fact of striving to exalt her was a criticism. 

Indeed they were far apart. Into the sensitive soul of Doggie the warin all its meaning had paused. The soul of Peggy had remaineduntouched. To her, in her sheltered corner of England, it was aghastly accident, like a railway collision blocking the traffic on herfavourite line. For the men of her own class who took part in it, itwas a brave adventure; for the common soldier a sad but patrioticnecessity. If circumstances had allowed her to go forth into thewar-world as nurse or canteen helper at a London terminus, or motordriver in France, her horizon would have broadened. But the contactwith realities into which her dilettante little war activities broughther was too slight to make the deep impression. In her heart, as faras she revealed herself to Doggie, she resented the war because itinterfered with her own definitely marked out scheme of existence. Thewar over, she would regard it politely as a thing that had never been, and would forthwith set to work upon her aforesaid interrupted plan. And towards a comprehension of this apparent serenity the perplexedmind of Doggie groped with ill-success. All his old values had beenkicked into higgledy-piggledy confusion. All hers remained steadfast. 

So Doggie reflected with some grimness that there are rougher roadsthan those which lead to the trenches. 

A letter from Phineas did not restore equanimity. It ran:

 "MY DEAR LADDIE, --

 "Our unsophisticated friend, Mo, and myself are writing this letter together and he bids me begin it by saying that he hopes it finds you as it leaves us at present, in a muck of dust and perspiration. Where we are now I must not tell, for (in the opinion of the Censor) you would reveal it to the very Reverend the Dean of Durdlebury, who would naturally telegraph the information to the Kaiser. But the Division is far, far from the idyllic land of your dreams, and there is bloody fighting ahead of us. And though the hearts of Mo and me go out to you, laddie, and though we miss you sore, yet Mo says he's blistering glad you're out of it and safe in your perishing bed with a Blighty one. And such, in more academic phraseology, are the sentiments of your old friend Phineas. 

 "Ah, laddie! it was a bad day when we marched from the old billets; for the word had gone round that we weren't going back. I had taken the liberty of telling the lassie ye ken of something about your private position and your worldly affairs, of which it seems you had left her entirely ignorant. Of course, with my native Scottish caution, and my knowledge of human nature gained in the academies of prosperity and the ragged schools of adversity, I did not touch on certain matters of a delicate nature. That is no business of mine. If there is discretion in this world in which you can trust blindly, it is that of Phineas McPhail. I just told her of Denby Hall and your fortune, which I fairly accurately computed at a couple of million francs. For I thought it was right she should know that you weren't just a scallywag private soldier like the rest of us. And I am bound to say that the lassie was considerably impressed. In further conversation I told her something of your early life, and, though not over desirous of blackening my character in her bonnie eyes, I let her know what kind of an injudicious upbringing you had been compelled to undergo. '_Il a été élevé_, ' said I, '_dans_----' What the blazes was the French for cotton-wool? The war has a pernicious effect on one's memory--I sometimes even forget the elementary sensations of inebriety. '_Dans la ouate_, ' she said. And I remembered the word. '_Oui, dans la ouate_, ' said I. And she looked at me, laddie, or, rather, through me, out of her great dark eyes--you mind the way she treats your substance as a shadow and looks through it at the shadows that to her are substances--and she said below her breath--I don't think she meant me to hear it--'_Et c'est lui qui a fait cela pour moi_. '

 "Mo, in his materialistic way, is clamorous that I should tell you about the chicken; the which, being symbolical, I proceed to do. It was our last day. She invited us to lunch in the kitchen and shut the door so that none of the hungry varlets of the company should stick in their unmannerly noses and whine for scraps. And there, laddie, was an omelette and cutlets and a chicken and a _fromage à la crême_ such as in the days of my vanity I have never eaten, cooked by the old body whose soul you won with a pinch of snuff. The poor lassie could scarcely eat; but Mo saw that there was nothing left. The bones on his plate looked as if a dog had been at them for a week. And there was vintage Haut Sauterne which ran down one's throat like scented gold. 'Man, ' said I to Mo, 'if you lap it up like that you'll be as drunk as Noah. ' So he cast a frightened glance at mademoiselle and sipped like a young lady at a christening party. Then she brings out cherries and plums and peaches and opens a half-bottle of champagne and fills all our glasses, and Toinette had a glass; and she rises in the pale, dignified, Greek tragedy way she has, and she makes a wee bit speech. '_Messieurs_, ' she said, 'perhaps you may wonder why I have invited you. But I think you understand. It is the only way I had of sharing with Doggie's friends the fortune that he had so heroically brought me. It is but a little tribute of my gratitude to Doggie. You are his friends and I wish well that you would be mine--_très franchement, très loyalement_. ' She put out her hand and we shook it. And old Mo said, 'Miss, I'd go to hell for you!' Whereupon the little red spot you may have seen for yourself, came into her pale cheek, and a soft look like a flitting moonbeam crept into her eyes. Laddie, if I'm waxing too poetical, just consider that Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière is not the ordinary woman the British private soldier is in the habit of consorting with. Then she took up her glass. '_Je vais porter un toast--Vive l'Angleterre!_' And although a Scotsman, I drank it as if it applied to me. And then she cried, '_Vive la France!_' And old Toinette cried, '_Vive la France!_'

 "And they looked transfigured, and I fairly itched to sing the Marseillaise, though I knew I couldn't. Then she chinked glasses with us. 

 "'_Bonne chance, mes amis!_'

 "And then she made a sign to the auld wife, who added the few remaining drops to our glasses. 'To Doggie!' said mademoiselle. We drank the toast, laddie. Old Mo began in his cracked voice, 'For he's a jolly good fellow. ' I kicked him and told him to shut up. But mademoiselle said:

 "'I've heard of that. It is a ceremony. I like it. Continue. '

 "So Mo and I held up our glasses and, in indifferent song, proclaimed you what the Army, developing certain rudimentary germs, has made you, and mademoiselle too held up her glass and threw back her head and joined us in the hip, hip, hoorays. It would have done your heart good, laddie, to have been there to see. But we did you proud. 

 "When we emerged from the festival, the prettiest which, in the course of a variegated career, I have ever attended, Mo says:

 "'If I hadn't a gel at home----'

 "'If you hadn't got a girl at home, ' said I, 'you'd be the next damnedest fool in the army to Phineas McPhail!'

 "We marched out just before dusk, and there she was by the front door; and though she stood proud and upright, and smiled with her lips and blew us kisses with both hands, to which the boys all responded with a cheer, there were tears streaming down her cheeks--and the tears, laddie, were not for Mo, or me, or any one of us ugly beggars that passed her by. 

 "I also have good news for you, in that I hear from the thunderous, though excellent, Sergeant Ballinghall, there is a probability that when you rejoin, the C. O. Will be afflicted with a grievous lapse of memory and that he will be persuaded that you received your wound during the attack on the wiring party. 

 "As I said before, laddie, we're all like the Scots wha' hae wi' Wallace bled and are going to our gory bed or to victory. Possibly both. But I will remain steadfast to my philosophy, and if I am condemned to the said sanguinolent couch, I will do my best to derive from it the utmost enjoyment possible. All kinds of poets and such-like lusty loons have shed their last drop of ink in the effort to describe the pleasures of life--but it will be reserved for the disembodied spirit of Phineas McPhail to write the great Philosophic poem of the world's history, which will be entitled 'The Pleasures of Death. ' While you're doing nothing, laddie, you might bestir yourself and find an enlightened publisher who would be willing to give me an ante-mortem advance, in respect of royalties accruing to my ghost. 

 "Mo, to whom I have read the last paragraph, says he always knew that eddication affected the brain. With which incontrovertible proposition and our joint love, I now conclude this epistle. 

 "Yours, PHINEAS. "

"Of all the blazing imbeciles!" Doggie cried aloud. Why theunprintable unprintableness couldn't Phineas mind his own business?Why had he given his silly accident of fortune away in this childishmanner? Why had he told Jeanne of his cotton-wool upbringing? Hisfeet, even that of his wounded leg, tingled to kick Phineas. Of courseJeanne, knowing him now to be such a gilded ass, would have nothingmore to do with him. It explained her letter. He damned Phineas to alleternity, in terms compared with which the curse of Saint Ernulphusenunciated by the late Mr. Shandy was a fantastic benediction. "If Ihad a dog, " quoth my Uncle Toby, "I would not curse him so. " But ifUncle Toby had heard Doggie of the Twentieth Century Armies who alsoswore terribly in Flanders, for dog he would have substitutedrattlesnake or German officer. 

Yet such is the quiddity of the English Tommy, that through thisdevastating anathema ran a streak of love which at the end turned thewhole thing into forlorn derision. And as soon as he could laugh, hesaw things in a clear light. Both of his two friends were, in theirrespective ways, in love with his wonderful Jeanne. Both of them weresteel-true to him. It was just part of their loyalty to foment thisimpossible romance between Jeanne and himself. If the three of themwere now at Frélus, the two idiots would be playing gooseberry withthe smirking conscientiousness of a pair of schoolgirls. So Doggieforgave the indiscretion. After all, what did it matter?

It mattered, however, to this extent, that he read the letter over andover again until he knew it by heart and could picture to himselfevery phase of the banquet and every fleeting look on Jeanne's face. 

"All this, " he declared at last, "is utterly ridiculous. " And he toreup Phineas's letter and, during his convalescence, devoted himself tothe study of European politics, a subject which he had scandalouslyneglected during his elegantly leisured youth. 

 * * * * *

The day of his discharge came in due course. A suit of khaki took theplace of the hospital blue. He received his papers, the seven days'sick furlough and his railway warrant, shook hands with nurses andcomrades and sped to Durdlebury in the third-class carriage of theTommy. 

Peggy, in the two-seater, was waiting for him in the station yard. Heexchanged greetings from afar, grinned, waved a hand and jumped inbeside her. 

"How jolly of you to meet me!"

"Where's your luggage?"

"Luggage?"

It seemed to be a new word. He had not heard it for many months. Helaughed. 

"Haven't got any, thank God! If you knew what it was to hunch ahorrible canvas sausage of kit about, you'd appreciate feeling free. "

"It's a mercy you've got Peddle, " said Peggy. "He has been at theDeanery fixing things up for you for the last two days. "

"I wonder if I shall be able to live up to Peddle, " said Doggie. 

"Who's going to start the car?" she asked. 

"Oh, lord!" he cried, and bolted out and turned the crank. "I'mawfully sorry, " he added, when, the engine running, he resumed hisplace. "I had forgotten all about these pretty things. Out there a caris a sacred chariot set apart for gods in brass hats, and the ordinaryTommy looks on them with awe and reverence. "

"Can't you forget you're a Tommy for a few days?" she said, as soon asthe car had cleared the station gates and was safely under way. 

He noted a touch of irritation. "All right, Peggy dear, " said he. "I'll do what I can. "

"Oliver's here, with his man Chipmunk, " she remarked, her eyes on theroad. 

"Oliver? On leave again? How has he managed it?"

"You'd better ask him, " she replied tartly. "All I know is that heturned up yesterday, and he's staying with us. That's why I don't wantyou to ram the fact of your being a Tommy down everybody's throat. "

He laughed at the queer little social problem that seemed to beworrying her. "I think you'll find blood is thicker than militaryetiquette. After all, Oliver's my first cousin. If he can't get onwith me, he can get out. " To change the conversation, he added after apause: "The little car's running splendidly. "

They swept through the familiar old-world streets, which, now that theearly frenzy of mobilizing Territorials and training of new armies wasover, had resumed more or less their pre-war appearance. The sleepymeadows by the river, once ground into black slush by guns andammunition waggons and horses, were now green again and idle, and thetroops once billeted on the citizens had marched heaven knowswhither--many to heaven itself--or whatever Paradise is reserved forthe great-hearted English fighting man who has given his life forEngland. Only here and there a stray soldier on leave, or one of theconvalescents from the cottage hospital, struck an incongruous note ofwar. They drew up at the door of the Deanery under the shadow of thegreat cathedral. 

"Thank God that is out of reach of the Boche, " said Doggie, regardingit with a new sense of its beauty and spiritual significance. "Tothink of it like Rheims or Arras--I've seen Arras--seen a shell burstamong the still standing ruins. Oh, Peggy"--he gripped her arm--"youdear people haven't the remotest conception of what it all is--whatFrance has suffered. Imagine this mass of wonder all one horriblestone pie, without a trace of what it once had been. "

"I suppose we're jolly lucky, " she replied. 

The door was opened by the old butler, who had been on the alert forthe arrival. 

"You run in, " said Peggy, "I'll take the car round to the yard. "

So Doggie, with a smile and a word of greeting, entered the Deanery. His uncle appeared in the hall, florid, white-haired, benevolent, andextended both hands to the home-come warrior. 

"My dear boy, how glad I am to see you. Welcome back. And how's thewound? We've thought night and day of you. If I could have spared thetime, I should have run up north, but I've not a minute to call myown. We're doing our share of war work here, my boy. Come into thedrawing-room. "

He put his hand affectionately on Doggie's arm and, opening thedrawing-room door, pushed him in and stood, in his kind, courtly way, until the young man had passed the threshold. Mrs. Conover, feeblefrom illness, rose and kissed him, and gave him much the same greetingas her husband. Then a tall, lean figure in uniform, who had remainedin the background by the fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand. 

"Hello, old chap!"

Doggie took the hand in an honest grip. 

"Hello, Oliver!"

"How goes it?"

"Splendid, " said Doggie. "You all right?"

"Top-hole, " said Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. "Myhat! you do look fit. " He turned to the Dean. "Uncle Edward, isn't hea hundred times the man he was?"

"I told you, my boy, you would see a difference, " said the Dean. 

Peggy ran in, having delivered the two-seater to the care ofmyrmidons. 

"Now that the affecting meeting is over, let us have tea. Oliver, ringthe bell. "

The tea came. It appeared to Doggie, handing round the three-tieredsilver cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten formerincarnation. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail forthe material usages of life and he feared lest he should break it withrough handling. Old habit, however, prevailed, and no one noticed hissense of awkwardness. The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself. They exchanged experiences as to dates and localities. They bandiedabout the names of places which will be inscribed in letters of bloodin history for all time, as though they were popular golf-courses. Both had known Ypres and Plug Street, and the famous wall at Arras, where the British and German trenches were but five yards apart. Oliver's division had gone down to the Somme in July for the greatpush. 

"I ought to be there now, " said Oliver. "I feel a hulking slacker andfraud, being home on sick leave. But the M. O. Said I had just escapedshell-shock by the skin of my nerves, and they packed me home for afortnight to rest up--while the regiment, what there's left of it, went into reserve. "

"Did you get badly cut up?" asked Doggie. 

"Rather. We broke through all right. Then machine guns which we hadoverlooked got us in the back. "

"My lot's down there now, " said Doggie. 

"You're well out of it, old chap, " laughed Oliver. 

For the first time in his life Doggie began really to like Oliver. Theold-time swashbuckling swagger had gone--the swagger of one who wouldsay: "I am the only live man in this comatose crowd. I am thedare-devil buccaneer who defies the thunder and sleeps on boards whilethe rest of you are lying soft in feather-beds. " His direct, cavalierway he still retained; but the army, with the omnipotent might of itsinherited traditions, had moulded him to its pattern; even as it hadmoulded Doggie. And Doggie, who had learned many of the lessons inhuman psychology which the army teaches, knew that Oliver's genial, familiar talk was not all due to his appreciation of their socialequality in the bosom of their own family, but that he would havetreated much the same any Tommy into whose companionship he had beencasually thrown. The Tommy would have said "sir" very scrupulously, which on Doggie's part would have been an idiotic thing to do; butthey would have got on famously together, bound by the freemasonry offighting men who had cursed the same foe for the same reasons. SoOliver stood out before Doggie's eyes in a new light, that of thetypical officer trusted and beloved by his men, and his heart went outto him. 

"I've brought Chipmunk over, " said Oliver. "You remember the freak?The poor devil hasn't had a day's leave for a couple of years. Didn'twant it. Why should he go and waste money in a country where he didn'tknow a human being? But this time I've fixed it up for him and hisleave is coterminous with mine. He has been my servant all through. Ifthey took him away from me, he'd be quite capable of strangling theC. O. He's a funny beggar. "

"And what kind of a soldier?" the Dean asked politely. 

"There's not a finer one in all the armies of the earth, " said Oliver. 

After much further talk the dressing-gong boomed softly through thehouse. 

"You've got the green room, Marmaduke, " said Peggy. "The one with theChippendale stuff you used to covet so much. "

"I haven't got much to change into, " laughed Doggie. 

"You'll find Peddle up there waiting for you, " she replied. 

And when Doggie entered the green room there he found Peddle, whowelcomed him with tears of joy and a display of all the finikinluxuries of the toilet and adornment which he had left behind at DenbyHall. There were pots of pomade and face-cream, and nail-polish;bottles of hair-wash and tooth-wash; little boxes and brushes for themoustache, half a dozen gleaming razors, an array of brushes and combsand manicure-set in tortoise-shell with his crest in silver, bottlesof scent with spray attachments; the onyx bowl of bath salts besidethe hip-bath ready to be filled from the ewers of hot and coldwater--the Deanery, old-fashioned house, had but one family bath-room;the deep purple silk dressing-gown over the foot-rail of the bed, thesilk pyjamas in a lighter shade spread out over the pillow, the silkunderwear and soft-fronted shirt fitted with his ruby and diamondsleeve-links, hung up before the fire to air; the dinner jacket suitlaid out on the glass-topped Chippendale table, with black tie anddelicate handkerchief; the silk socks carefully tucked inside out, theglossy pumps with the silver shoe-horn laid across them. 

"My God! Peddle, " cried Doggie, scratching his closely cropped head. "What the devil's all this?"

Peddle, grey, bent, uncomprehending, regarded him blankly. 

"All what, sir?"

"I only want to wash my hands, " said Doggie. 

"But aren't you going to dress for dinner, sir?"

"A private soldier's not allowed to wear mufti, Peddle. They'd dock meof a week's pay if they found out. "

"Who's to find out, sir?"

"There's Mr. Oliver--he's a Major. "

"Lord, Mr. Marmaduke, I don't think he'd mind. Miss Peggy gave me myorders, sir, and I think you can leave things to her. "

"All right, Peddle, " he laughed. "If it's Miss Peggy's decree, I'llchange. I've got all I want. "

"Are you sure you can manage, sir?" Peddle asked anxiously, for timewas when Doggie couldn't stick his legs into his trousers unlessPeddle held them out for him. 

"Quite, " said Doggie. 

"It seems rather roughing it here, Mr. Marmaduke, after what you'vebeen accustomed to at the Hall. "

"That's so, " said Doggie. "And it's martyrdom compared with what it isin the trenches. There we always have a major-general to lace up ourboots, and a field-marshal's always hovering round to light ourcigarettes. "

Peddle, who had never known him to jest, or his father before him, went out in a muddled frame of mind, leaving Doggie to struggle intohis dress trousers as best he might. 

CHAPTER XX

When Doggie, in dinner suit, went downstairs, he found Peggy alone inthe drawing-room. She gave him the kiss of one accustomed to kiss himfrom childhood, and sat down again on the fender-stool. 

"Now you look more like a Christian gentleman, " she laughed. "Confess. It's much more comfortable than your wretched private's uniform. "

"I'm not quite so sure, " he said, somewhat ruefully, indicating hisdinner jacket tightly constricted beneath the arms. "Already I've hadto slit my waistcoat down the back. Poor old Peddle will have anapoplectic fit when he sees it. I've grown a bit since these elegantrags were made for me. "

"_Il faut souffrir pour être beau_, " said Peggy. 

"If my being _beau_ pleases you, Peggy, I'll suffer gladly. I've beenin tighter places. " He threw himself down in the corner of the sofaand joggled up and down like a child. "After all, " he said, "it'sjolly to sit on something squashy again, and to see a pretty girl in apretty frock. "

"I'm glad you like this frock. "

"New?"

She nodded. "Dad said it was too much of a Vanity Fair of a vanity forwar-time. You don't think so, do you?"

"It's charming, " said Doggie. "A treat for tired eyes. "

"That's just what I told dad. What's the good of women dressing insacks tied round the middle with a bit of string? When men come homefrom the Front they want to see their womenfolk looking pretty anddainty. That's what they've come over for. It's part of the cure. It'sthe first time you've been a real dear, Marmaduke. 'A treat for tiredeyes. ' I'll rub it into dad hard. "

Oliver came in--in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him. 

"Look here, Peggy. It's the guard-room for me. "

Oliver laughed. "Where the dinner kit I bought when I came home isnow, God only can tell. " He turned to Peggy. "I did change, you know. "

"That's the pull of being a beastly Major, " said Doggie. "They haveheaps of suits. On the march, there are motor-lorries full of them. It's the scandal of the army. The wretched Tommy has but one suit tohis name. That's why, sir, I've taken the liberty of appearing beforeyou in outgrown mufti. "

"All right, my man, " said Oliver. "We'll hush it up and say no moreabout it. "

Then the Dean and Mrs. Conover entered and soon they went in todinner. It was for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had thesuperbly healthy man's whole-hearted or whole-stomached appreciationof unaccustomed good food and drink: so much so, that when the Dean, after agonies of thwarted mastication, said gently to his wife: "Mydear, don't you think you might speak a word in season to Peck"--Peckbeing the butcher--"and forbid him, under the Defence of the RealmAct, if you like, to deliver to us in the evening as lamb that whichwas in the morning a lusty sheep?" he stared at the good old man asthough he were Vitellius in person. Tough? It was like milk-fattedbaby. He was already devouring, like Oliver, his second helping. Thenthe Dean, pledging him and Oliver in champagne, apologized: "I'msorry, my dear boys, the 1904 has run out and there's no more to begot. But the 1906, though not having the quality, is quite drinkable. "

Drinkable! It was laughing, dancing joy that went down his throat. 

So much for gross delights. There were others--finer. The charm to theeye of the table with its exquisite napery and china and glass andsilver and flowers. The almost intoxicating atmosphere of peace andgentle living. The full, loving welcome shining from the eyes of thekind old Dean, his uncle by marriage, and of the faded, delicate lady, his own flesh and blood, his mother's sister. And Peggy, pretty, flushed, bright-eyed, radiant in her new dress. And there wasOliver. .. . 

Most of all he appreciated Oliver's comrade-like attitude. It was arecognition of him as a man and a soldier. In the course of dinnertalk Oliver said:

"J. M. T. And I have looked Death in the face many a time--and reallyhe's a poor raw-head and bloody-bones sort of Bogey; don't you thinkso, old chap?"

"It all depends on whether you've got a funk-hole handy, " he replied. 

But that was mere lightness of speech. Oliver's inclusion of him inhis remark shook him to the depths of his sensitive nature. The manwho despises the petty feelings and frailties of mankind is doomed toremain in awful ignorance of that which there is of beauty and pathosin the lives of his fellow-creatures. After all, what did it matterwhat Oliver thought of him? Who was Oliver? His cousin--accident ofbirth--the black sheep of the family; now a major in a differentregiment and a different division. What was Oliver to him or he toOliver? He had "made good" in the eyes of one whose judgment had beenforged keen and absolute by heroic sorrows. What did anyone elsematter? But to Doggie the supreme joy of the evening was the knowledgethat he had made good in the eyes of Oliver. Oliver wore on his tunicthe white mauve and white ribbon of the Military Cross. Honour wherehonour was due. But he, Doggie, had been wounded (no matter how) andOliver frankly put them both on the same plane of achievement, thuswiping away, with generous hand, all hated memories of the past. 

When the ladies had left the room, history repeated itself, in thatthe Dean was called away on business and the cousins were left alonetogether over their wine. Said Doggie:

"Do you remember the last time we sat at this table?"

"Perfectly, " replied Oliver, holding up a glass of the old Deaneryport to the light. "You were horrified at my attempting to clean outmy pipe with a dessert knife. "

Doggie laughed. "After all, it was a filthy thing to do. "

"I quite agree with you. Since then I've learned manners. "

"You also made me squirm at the idea of scooping out Boches' insideswith bayonets. "

"And you've learned not to squirm, so we're quits. "

"You thought me a rotten ass in those days, didn't you?"

Oliver looked at him squarely. 

"I don't think it would hurt you now if I said that I did. " Helaughed, stretched himself on his chair, thrusting both hands into histrouser pockets. "In many ways, it's a jolly good old war, youknow--for those that pull through. It has taught us both a lot, Marmaduke. "

Doggie wrinkled his forehead in his half-humorous way. 

"I wish it would teach people not to call me by that silly name. "

"I have always abominated it, as you may have observed, " said Oliver. "But in our present polite relations, old chap, what else is there?"

"You ought to know----"

Oliver stared at him. "You don't mean----?"

"Yes, I do. "

"But you used to loathe it and I went on calling you 'Doggie' becauseI knew you loathed it. I never dreamed of using it now. "

"I can't help it, " replied Doggie. "The name got into the army and hasstuck to me right through, and now those I love and trust most in theworld, and who love and trust me, call me 'Doggie, ' and I don't seemto be able to answer to any other name. So, although I'm only a Tommyand you're a devil of a swell of a second-in-command, yet if you wantto be friendly--well----"

Oliver leaned forward quickly. "Of course I want to be friends, Doggie, old chap. As for major and private--when you pass me in thestreet you've dam well got to salute me, and that's all there is toit--but otherwise it's all rot. And now we've got to theheart-to-heart stage, don't you think you're a bit of a fool?"

"I know it, " said Doggie cheerfully. "The army has drummed that intome, at any rate. "

"I mean in staying in the ranks. Why don't you apply for the CadetCorps and so get through to a commission again?"

Doggie's brow grew dark. "I had all that out with Peggy long ago--whenthings were perhaps somewhat different with me. I was sore all over. Idare say you can understand. But now there are other reasons, muchstronger reasons. The only real happiness I've had in my life has beenas a Tommy. I'm not talking through my hat. The only real friends I'veever made in my life are Tommies. I've found real things as a Tommyand I'm not going to start all over again to find them in anothercapacity. "

"You wouldn't have to start all over again, " Oliver objected. 

"Oh yes, I should. Don't run away with the idea that I've been turnedby a miracle into a brawny hero. I'm not anything of the sort. To haveto lead men into action would be a holy terror. The old dread ofseeking new paths still acts, you see. I'm the same Doggie thatwouldn't go out to Huaheine with you. Only now I'm a private and I'mused to it. I love it and I'm not going to change to the end of thewhole gory business. Of course Peggy doesn't like it, " he added aftera sip of wine. "But I can't help that. It's a matter of temperamentand conscience--in a way, a matter of honour. "

"What has honour got to do with it?" asked Oliver. 

"I'll try to explain. It's somehow this way. When I came to my sensesafter being chucked for incompetence--that was the worst hell I everwent through in my life--and I enlisted, I swore that I would stick itas a Tommy without anybody's sympathy, least of all that of the folkshere. And then I swore I'd make good to myself as a Tommy. I was justbeginning to feel happier when that infernal Boche sniper knocked meout for a time. So, Peggy or no Peggy, I'm going through with it. Isuppose I'm telling you all this because I should like you to know. "

He passed his hand, in the familiar gesture, from back to front of hisshort-cropped hair. Oliver smiled at the reminiscence of the olddisturbed Doggie; but he said very gravely:

"I'm glad you've told me, old man. I appreciate it very much. I'vebeen through the ranks myself and know what it is--the bad and thegood. Many a man has found his soul that way----"

"Good God!" cried Doggie, starting to his feet. "Do you say that too?"

"Who else said it?"

The quick question caused the blood to rush to Doggie's face. Oliver'skeen, half-mocking gaze held him. He cursed himself for an impulsiveidiot. The true answer to the question would be a confession ofJeanne. The scene in the kitchen of Frélus swam before his eyes. Hedropped into his chair again with a laugh. 

"Oh, some one out there--in another heart-to-heart talk. As a matterof fact, I think I said it myself. It's odd you should have used thesame words. Anyhow, you're the only other person who has hit on thetruth as far as I'm concerned. Finding one's soul is a bithigh-falutin--but that's about the size of it. "

"Peggy hasn't hit on the truth, then?" Oliver asked, with curiousearnestness, the shade of mockery gone. 

"The war has scarcely touched her yet, you see, " said Doggie. He rose, shrinking from discussion. "Shall we go in?"

In the drawing-room they played bridge till the ladies' bedtime. TheDean coming in, played the last rubber. 

"I hope you'll be able to sleep in a common or garden bed, Marmaduke, "said Peggy, and kissed him a perfunctory good night. 

"I have heard, " remarked the Dean, "that it takes quite a time to growaccustomed to the little amenities of civilization. "

"That's quite true, Uncle Edward, " laughed Doggie. "I'm terrified atthe thought of the silk pyjamas Peddle has prescribed for me. "

"Why?" Peggy asked bluntly. 

Oliver interposed laughing, his hand on Doggie's shoulder. 

"Tommy's accustomed to go to bed in his day-shirt. "

"How perfectly disgusting!" cried Peggy, and swept from the room. 

Oliver dropped his hand and looked somewhat abashed. 

"I'm afraid I've been and gone and done it. I'm sorry. I'm still abarbarian South Sea Islander. "

"I wish I were a young man, " said the Dean, moving from the door andinviting them to sit, "and could take part in these strange hardships. This question of night attire, for instance, has never struck mebefore. The whole thing is of amazing interest. Ah! what it is to beold! If I were young, I should be with you, cloth or no cloth, in thetrenches. I hope both of you know that I vehemently dissent from thosebishops who prohibit the younger clergy from taking their place in thefighting line. If God's archangels and angels themselves took up thesword against the Powers of Darkness, surely a stalwart young curateof the Church of England would find his vocation in warring with rifleand bayonet against the proclaimed enemies of God and mankind?"

"The influence of the twenty thousand or so of priests fighting in theFrench Army is said to be enormous, " Oliver remarked. 

The Dean sighed. "I'm afraid we're losing a big chance. "

"Why don't you take up the Fiery Cross, Uncle Edward, and run a newCrusade?"

The Dean sighed. Five-and-thirty years ago, when he had set allDurdlebury by the ears, he might have preached glorious heresy andheroic schism; but now the immutability of the great grey fabric hadbecome part of his being. 

"I've done my best, my boy, " he replied, "with the result that I amheld in high disfavour. "

"But that doesn't matter a little bit. "

"Not a little bit, " said the Dean. "A man can only do his dutyaccording to the dictates of his conscience. I have publicly deploredthe attitude of the Church of England. I have written to _The Times_. I have published a pamphlet--I sent you each a copy--which has broughta hornets' nest about my ears. I have warned those in high places thatwhat they are doing is not in the best interests of the Church. Butthey won't listen. "

Oliver lit a pipe. "I'm afraid, Uncle Edward, " he said, "that though Icome of a clerical family, I know no more of religion than a Hunbishop; but it has always struck me that the Church's job is to lookafter the people, whereas, as far as I can make out, the Church is nowsquealing because the people won't look after the Church. "

The Dean rose. "I won't go as far as that, " said he with a smile. "Butthere is, I fear, some justification for such a criticism from thelaity. As soon as the war began the Church should have gathered thepeople together and said, 'Onward, Christian soldiers. Go and fightlike--er----'"

"Like hell, " suggested Oliver, greatly daring. 

"Or words to that effect, " smiled the old Dean. He looked at hiswatch. "Dear, dear! past eleven. I wish I could sit up talking to youboys. But I start my day's work at eight o'clock. If you wantanything, you've only got to ring. Good night. It is one of theproudest days of my life to have you both here together. "

His courtly charm seemed to linger in the room after he had left. 

"He's a dear old chap, " said Oliver. 

"One of the best, " said Doggie. 

"It's rather pathetic, " said Oliver. "In his heart he would like toplay the devil with the bishops and kick every able-bodied parson intothe trenches--and there are thousands of them that don't need anykicking and, on the contrary, have been kicked back; but he has becomehalf-petrified in the atmosphere of this place. It's lovely to come toas a sort of funk-hole of peace--but my holy aunt!--What the blazesare you laughing at?"

"I'm only thinking of a beast of a boy here who used to say that, "replied Doggie. 

"Oh!" said Oliver, and he grinned. "Anyway, I was only going to remarkthat if I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life here, I'dpaint the town vermilion for a week and then cut my throat. "

"I quite agree with you, " said Doggie. 

"What are you going to do when the war's over?"

"Who knows what he's going to do? What are you going to do? Fly backto your little Robinson Crusoe Durdlebury of a Pacific Island? I don'tthink so. "

Oliver stuck his pipe on the mantelpiece and his hands on his hips andmade a stride towards Doggie. 

"Damn you, Doggie! Damn you to little bits! How the Hades did youguess what I've scarcely told myself, much less another human being?"

"You yourself said it was a good old war and it has taught us a lot ofthings. "

"It has, " said Oliver. "But I never expected to hear Huaheine calledDurdlebury by you, Doggie. Oh, Lord! I must have another drink. Where's your glass? Say when?"

They parted for the night the best of friends. 

Doggie, in spite of the silk pyjamas and the soft bed and the blazingfire in his room--he stripped back the light-excluding curtainsforgetful of Defence of the Realm Acts, and opened all the windowswide, to the horror of Peddle in the morning--slept like anunperturbed dormouse. When Peddle woke him, he lay drowsily while theold butler filled his bath and fiddled about with drawers. At lastaroused, he cried out:

"What the dickens are you doing?"

Peddle turned with an injured air. "I am matching your ties and socksfor your bottle-green suit, sir. "

Doggie leaped out of bed. "You dear old idiot, I can't go about thestreets in bottle-green suits. I've got to wear my uniform. " He lookedaround the room. "Where the devil is it?"

Peddle's injured air deepened almost into resentment. 

"Where the devil----!" Never had Mr. Marmaduke, or his father, theCanon, used such language. He drew himself up. 

"I have given orders, sir, for the uniform suit you wore yesterday tobe sent to the cleaners. "

"Oh, hell!" said Doggie. And Peddle, unaccustomed to the vernacular ofthe British Army, paled with horror. "Oh, hell!" said Doggie. "Lookhere, Peddle, just you get on a bicycle, or a motor-car, or an expresstrain at once and retrieve that uniform. Don't you understand? I'm aprivate soldier. I've got to wear uniform all the time, and I'll haveto stay in this beastly bed until you get it for me. "

Peddle fled. The picture that he left on Doggie's mind was that of thefaithful steward with dismayed, uplifted hands, retiring from the roomin one of the great scenes of Hogarth's "Rake's Progress. " Thesimilitude made him laugh--for Doggie always had a saving sense ofhumour--but he was very angry with Peddle, while he stamped around theroom in his silk pyjamas. What the deuce was he going to do? Even ifhe committed the military crime (and there was a far more seriouscrime already against him) of appearing in public in mufti, did thatold ass think he was going to swagger about Durdlebury in bottle-greensuits, as though he were ashamed of the King's uniform? He dipped hisshaving-brush into the hot water. Then he threw it, anyhow, across theroom. Instead of shaving, he would be gloating over the idea ofcutting that old fool, Peddle's, throat, and therefore would slash hisown face to bits. 

Things, however, were not done at lightning speed in the Deanery ofDurdlebury. The first steps had not even been taken to send theuniform to the cleaners, and soon Peddle reappeared carrying it overhis arm and the heavy pair of munition boots in his hand. 

"These too, sir?" he asked, exhibiting the latter resignedly andcasting a sad glance at the neat pair of brown shoes exquisitelypolished and beautifully treed which he had put out for his master'swear. 

"These too, " said Doggie. "And where's my grey flannel shirt?"

This time Peddle triumphed. "I've given that away, sir, to thegardener's boy. "

"Well, you can just go and buy me half a dozen more like it, " saidDoggie. 

He dismissed the old man, dressed and went downstairs. The Dean hadbreakfasted at seven. Peggy and Oliver were not yet down for the nineo'clock meal. Doggie strolled about the garden and sauntered round tothe stable-yard. There he encountered Chipmunk in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on a packing case and polishing Oliver's leggings. He raisedan ugly, clean-shaven mug and scowled beneath his bushy eyebrows atthe new-comer. 

"Morning, mate!" said Doggie pleasantly. 

"Morning, " said Chipmunk, resuming his work. 

Doggie turned over a stable bucket and sat down on it and lit acigarette. 

"Glad to be back?"

Chipmunk poised the cloth on which he had poured some brown dressing. "Not if I has to be worried with private soljers, " he replied. "I came'ere to get away from 'em. "

"What's wrong with private soldiers? They're good enough for you, aren't they?" asked Doggie with a laugh. 

"Naow, " snarled Chipmunk. "Especially when they ought to be orficers. Go to 'ell!"

Doggie, who had suffered much in the army, but had never before beentaunted with being a dilettante gentleman private, still less beenconsigned to hell on that account, leapt to his feet shaken by one ofhis rare sudden gusts of anger. 

"If you don't say I'm as good a private soldier as any in your rotten, mangy regiment, I'll knock your blinking head off!"

An insult to a soldier's regiment can only be wiped out in blood. Chipmunk threw cloth and legging to the winds and, springing from hisseat like a monkey, went for Doggie. 

"You just try. "

Doggie tried, and had not Chipmunk's head been very firmly secured tohis shoulders, he would have succeeded. Chipmunk went down as if hehad been bombed. It was his unguarded and unscientific rush that didit. Doggie regarded his prostrate figure in gratified surprise. 

"What's all this about?" cried a sharp, imperious voice. 

Doggie instinctively stood at attention and saluted, and Chipmunk, picking himself up in a dazed sort of way, did likewise. 

"You two men shake hands and make friends at once, " Oliver commanded. 

"Yes, sir, " said Doggie. He extended his hand, and Chipmunk, with thenautical shamble, which in moments of stress defied a couple of years'military discipline, advanced and shook it. Oliver strode hurriedlyaway. 

"I'm sorry I said that about the regiment, mate. I didn't mean it, "said Doggie. 

Chipmunk looked uncertainly into Doggie's eyes for what Doggie felt tobe a very long time. Chipmunk's dull brain was slowly realizing thesituation. The man opposite to him was his master's cousin. When hehad last seen him, he had no title to be called a man at all. Hisvocabulary volcanically rich, but otherwise limited, had not been ableto express him in adequate terms of contempt and derision. Now beholdhim masquerading as a private. Wounded. But any fool could getwounded. Behold him further coming down from the social heightswhereon his master dwelt, to take a rise out of him, Chipmunk. Inself-defence he had taken the obvious course. He had told him to go tohell. Then the important things had happened. Not the effeminategentleman but some one very much like the common Tommy of hisacquaintance had responded. And he had further responded with thefamiliar vigour but unwonted science of the rank and file. He had alsostood at attention and saluted and obeyed like any common Tommy, whenthe Major appeared. The last fact appealed to him, perhaps, as much asthe one more invested in violence. 

"'Ere, " said he at last, jerking his head and rubbing his jaw, "howthe 'ell did you do it?"

"We'll get some gloves and I'll show you, " said Doggie. 

So peace and firm friendship were made. Doggie went into the house andin the dining-room found Oliver in convulsive laughter. 

"Oh, my holy aunt! You'll be the death of me, Doggie. 'Yes, sir!'" Hemimicked him. "The perfect Tommy. After doing in old Chipmunk. Chipmunk with the strength of a gorilla and the courage of a lion. Ijust happened round to see him go down. How the blazes did you manageit, Doggie?"

"That's what Chipmunk's just asked me, " Doggie replied. "I belong to aregiment where boxing is taught. Really a good regiment, " he grinned. "There's a sergeant-instructor, a chap called Ballinghall----"

"Not Joe Ballinghall, the well-known amateur heavy-weight?"

"That's him right enough, " said Doggie. 

"My dear old chap, " said Oliver, "this is the funniest war that everwas. "

Peggy sailed in full of apologies and began to pour out coffee. 

"Do help yourselves. I'm so sorry to have kept you poor hungry thingswaiting. "

"We've filled up the time amazingly, " cried Oliver, waving a silverdish-cover. "What do you think? Doggie's had a fight with Chipmunk andknocked him out. "

Peggy splashed the milk over the brim of Doggie's cup and into thesaucer. There came a sudden flush on her cheek and a sudden hard lookinto her eyes. 

"Fighting? Do you mean to say you've been fighting with a common manlike Chipmunk?"

"We're the best of friends now, " said Doggie. "We understand eachother. "

"I can't quite see the necessity, " said Peggy. 

"I'm afraid it's rather hard to explain, " he replied with a ruefulknitting of the brows, for he realized her disgust at the vulgarbrawl. 

"I think the less said the better, " she remarked acidly. 

The meal proceeded in ominous gloom, and as soon as Peggy had finishedshe left the room. 

"It seems, old chap, that I can never do right, " said Oliver. "Longago, when I used to crab you, she gave it to me in the neck; and nowwhen I try to boost you, you seem to get it. "

"I'm afraid I've got on Peggy's nerves, " said Doggie. "You see, we'veonly met once before during the last two years, and I suppose I'vechanged. "

"There's no doubt about that, old son, " said Oliver. "But all thesame, Peggy has stood by you like a brick, hasn't she?"

"That's the devil of it, " replied Doggie, rubbing up his hair. 

"Why the devil of it?" Oliver asked quickly. 

"Oh, I don't know, " replied Doggie. "As you have once or twiceobserved, it's a funny old war. "

He rose, went to the door. 

"Where are you off to?" asked Oliver. 

"I'm going to Denby Hall to take a look round. "

"Like me to come with you? We can borrow the two-seater. "

Doggie advanced a pace. "You're an awfully good sort, Oliver, " hesaid, touched, "but would you mind--I feel rather a beast----"

"All right, you silly old ass, " cried Oliver cheerily. "You want, ofcourse, to root about there by yourself. Go ahead. "

"If you'll take a spin with me this afternoon, or to-morrow----" saidDoggie in his sensitive way. 

"Oh, clear out!" laughed Oliver. 

And Doggie cleared. 

CHAPTER XXI

"All right, Peddle, I can find my way about, " said Doggie, dismissingthe old butler and his wife after a little colloquy in the hall. 

"Everything's in perfect order, sir, just as it was when you left; andthere are the keys, " said Mrs. Peddle. 

The Peddles retired. Doggie eyed the heavy bunch of keys with an airof distaste. For two years he had not seen a key. What on earth couldbe the good of all this locking and unlocking? He stuffed the bunch inhis tunic pocket and looked around him. It seemed difficult to realizethat everything he saw was his own. Those trees visible from the hallwindows were his own, and the land on which they grew. This spacious, beautiful house was his own. He had only to wave a hand, as it were, and it would be filled with serving men and serving maids ready to dohis bidding. His foot was on his native heath, and his name was JamesMarmaduke Trevor. 

Did he ever actually live here, have his being here? Was he ever partand parcel of it all--the Oriental rugs, the soft stair-carpet on thenoble oak staircase leading to the gallery, the oil paintings, theimpressive statuary, the solid, historical, oak hall furniture? Wereit not so acutely remembered, he would have felt like a man accustomedall his life to barns and tents and hedgerows and fetid holes in theground, who had wandered into some ill-guarded palace. He entered thedrawing-room. The faithful Peddles, with pathetic zeal to give him atrue home-coming, had set it out fresh and clean and polished; thewindows were like crystal, and flowers welcomed him from everyavailable vase. And so in the dining-room. The Chippendaledining-table gleamed like a sombre translucent pool. On the sideboard, amid the array of shining silver, the very best old Waterforddecanters filled with whisky and brandy, and old cut-glass gobletsinvited him to refreshment. The precious mezzotint portraits, mostlyof his own collecting, regarded him urbanely from the walls. _TheTimes_ and the _Morning Post_ were laid out on the little table by hisaccustomed chair near the massive marble mantelpiece. 

"The dear old idiots, " said Doggie, and he sat down for a moment andunfolded the newspapers and strewed them around, to give theimpression that he had read and enjoyed them. 

And then he went into his own private and particular den, the peacockand ivory room, which had been the supreme expression of himself andfor which he had ached during many nights of misery. He looked roundand his heart sank. He seemed to come face to face with theineffectual, effeminate creature who had brought upon him the disgraceof his man's life. But for the creator and sybarite enjoyer of thissickening boudoir, he would now be in honoured command of men. Heconceived a sudden violent hatred of the room. The only thing in theplace worth a man's consideration, save a few water-colours, was thehonest grand piano, which, because it did not æsthetically harmonizewith his squeaky, pot-bellied theorbos and tinkling spinet, he hadhidden in an alcove behind a curtain. He turned an eye of disgust onthe vellum backs of his books in the closed Chippendale cases, on thedrawers containing his collection of wall-papers, on the footlingpeacocks, on the curtains and cushions, on the veined ivory paperwhich, beginning to fade two years ago, now looked mean andmeaningless. It was an abominable room. It ought to be smelling ofmusk or pastilles or joss-sticks. It might have done so, for once hehad tried something of the sort, and did not renew the experiment onlybecause the smell happened to make him sick. 

There was one feature of the room at which for a long time he avoidedlooking: but wherever he turned, it impressed itself on hisconsciousness as the miserable genius of the despicable place. Andthat was his collection of little china dogs. 

At last he planted himself in front of the great glass cabinet, whencethousands of little dogs looked at him out of little black dots ofeyes. There were dogs of all nationalities, all breeds, all twistedenormities of human invention. There were monstrous dogs of China andJapan; Aztec dogs; dogs in Sèvres and Dresden and Chelsea; sixpennydogs from Austria and Switzerland; everything in the way of a littledog that man had made. He stood in front of it with almost a doggishsnarl on his lips. He had spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds overthese futile dogs. Yet never a flesh and blood, real, lusty _canisfutilis_ had he possessed. He used to dislike real dogs. The shiveringrat, Goliath, could scarcely be called a dog. He had wasted his heartover these contemptible counterfeits. To add to his collection, catalogue it, describe it, correspond about it with the semi-imbecileRussian prince, his only rival collector, had once ranked with hishistory of wall-papers as the serious and absorbing pursuit of hislife. 

Then suddenly Doggie's hatred reached the crisis of ferocity. He sawred. He seized the first instrument of destruction that came to hishand, a little gilt Louis XV music stool, and bashed the cabinet fullin front. The glass flew into a thousand splinters. He bashed again. The woodwork of the cabinet, stoutly resisting, worked hideous damageon the gilt stool. But Doggie went on bashing till the cabinet sank inruins and the little dogs, headless, tailless, rent in twain, strewedthe floor. Then Doggie stamped on them with his heavy munition bootsuntil dogs and glass were reduced to powder and the Aubusson carpetwas cut to pieces. 

"Damn the whole infernal place!" cried Doggie, and he heaved amandolin tied up with disgusting peacock-blue ribbons at the bookcase, and fled from the room. 

He stood for a while in the hall, shaken with his anger; then mountedthe staircase and went into his own bedroom with the satinwoodfurniture and nattier blue hangings. God! what a bedchamber for a man!He would have liked to throw bombs into the nest of effeminacy. Buthis mother had arranged it, so in a way it was immune from hisiconoclastic rage. He went down to the dining-room, helped himself toa whisky and soda from the sideboard, and sat down in the arm-chairamidst the scattered newspapers and held his head in his hands andthought. 

The house was hateful; all its associations were hateful. If he livedthere until he was ninety, the abhorred ghost of the pre-war littleDoggie Trevor would always haunt every nook and cranny of the place, mouthing the quarter of a century's shame that had culminated in theGreat Disgrace. At last he brought his hand down with a bang on thearm of his chair. He would never live in this House of Dishonouragain. Never. He would sell it. 

"By God!" he cried, starting to his feet, as the inspiration came. 

He would sell it, as it stood, lock, stock and barrel, with everythingin it. He would wipe out at one stroke the whole of his unedifyinghistory. Denby Hall gone, what could tie him to Durdlebury? He wouldbe freed, for ever, from the petrification of the grey, crampinglittle city. If Peggy didn't like it, that was Peggy's affair. Inmaterial things he was master of his destiny. Peggy would have tofollow him in his career, whatever it was, not he Peggy. He sawclearly that which had been mapped out for him, the silly littlesocial ambitions, the useless existence, little Doggie Trevor for evertrailing obediently behind the lady of Denby Hall. Doggie threwhimself back in his chair and laughed. No one had ever heard him laughlike that. After a while he was even surprised at himself. 

He was perfectly ready to marry Peggy. It was almost a preordainedthing. A rupture of the engagement was unthinkable. Her undeviatingloyalty bound him by every fibre of gratitude and honour. But it wasessential that Peggy should know whom and what she was marrying. TheDoggie trailing in her wake no longer existed. If she were prepared tofollow the new Doggie, well and good. If not, there would be conflict. For that he was prepared. 

He strode, this time contemptuously, into his wrecked peacock andivory room, where his telephone (blatant and hideous thing) wasingeniously concealed behind a screen, and rang up Spooner andSmithson, the leading firm of auctioneers and estate agents in thetown. At the mention of his name, Mr. Spooner, the senior partner, came to the telephone. 

"Yes, I'm back, Mr. Spooner, and I'm quite well, " said Doggie. "I wantto see you on very important business. When can you fix it up? Anytime? Can you come along now to Denby Hall?"

Mr. Spooner would be pleased to wait upon Mr. Trevor immediately. Hewould start at once. Doggie went out and sat on the front doorstep andsmoked cigarettes till he came. 

"Mr. Spooner, " said he, as soon as the elderly auctioneer descendedfrom his little car, "I'm going to sell the whole of the Denby Hallestate, and, with the exception of a few odds and ends, family relicsand so forth, which I'll pick out, all the contents of thehouse--furniture, pictures, sheets, towels and kitchen clutter. I'veonly got six days' leave, and I want all the worries, as far as I amconcerned, settled and done with before I go. So you'll have to buckup, Mr. Spooner. If you say you can't do it, I'll put the business bytelephone into the hands of a London agent. "

It took Mr. Spooner nearly a quarter of an hour to recover his breath, gain a grasp of the situation and assemble his business wits. 

"Of course I'll carry out your instructions, Mr. Trevor, " he said atlast. "You can safely leave the matter in our hands. But, although itis against my business interests, pray let me beg you to reconsideryour decision. It is such a beautiful home, your grandfather, theBishop's, before you. "

"He bought it pretty cheap, didn't he, somewhere in the 'seventies?"

"I forget the price he paid for it, but I could look it up. Of coursewe were the agents. "

"And then it was let to some dismal people until my father died and mymother took it over. I'm sorry I can't get sentimental about it, as ifit were an ancestral hall, Mr. Spooner. I want to get rid of theplace, because I hate the sight of it. "

"It would be presumptuous of me to say anything more, " answered theold-fashioned country auctioneer. 

"Say what you like, Mr. Spooner, " laughed Doggie in his disarming way. "We're old friends. But send in your people this afternoon to start oninventories and measuring up, or whatever they do, and I'll look roundto-morrow and select the bits I may want to keep. You'll see after thestoring of them, won't you?"

"Of course, Mr. Trevor. "

Mr. Spooner drove away in his little car, a much dazed man. 

Like the rest of Durdlebury and the circumjacent county, he hadassumed that when the war was over Mr. James Marmaduke Trevor wouldlead his bride from the Deanery into Denby Hall, where the latter, inher own words, would proceed to make things hum. 

"My dear, " said he to his wife at luncheon, "you could have knocked meover with a feather. What he's doing it for, goodness knows. I canonly assume that he has grown so accustomed to the destruction ofproperty in France, that he has got bitten by the fever. "

"Perhaps Peggy Conover has turned him down, " suggested his wife, who, much younger than he, employed more modern turns of speech. "And Ishouldn't wonder if she has. Since the war girls aren't on the lookout for pretty monkeys. "

"If Miss Conover thinks she has got hold of a pretty monkey in thatyoung man, she is very much mistaken, " replied Mr. Spooner. 

Meanwhile Doggie summoned Peddle to the hall. He knew that hisannouncement would be a blow to the old man; but this was a world ofblows; and after all, one could not organize one's life to suit thesentiments of old family idiots of retainers, served they never sofaithfully. 

"Peddle, " said he, "I'm sorry to say I'm going to sell Denby Hall. Messrs. Spooner and Smithson's people are coming in this afternoon. Sogive them every facility. Also tea, or beer, or whisky, or whateverthey want. About what's going to happen to you and Mrs. Peddle, don'tworry a bit. I'll look after that. You've been jolly good friends ofmine all my life, and I'll see that everything's as right as rain. "

He turned, before the amazed old butler could reply, and marched away. Peddle gaped at his retreating figure. If those were the ways whichMr. Marmaduke had learned in the army, the lower sank the army inPeddle's estimation. To sell Denby Hall over his head! Why, the placeand all about it was _his_! So deeply are squatters' rights implantedin the human instinct. 

Doggie marched along the familiar high road, strangely exhilarated. What was to be his future he neither knew nor cared. At any rate, itwould not lie in Durdlebury. He had cut out Durdlebury for ever fromhis scheme of existence. If he got through the war, he and Peggy wouldgo out somewhere into the great world where there was man's work todo. Parliament! Peggy had suggested it as a sort of countrygentleman's hobby that would keep him amused during the Londonseasons--so might prospective bride have talked to prospective husbandfifty years ago. Parliament! God help him and God help Peggy if everhe got into Parliament. He would speak the most unpopular truths aboutthe race of politicians if ever he got into Parliament. Peggy wouldwish that neither of them had ever been born. He held the trenches'views on politicians. No fear. No muddy politics as an elegantamusement for him. He laughed as he had laughed in the dining-room atDenby Hall. 

He would have a bad quarter of an hour with Peggy. Naturally. Shewould say, and with every right: "What about me? Am I not to beconsidered?" Yes, of course she would be considered. The position hisfortune assured him would always be hers. He had no notion of askingher to share a log cabin in the wilds of Canada, or to bury herself inOliver's dud island of Huaheine. The great world would be before them. "But give me some sort of an idea of what you propose to do, " shewould with perfect propriety demand. And there Doggie was stuck. Hehad not the ghost of a programme. All he had was faith in the war, faith in the British spirit and genius that would bring it to aperfect end, in which there would be unimagined opportunities for aman to fling himself into a new life, and new conditions, and beginthe new work of a new civilization. 

"If she'll only understand, " said he, "that I can't go back to thoseblasted little dogs, all will be well. "

Not quite all. Although his future was as nebulous as the planetarysystem in the Milky Way, at the back of his mind was a vague convictionthat it would be connected somehow with the welfare of those men whomhe had learned to know and love: the men to whom reading was littlepleasure, writing a school-child's laborious task, the glories of theearth as interpreted through art a sealed book; the men whose dailyspeech was foul metaphor; the men, hemi-demi-semi-educated, whosecrude socialistic opinions the open lessons of history and the eternalfacts of human nature derisively refuted; the men who had sweated andslaved in factory and in field to no other purpose than to obey thebiological laws of the perpetuation of the species; yet the men withthe sweet minds of children, the gushing tenderness of women, thehearts of lions; the men compared to whom the rotten squealing heroesof Homer were a horde of cowardly savages. They were _men_, thesecomrades of his, swift with all that there can be of divine glory inmen. 

And when they came home and the high gods sounded the false trumpet ofpeace?

There would be men's work in England for all the Doggies in England todo. 

Again, if Peggy could understand this, all would be well. If shemissed the point altogether, and tauntingly advised him to go and joinhis friends the Socialists at once--then--he shoved his cap to theback of his head and wrinkled his forehead--then----

"Everything will be in the soup, " said he. 

These reflections brought him to the Deanery. The nearest way ofentrance was the stable-yard gate, which was always open. He strodein, waved a hand to Chipmunk who was sitting on the ground with hisback against the garage, smoking a pipe, and entered the house by theFrench window of the dining-room. Where should he find Peggy? Hiswhole mind was set on the immediate interview. Obviously thedrawing-room was the first place of search. He opened the drawing-roomdoor, the hinges and lock oily, noiseless, perfectly ordained, likeeverything in the perfectly ordained English Deanery, and strode in. 

His entrance was so swift, so protected from sound, that the pair hadno time to start apart before he was there, with his amazed eyes fullupon them. Peggy's hands were on Oliver's shoulders, tears werestreaming down her face, as her head was thrown back from him, andOliver's arm was around her. Her back was to the door. Oliver withdrewhis arm and retired a pace or two. 

"Lord Almighty, " he whispered, "here's Doggie!"

Then Peggy, realizing what had happened, wheeled round and staredtragically at Doggie, who, preoccupied with the search for her, hadnot removed his cap. He drew himself up. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said with imperturbable irony, and turned. 

Oliver rushed across the room. 

"Stop, you silly fool!"

He slammed the open door, caught Doggie by the arm and dragged himaway from the threshold. His blue eyes blazed and the lips beneath theshort-cropped moustache quivered. 

"It's all my fault, Doggie. I'm a beast and a cad and anything youlike to call me. But for things you said last night--well--no, hang itall, there's no excuse. Everything's on me. Peggy's as true as gold. "

Peggy, red-eyed, pale-cheeked, stood a little way back, silent, on thedefensive. Doggie, looking from one to the other, said quietly:

"A triangular explanation is scarcely decent. Perhaps you might let mehave a word or two with Peggy. "

"Yes. It would be best, " she whispered. 

"I'll be in the dining-room if you want me, " said Oliver, and wentout. 

Doggie took her hand and, very gently, led her to a chair. 

"Let us sit down. There, " said he, "now we can talk more comfortably. First, before we touch on this situation, let me say something to you. It may ease things. "

Peggy, humiliated, did not look at him. She nodded. 

"All right. "

"I made up my mind this morning to sell Denby Hall and its contents. I've given old Spooner instructions. "

She glanced at him involuntarily. "Sell Denby Hall?"

"Yes, dear. You see, I have made up my mind definitely, if I'm spared, not to live in Durdlebury after the war. "

"What were you thinking of doing?" she asked, in a low voice. 

"That would depend on after-war circumstances. Anyhow, I was coming toyou, when I entered the room, with my decision. I knew, of course, that it wouldn't please you--that you would have something to say toit--perhaps something very serious. "

"What do you mean by something very serious?"

"Our little contract, dear, " said Doggie, "was based on theunderstanding that you would not be uprooted from the place in whichare all your life's associations. If I broke that understanding itwould leave you a free agent to determine the contract, as the lawyerssay. So perhaps, Peggy dear, we might dismiss--well--otherconsiderations, and just discuss this. "

Peggy twisted a rag of handkerchief and wavered for a moment. Then shebroke out, with fresh tears on her cheek. 

"You're a dear of dears to put it that way. Only you could do it. I'vebeen a brute, old boy; but I couldn't help it. I _did_ try to play thegame. "

"You did, Peggy dear. You've been wonderful. "

"And although it didn't look like it, I was trying to play the gamewhen you came in. I really was. And so was he. " She rose and threw thehandkerchief away from her. "I'm not going to step out of theengagement by the side door you've left open for me, you dear oldsimple thing. It stands if you like. We're all honourable people, andOliver"--she drew a sharp little breath--"Oliver will go out of ourlives. "

Doggie smiled--he had risen--and taking her hands, kissed them. 

"I've never known what a splendid Peggy it is, until I lose her. Lookhere, dear, here's the whole thing in a nutshell. While I've beenmorbidly occupied with myself and my grievances and my disgrace and myefforts to pull through, and have gradually developed into a sort ofhalf-breed between a Tommy and a gentleman with every mortal thing inme warped and changed, you've stuck to the original rotten ass youlashed into the semblance of a man, in this very room, goodness knowshow many months, or years, or centuries ago. In my infernalselfishness, I've treated you awfully badly. "

"No, you haven't, " she decided stoutly. 

"Yes, I have. The ordinary girl would have told a living experimentlike me to go hang long before this. But you didn't. And now you see atotally different sort of Doggie and you're making yourself miserablebecause he's a queer, unsympathetic, unfamiliar stranger. "

"All that may be so, " she said, meeting his eyes bravely. "But if theunfamiliar Doggie still cares for me, it doesn't matter. "

Here was a delicate situation. Two very tender-skinned vanitiesopposed to each other. The smart of seeing one's affianced bride inthe arms of another man hurts grievously sore. It's a primitive sexaffair, independent of love in its modern sense. If the savage'sabandoned squaw runs off with another fellow, he pursues him withclubs and tomahawks until he has avenged the insult. Having known ME, to decline to Spotted Crocodile! So the finest flower of civilizationcannot surrender the lady who once was his to the more favoured malewithout a primitive pang. On the other hand, Doggie knew very wellthat he did not love Peggy, that he had never loved Peggy. But how incommon decency could a man tell a girl, who had wasted a couple ofyears of her life over him, that he had never loved her? Instead ofreplying to her questions, he walked about the room in a worried way. 

"I take it, " said Peggy incisively, after a while, "that you don'tcare for me any longer. "

He turned and halted at the challenge. He snapped his fingers. Whatwas the good of all this beating of the bush?

"Look here, Peggy, let's face it out. If you'll confess that you andOliver are in love with each other, I'll confess to a girl in France. "

"Oh?" said Peggy, with a swift change to coolness. "There's a girl inFrance, is there? How long has this been going on?"

"The last four days in billets before I got wounded, " said Doggie. 

"What is she like?"

Then Doggie suddenly laughed out loud and took her by the shoulders ina grasp rougher than she had ever dreamed to lie in the strength ornature of Marmaduke Trevor, and kissed her the heartiest, honestestkiss she had ever had from man, and rushed out of the room. 

Presently he returned, dragging with him the disconsolate Major. 

"Here, " said he, "fix it up between you. I've told Peggy about a girlin France and she wants to know what she's like. "

Peggy, shaken by the rude grip and the kiss, flashed and criedrebelliously:

"I'm not quite so sure that I want to fix it up with Oliver. "

"Oh yes, you do, " cried Oliver. 

He snatched up Doggie's cap and jammed it on Doggie's head and cried:

"Doggie, you're the best and truest and finest of dear old chaps inthe whole wide world. "

Doggie settled his cap, grinned, and moved to the door. 

"Anything else, sir?"

Oliver roared, delighted: "No, Private Trevor, you can go. "

"Very good, sir. "

Doggie saluted smartly and went out. He passed through the Frenchwindow of the dining-room into the mellow autumn sunshine. Foundhimself standing in front of Chipmunk, who still smoked the pipe ofelegant leisure by the door of the garage. 

"This is a dam good old world all the same. Isn't it?" said he. 

"If it was always like this, it would have its points, " replied theunworried Chipmunk. 

Doggie had an inspiration. He looked at his watch. It was nearly oneo'clock. 

"Hungry?"

"Always 'ungry. Specially about dinner-time. "

"Come along of me to the Downshire Arms and have a bite of dinner. "

Chipmunk rose slowly to his feet, and put his pipe into his tunicpocket, and jerked a slow thumb backwards. 

"Ain't yer having yer meals 'ere?"

"Only now and then, as sort of treats, " said Doggie. "Come along. "

"Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk. "Can yer wait a bit until I've cleaned mebuttons?"

"Oh, bust your old buttons!" laughed Doggie. "I'm hungry. "

So the pair of privates marched through the old city to the DownshireArms, the select, old-world hotel of Durdlebury, where Doggie wasknown since babyhood; and there, sitting at a window table withChipmunk, he gave Durdlebury the great sensation of its life. If theDean himself, clad in tights and spangles, had juggled for pence bythe west door of the cathedral, tongues could scarcely have waggedfaster. But Doggie worried his head about gossip not one jot. He wasin joyous mood and ordered a gargantuan feast for Chipmunk and bottlesof the strongest old Burgundy, such as he thought would get a grip onChipmunk's whiskyfied throat; and under the genial influence of foodand drink, Chipmunk told him tales of far lands and strangeadventures; and when they emerged much later into the quiet streets, it was the great good fortune of Chipmunk's life that there was notthe ghost of an Assistant Provost-Marshal in Durdlebury. 

"Doggie, old man, " said Oliver afterwards, "my wonder and reverencefor you increases hour by hour. You are the only man in the wholeworld who has ever made Chipmunk drunk. "

"You see, " said Doggie modestly, "I don't think he ever really lovedanyone who fed him before. "

CHAPTER XXII

Doggie, the lightest-hearted private in the British Army, danced, in ametaphorical sense, back to London, where he stayed for the rest ofhis leave at his rooms in Woburn Place; took his wholesome fill oftheatres and music-halls, going to those parts of the house whereTommies congregate; and bought an old Crown Derby dinner service as awedding present for Peggy and Oliver, a tortoise-shell-fitteddressing-case for Peggy, and for Oliver a magnificent gold watch thatwas an encyclopædia of current information. He had never felt sohappy in his life, so enchanted with the grimly smiling old world. Were it not for the Boche, it could hold its own as a brave place withany planet going. He blessed Oliver, who, in turn, had blessed him asthough he had displayed heroic magnanimity. He blessed Peggy, who, flushed with love and happiness and gratitude, had shown him, for thefirst time, what a really adorable young woman she could be. Hethanked Heaven for making three people happy, instead of three peoplemiserable. 

He marched along the wet pavements with a new light in his eyes, witha new exhilarating breath in his nostrils. He was free. The war over, he could do exactly what he liked. An untrammelled future lay beforehim. During the war he could hop about trenches and shell-holes withthe freedom of a bird. .. . 

Those awful duty letters to Peggy! Only now he fully realized theirnever-ending strain. Now he could write to her spontaneously, wheneverthe mood suited, write to her from his heart: "Dear old Peggy, I'm soglad you're happy. Oliver's a splendid chap. Et cetera, et cetera, etcetera. " He had lost a dreaded bride; but he had found a dear anddevoted friend. Nay, more: he had found two devoted friends. When hedrew up his account with humanity, he found himself passing rich inlove. 

His furlough expired, he reported at his depot, and was put on lightduty. He went about it the cheeriest soul alive, and laughed at thememory of his former miseries as a recruit. This camp life in England, after the mud and blood of France--like the African gentleman in Mr. Addison's "Cato, " he blessed his stars and thought it luxury. He wasnot sorry that the exigencies of service prevented him from beingpresent at the wedding of Oliver and Peggy. For it was the most suddenof phenomena, like the fight of two rams, as Shakespeare hath it. Inwar-time people marry in haste; and often, dear God, they have not theleisure to repent. Since the beginning of the war there are many, manywomen twice widowed. .. . But that is by the way. Doggie was grateful toan ungrateful military system. If he had attended--in the capacity ofbest man, so please you--so violent and unreasoning had Oliver'saffection become, Durdlebury would have gaped and whispered behind itshand and made things uncomfortable for everybody. Doggie from thesecurity of his regiment wished them joy by letter and telegram, andsent them the wedding presents aforesaid. 

Then for a season there were three happy people, at least, in thiswar-wilderness of suffering. The newly wedded pair went off for ahoneymoon, whose promise of indefinite length was eventually cut shortby an unromantic War Office. Oliver returned to his regiment in Franceand Peggy to the Deanery, where she sat among her wedding presents andher hopes for the future. 

"I never realized, my dear, " said the Dean to his wife, "what aremarkably pretty girl Peggy has grown into. "

"It's because she has got the man she loves, " said Mrs. Conover. 

"Do you think that's the reason?"

"I've known the plainest of women become quite good-looking. In theearly days of our married life"--she smiled--"even I was not quiteunattractive. "

The old Dean bent down--she was sitting and he standing--and liftedher chin with his forefinger. 

"You, my dear, have always been by far the most beautiful woman of myacquaintance. "

"We're talking of Peggy, " smiled Mrs. Conover. 

"Ah!" said the Dean. "So we were. I was saying that the child'shappiness was reflected in her face----"

"I rather thought I said it, dear, " replied Mrs. Conover. 

"It doesn't matter, " said her husband, who was first a man and then adean. He waved a hand in benign dismissal of the argument. "It's agreat mercy, " said he, "that she has married the man she loves insteadof--well . .. Marmaduke has turned out a capital fellow, and a creditto the family--but I never was quite easy in my mind over theengagement. .. . And yet, " he continued, after a turn or two about theroom, "I'm rather conscience-stricken about Marmaduke, poor chap. Hehas taken it like a brick. Yes, my dear, like a brick. Like agentleman. But all the same, no man likes to see another fellow walkoff with his sweetheart. "

"I don't think Marmaduke was ever so bucked in his life, " said Mrs. Conover placidly. 

"So----?"

The Dean gasped. His wife's smile playing ironically among herwrinkles was rather beautiful. 

"Peggy's word, Edward, not mine. The modern vocabulary. It means----"

"Oh, I know what the hideous word means. It was your using it thatcaused a shiver down my spine. But why bucked?"

"It appears there's a girl in France. "

"Oho!" said the Dean. "Who is she?"

"That's what Peggy, even now, would give a good deal to find out. "

For Doggie had told Peggy nothing more about the girl in France. Jeanne was his own precious secret. That it was shared by Phineas andMo didn't matter. To discuss her with Peggy, besides being irrelevant, in the circumstances, was quite another affair. Indeed, when he hadavowed the girl in France, it was not so much a confession as agallant desire to help Peggy out of her predicament. For, after all, what was Jeanne but a beloved war-wraith that had passed through hislife and disappeared?

"The development of Marmaduke, " said the Dean, "is not the leastextraordinary phenomenon of the war. "

 * * * * *

Now that Doggie had gained his freedom, Jeanne ceased to be a wraith. She became once again a wonderful thing of flesh and blood towardswhom all his young, fresh instinct yearned tremendously. One day itstruck his ingenuous mind that, if Jeanne were willing, there could beno possible reason why he should not marry her. Who was to say himnay? Convention? He had put all the conventions of his life under theauctioneer's hammer. The family? He pictured a meeting between Jeanneand the kind and courteous old Dean. It could not be other than anepisode of beauty. All he had to do was to seek out Jeanne and beginhis wooing in earnest. The simplest adventure in the world for awell-to-do and unattached young man--if only that young man had notbeen a private soldier on active service. 

That was the rub. Doggie passed his hand over his hair ruefully. Howon earth could he get to Frélus again? Not till the end of the war, at any rate, which might be years hence. There was nothing for it buta resumption of intimacy by letter. So he wrote to Jeanne the letterwhich loyalty to Peggy had made him destroy weeks ago. But no answercame. Then he wrote another, telling her of Peggy and his freedom, andhis love and his hopes, and to that there came no reply. 

A prepaid telegram produced no result. 

Doggie began to despair. What had happened to Jeanne? Why did shepersist in ruling him out of her existence? Was it because, in spiteof her gratitude, she wanted none of his love? He sat on the railingon the sea front of the south coast town where he was quartered, andlooked across the Channel in dismayed apprehension. He was a fool. What could there possibly be in little Doggie Trevor to inspire aromantic passion in any woman's heart? Take Peggy's case. As soon as areal, genuine fellow like Oliver came along, Peggy's heart flew out tohim like needle to magnet. Even had he been of Oliver's Paladin mould, what right had he to expect Jeanne to give him all the wonder ofherself after a four days' acquaintance? Being what he was, justlittle Doggie Trevor, the assumption was an impertinence. She hadsheltered herself from it behind a barrier of silence. 

A girl, a thing of low-cut blouse, truncated skirts and cheap silkstockings, who had been leaning unnoticed for some time on the railsby his side, spoke. 

"You seem to be pretty lonely. "

Doggie swerved round. "Yes, I am, darned lonely. "

"Come for a walk, or take me to the pictures. "

"And then?" asked Doggie, swinging to his feet. 

"If we get on all right, we can fix up something for to-morrow. "

She was pretty, with a fair, frizzy, insolent prettiness. She mighthave been any age from fourteen to four-and-twenty. 

Doggie smiled, tempted to while away a dark hour. But he said, honestly:

"I'm afraid I should be a dull companion. "

"What's the matter?" she laughed. "Lost your best girl?"

"Something like it. " He waved a hand across the sea. "Over there. "

"French? Oh!" She drew herself up. "Aren't English girls good enoughfor you?"

"When they're sympathetic, they're delightful, " said he. 

"Oh, you make me tired! Good-bye, " she snapped, and stalked away. 

After a few yards she glanced over her shoulder to see whether he wasfollowing. But Doggie remained by the railings. 

Presently he shrugged his shoulders and went off to a picture palaceby himself and thought wistfully of Jeanne. 

 * * * * *

And Jeanne? Well, Jeanne was no longer at Frélus; for there came amorning when Aunt Morin was found dead in her bed. The old doctor cameand spread out his thin hands and said "_Eh bien_" and "_Quevoulez-vous?_" and "It was bound to happen sooner or later, " andmurmured learned words. The old curé came and a neighbour or two, andcandles were put round the coffin and the _pompes funèbres_ drapedthe front steps and entrance and vestibule in heavy black. And as soonas was possible Aunt Morin was laid to rest in the little cemeteryadjoining the church, and Jeanne went back to the house with Toinette, alone in the wide world. And because there had been a death in theplace the billeted soldiers went about the courtyard very quietly. 

Since Phineas and Mo and Doggie's regiment had gone away, she haddevoted, with a new passionate zeal, all the time she could spare fromthe sick woman to the comforts of the men. No longer restrained by thetightly drawn purse-strings of Aunt Morin, but with money of her ownto spend--and money restored to her by these men's dear and heroiccomrade--she could give them unexpected treats of rich coffee andmilk, fresh eggs, fruit. .. . She mended and darned for them andsuborned old women to help her. She conspired with the Town Major torender the granary more habitable; and the Town Major, who had not toissue a return for a centime's expense, received all her suggestionswith courteous enthusiasm. Toinette taking good care to impress uponevery British soldier who could understand her, the fact that tomademoiselle personally and individually he was indebted for all theseluxuries, the fame of Jeanne began to spread through that sector ofthe front behind which lay Frélus. Concurrently spread the story ofDoggie Trevor's exploit. Jeanne became a legendary figure, save tothose thrice fortunate who were billeted on _Veuve Morin et Fils, Marchands des Foins en Gros et Détail_, and these, according to theirseveral stolid British ways, bowed down and worshipped before the slimFrench girl with the tragic eyes, and when they departed, confirmedthe legend and made things nasty for the sceptically superior private. 

So, on the day of the funeral of Aunt Morin, the whole of the billetsent in a wreath to the house, and the whole of the billet attendedthe service in the little church, and they marched back and drew up bythe front door--a guard of honour extending a little distance down theroad. The other men billeted in the village hung around, together withthe remnant of the inhabitants, old men, women and children, but keptquite clear of the guarded path through which Jeanne was to pass. Oneor two officers looked on curiously. But they stood in the background. It was none of their business. If the men, in their free time, choseto put themselves on parade, without arms, of course, so much thebetter for the army. 

Then Jeanne and the old curé, in his time-scarred shovel-hat and hisrusty soutane, followed by Toinette, turned round the corner of thelane and emerged into the main street. A sergeant gave a word ofcommand. The guard stood at attention. Jeanne and her companionsproceeded up the street, unaware of the unusual, until they enteredbetween the first two files. Then for the first time the tears welledinto Jeanne's eyes. She could only stretch out her hands and crysomewhat wildly to the bronzed statues on each side of her, "_Merci, mes amis, merci, merci_, " and flee into the house. 

The next day Maître Pépineau, the notary, summoned her to his_cabinet_. Maître Pépineau was very old. His partner had gone off tothe war. "One of the necessities of the present situation, " he wouldsay, "is that I should go on living in spite of myself; for if I died, the whole of the affairs of Frélus would be in the soup. " Now, afortnight back, Maître Pépineau and four neighbours--the fourwitnesses required by French law when there is only one notary to drawup the _instrument public_--had visited Aunt Morin; so Jeanne knewthat she had made a fresh will. 

"_Mon enfant_, " said the old man, unfolding the document, "in aprevious will your aunt had left you a little heritage out of the halfof her fortune which she was free to dispose of by the code. Youhaving come into possession of your own money, she has revoked thatwill and left everything to her only surviving son, Gaspard Morin, inMadagascar. "

"It is only just and right, " said Jeanne. 

"The unfortunate part of the matter, " said Maître Pépineau, "is thatMadame Morin has appointed official trustees to carry on the estateuntil Monsieur Gaspard Morin can make his own arrangements. The resultis that you have no _locus standi_ as a resident in the house. Ipointed this out to her. But you know, in spite of her good qualities, she was obstinate. .. . It pains me greatly, my dear child, to have tostate your position. "

"I am then, " said Jeanne, "_sans-asile_--homeless?"

"As far as the house of Monsieur Gaspard Morin is concerned--yes. "

"And my English soldiers?" asked Jeanne. 

"Alas, my child, " replied the old man, "you will find themeverywhere. "

Which was cold consolation. For however much inspired by patrioticgratitude a French girl may be, she cannot settle down in a strangeplace where British troops are billeted and proceed straightway tominister to their comfort. Misunderstandings are apt to arise even inthe best regulated British regiments. In the house of Aunt Morin, inFrélus, her position was unassailable. Anywhere else . .. 

"So, my good Toinette, " said Jeanne, after having explained thesituation to the indignant old woman, "I can only go back to my friendin Paris and reconstitute my life. If you will accompany me----?"

But no. Toinette had the peasant's awful dread of Paris. She had heardabout Paris: there were thieves, ruffians that they called _apaches_, who murdered you if you went outside your door. 

"The _apaches_, " laughed Jeanne, "were swept away into the army on theoutbreak of war, and they've nearly all been killed, fighting likeheroes. "

"There are the old ones left, who are worse than the young, " retortedToinette. 

No. Mademoiselle could teach her nothing about Paris. You could noteven cross a street without risk of life, so many were the omnibusesand automobiles. In every shop you were a stranger to be robbed. Therewas no air in Paris. You could not sleep for the noise. And then--tolive in a city of a hundred million people and not know a living soul!It was a mad-house matter. Again no. It grieved her to part frommademoiselle, but she had made her little economies--a difficultachievement, considering how regardful of her pence Madame hadbeen--and she would return to her Breton town, which forty years agoshe had left to enter the service of Madame Morin. 

"But after forty years, Toinette, who in Paimpol will remember you?"

"It is I who remember Paimpol, " said Toinette. She remained for a fewmoments in thought. Then she said: "_C'est drôle, tout de même. _ Ihaven't seen the sea for forty years, and now I can't sleep of nightsthinking of it. The first man I loved was a fisherman of Paimpol. Wewere to be married after he returned from an Iceland voyage, with a_gros bénéfice_. When the time came for his return, I would stand onthe shore and watch and watch the sea. But he never came. The seaswallowed him up. And then--you can understand quite well--the childwas born dead. And I thought I would never want to look at the seaagain. So I came here to your Aunt Morin, the daughter of DoctorKersadec, your grandfather, and I married Jules Dagnant, the foremanof the carters of the hay . .. And he died a long time ago . .. And nowI have forgotten him and I want to go and look at the sea where my manwas drowned. "

"But your grandson, who is fighting in the Argonne?"

"What difference can it make to him whether I am in Frélus orPaimpol?"

"That's true, " said Jeanne. 

Toinette bustled about the kitchen. Folks had to eat, whateverhappened. But she went on talking, Madame Morin. One must not speakevil of the dead. They have their work cut out to extricate themselvesfrom Purgatory. But all the same--after forty years' faithfulservice--and not to mention in the will--_même pour une Bretonne, c'était raide_. Jeanne agreed. She had no reason to love her AuntMorin. Her father's people came from Agen on the confines of Gascony;he had been a man of great gestures and vehement speech; her mother, gentle, reserved, _un pen dévote_. Jeanne drew her character fromboth sources; but her sympathies were rather southern than northern. For some reason or the other, perhaps for his expansive ways--whoknows?--Aunt Morin had held the late Monsieur Bossière indetestation. She had no love for Jeanne, and Jeanne, who before hergood fortune had expected nothing from Aunt Morin, regarded the willwith feelings of indifference. Except as far as it concerned Toinette. Forty years' faithful service deserved recognition. But what was theuse of talking about it?

"So we must separate, Toinette?"

"Alas, yes, mademoiselle--unless mademoiselle would come with me toPaimpol. "

Jeanne laughed. What should she do in Paimpol? There wasn't even afisherman left there to fall in love with. 

"Mademoiselle, " said Toinette later, "do you think you will meet thelittle English soldier, Monsieur Trevor, in Paris?"

"_Dans la guerre on ne se revoit jamais_, " said Jeanne. 

But there was more of personal decision than of fatalism in her tone. 

So Jeanne waited for a day or two until the regiment marched away, andthen, with heavy heart, set out for Paris. She wrote, indeed, toPhineas, and weeks afterwards Phineas, who was in the thick of theSomme fighting, wrote to Doggie telling him of her departure fromFrélus; but regretted that as he had lost her letter he could notgive him her Paris address. 

And in the meantime the house of Gaspard Morin was shuttered andlocked and sealed; and the bureaucratically minded old Postmaster ofFrélus, who had received no instructions from Jeanne to forward hercorrespondence, handed Doggie's letters and telegrams to the agedpostman, a superannuated herdsman, who stuck them into the letter-boxof the deserted house and went away conscious of duty perfectlyaccomplished. 

Then, at last, Doggie, fit again for active service, went out with adraft to France, and joined Phineas and Mo, almost the only survivorsof the cheery, familiar crowd that he had loved, and the grimness ofbattles such as he had never conceived possible took him in itsinexorable grip, and he lost sense of everything save that he was theleast important thing on God's earth struggling desperately for animalexistence. 

Yet there were rare times of relief from stress, when he couldgropingly string together the facts of a pre-Somme existence. And thenhe would curse Phineas lustily for losing the precious letter. 

"Man, " Phineas once replied, "don't you see that you're breaking aheart which, in spite of its apparent rugosity and callosity, is astender as a new-made mother's? Tell me to do it, and I'll desert andmake my way to Paris and----"

"And the military police will see that you make your way to hell via astone wall. And serve you right. Don't be a blithering fool, " saidDoggie. 

"Then I don't know what I can do for you, laddie, except die ofremorse at your feet. "

"We're all going to die of rheumatic fever, " said Doggie, shivering inhis sodden uniform. "Blast this rain!"

Phineas thrust his hand beneath his clothing and produced a long, amorphous and repulsive substance, like a painted tallow candleovercome by intense heat, from which he gravely bit an inch or two. 

"What's that?" asked Doggie. 

"It's a stick of peppermint, " said Phineas. "I've still an aunt inGalashiels who remembers my existence. "

Doggie stuck out his hand like a monkey in the Zoo. 

"You selfish beast!" he said. 

CHAPTER XXIII

The fighting went on and, to Doggie, the inhabitants of the outsideworld became almost as phantasmagorical as Phineas's providential auntin Galashiels. Immediate existence held him. In an historic battle MoShendish fell with a machine bullet through his heart. Doggie, staggering with the rest of the company to the attack over the muddy, shell-torn ground, saw him go down a few yards away. It was not tilllater that he knew he had gone West with many other great souls. Doggie and Phineas mourned for him as a brother. Without him Francewas a muddier and a bloodier place and the outside world more unrealthan ever. 

Then to Doggie came a heart-broken letter from the Dean. Oliver hadgone the same road as Mo. Peggy was frantic with grief. Vividly Doggiesaw the peaceful deanery on which all the calamity of all the war hadcrashed with sudden violence. 

"Why I should thank God we parted as friends, I don't quite know, "said Doggie, "but I do. "

"I suppose, laddie, " said Phineas, "it's good to feel that smilingeyes and hearty hands will greet us when we too pass over the Border. My God, man, " he added reflectively, after a pause, "have you everconsidered what a goodly company it will be? When you come to look atit that way, it makes Death quite a trivial affair. "

"I suppose it does to us while we're here, " said Doggie. "We've seensuch a lot of it. But to those who haven't--my poor Peggy--it's theend of her universe. "

Yes, it was all very well to take death philosophically, orfatalistically, or callously, or whatever you liked to call it, outthere, where such an attitude was the only stand against ravingmadness; but at home, beneath the grey mass of the cathedral, folksmet Death as a strange and cruel horror. The new glory of life thatPeggy had found, he had blackened out in an instant. Doggie lookedagain at the old man's letter--his handwriting was growing shaky--andforgot for a while the familiar things around him, and lived withPeggy in her sorrow. 

 * * * * *

Then, as far as Doggie's sorely tried division was affected, came theend of the great autumn fighting. He found himself well behind thelines in reserve, and so continued during the cold dreary winter months. And the more the weeks that crept by and the more remote seemedJeanne, the more Doggie hungered for the sight of her. But all thisperiod of his life was but a dun-coloured monotony, with but fewhappenings to distinguish week from week. Most of the company that hadmarched with him into Frélus were dead or wounded. Nearly all theofficers had gone. Captain Willoughby, who had interrogated Jeanne withregard to the restored packet, and, on Doggie's return, had informedhim with a friendly smile that they were a damned sight too busy thento worry about defaulters of the likes of him, but that he was goingto be court-martialled and shot as soon as peace was declared, whenthey would have time to think of serious matters--Captain Willoughbyhad gone to Blighty with a leg so mauled that never would he commandagain a company in the field. Sergeant Ballinghall, who had taughtDoggie to use his fists, had retired, minus a hand, into civil life. Ascientific and sporting helper at Roehampton, he informed Doggie byletter, was busily engaged on the invention of a boxing-glove whichwould enable him to carry on his pugilistic career. "So, in futuretimes, " said he, "if any of your friends among the nobility and gentrywant lessons in the noble art, don't forget your old friendBallinghall. " Whereat--incidentally--Doggie wondered. Never, for afraction of a second, during their common military association, hadBallinghall given him to understand that he regarded him otherwisethan as a mere Tommy without any pretensions to gentility. There hadbeen times when Ballinghall had cursed him--perhaps justifiably andperhaps lovingly--as though he had been the scum of the earth. Doggiewould no more have dared address him in terms of familiarity than hewould have dared slap the Brigadier-General on the back. And now thehonest warrior sought Doggie's patronage. Of the original crowd inEngland who had transformed Doggie's military existence by making himpenny-whistler to the company, only Phineas and himself were left. There were others, of course, good and gallant fellows, with whom hebecame bound in the rough intimacy of the army; but the first friends, those under whose protecting kindliness his manhood had developed, were the dearest. And their ghosts remained dear. 

At last the division was moved up and there was more fighting. 

One day, after a successful raid, Doggie tumbled back with the rest ofthe men into the trench and, looking about, missed Phineas. Presentlythe word went round that "Mac" had been hit, and later the rumour wasconfirmed by the passage down the trench of Phineas on a stretcher, his weather-battered face a ghastly ivory. 

"I'm alive all right, laddie, " he gasped, contorting his lips into asmile. "I've got it clean through the chest like a gentleman. But itgars me greet I canna look after you any longer. "

He made an attempt at waving a hand, and the stretcher-bearers carriedhim away out of the army for ever. 

Thereafter Doggie felt the loneliest thing on earth, like Wordsworth'scloud, or the Last Man in Tom Hood's grim poem. For was he not thelast man of the original company, as he had joined it, hundreds ofyears ago, in England? It was only then that he realized fully themerits of the wastrel Phineas McPhail. Not once or twice, but athousand times had the man's vigilant affection, veiled under cynicalhumour, saved him from despair. Not once but a thousand times had thegaunt, tireless Scotchman saved him from physical exhaustion. At everyturn of his career, since his enlistment, Phineas had been there, watchful, helpful, devoted. There he had been, always ready andwilling to be cursed. To curse him had been the great comfort ofDoggie's life. Whom could he curse now? Not a soul--no one, at anyrate, against whom he could launch an anathema with any real heart init. Than curse vainly and superficially, far better not to curse atall. He missed Phineas beyond all his conception of the blankness ofbereavement. Like himself, Phineas had found salvation in the army. Doggie realized how he had striven in his own queer way to redeem thevillainy of his tutorship. No woman could have been more gentle, moreunselfish. 

"What the devil am I going to do?" said Doggie. 

Meanwhile Phineas, lying in a London hospital with a bullet throughhis body, thought much and earnestly of his friend, and one morningPeggy got a letter. 

 "DEAR MADAM, --

 "Time was when I could not have addressed you without incurring your not unjustifiable disapproval. But I take the liberty of doing so now, trusting to your generous acquiescence in the proposition that the war has purged many offences. If this has not happened, to some extent, in my case, I do not see how it has been possible for me to have regained and retained the trust and friendship of so sensitive and honourable a gentleman as Mr. Marmaduke Trevor. 

 "If I ask you to come and see me here, where I am lying severely wounded, it is not with an intention to solicit a favour for myself personally--although I'll not deny that the sight of a kind and familiar face would be a boon to a lonely and friendless man--but with a deep desire to advance Mr. Trevor's happiness. Lest you may imagine I am committing an unpardonable impertinence and thereby totally misunderstand me, I may say that this happiness can only be achieved by the aid of powerful friends both in London and Paris. 

 "It is only because the lad is the one thing dear to me left in the world, that I venture to intrude on your privacy at such a time. 

 "I am, dear Madam, "Yours very faithfully, "PHINEAS MCPHAIL. "

Peggy came down to breakfast, and having dutifully kissed her parents, announced her intention of going to London by the eleven o'clocktrain. 

"Why, how can you, my dear?" asked Mrs. Conover. 

"I've nothing particular to do here for the next few days. "

"But your father and I have. Neither of us can start off to London ata moment's notice. "

Peggy replied with a wan smile: "But, dearest mother, you forget. I'man old, old married woman. "

"Besides, my dear, " said the Dean, "Peggy has often gone away byherself. "

"But never to London, " said Mrs. Conover. 

"Anyhow, I've got to go. " Peggy turned to the old butler. "Ring upSturrocks's and tell them I'm coming. "

"Yes, miss, " said Burford. 

"He's as bad as you are, mother, " said Peggy. 

So she went up to London and stayed the night at Sturrocks's alone, for the first time in her life. She half ate a lonely, execrable wardinner in the stuffy, old-fashioned dining-room, served ceremoniouslyby the ancient head waiter, the friend of her childhood, who, in viewof her recent widowhood, addressed her in the muffled tones of thesympathetic undertaker. Peggy nearly cried. She wished she had chosenanother hotel. But where else could she have gone? She had stayed atfew hotels in London: once at the Savoy; once at Claridge's; everyother time at Sturrocks's. The Savoy? Its vastness had frightened her. And Claridge's? No; that was sanctified for ever. Oliver in his lordlyway had snapped his fingers at Sturrocks's. Only the best was goodenough for Peggy. Now only Sturrocks's remained. 

She sought her room immediately after the dreary meal and sat beforethe fire--it was a damp, chill February night--and thought miserableand aching thoughts. It happened to be the same room which she hadoccupied, oh--thousands of years ago--on the night when Doggie, point-device in new Savile Row uniform, had taken her to dinner at theCarlton. And she had sat, in the same imitation Charles the Secondbrocaded chair, looking into the same generous, old-fashioned fire, thinking--thinking. And she remembered clenching her fist andapostrophizing the fire and crying out aloud: "Oh, my God! if only hemakes good!"

Oceans of years lay between then and now. Doggie had made good; everyman who came home wounded must have made good. Poor old Doggie. Buthow in the name of all that was meant by the word Love she could everhave contemplated--as she had contemplated, with an obstinate, virginal loyalty--marriage with Doggie, she could not understand. 

She undressed, brought the straight-backed chair close to the fire, and, in her dainty nightgown, part of her trousseau, sat elbow onknee, face in thin, clutching hands, slippered feet on fender, thinking, thinking once again. Thinking now of the gates of Paradisethat had opened to her for a few brief weeks. Of the man who never hadto make good, being the wonder of wonders of men, the deliciouscompanion, the incomparable lover, the all-compelling revealer, thegreat, gay, scarcely, to her woman's limited power of vision, comprehended heroic soldier. Of the terrifying meaninglessness oflife, now that her God of Very God, in human form, had been swept, inan instant, off the earth into the Unknown. 

Yet was life meaningless after all? There must be some significance, some inner truth veiled in mystery, behind even the casually acceptedand never probed religion to which she had been born and in which shehad found poor refuge. For, like many of her thoughtless, unquestioning class, she had looked at Christ through stained-glasswindows, and now the windows were darkened. .. . For the first time inher life, her soul groped intensely towards eternal verities. The fireburned low and she shivered. She became again the bit of human flotsamcruelly buffeted by the waves, forgotten of God. Yet, after she hadrisen and crept into bed and while she was staring into the darkness, her heart became filled with a vast pity for the thousands andthousands of women, her sisters, who at that moment were staring, hopeless, like her, into the unrelenting night. 

She did not fall asleep till early morning. She rose late. Abouthalf-past eleven as she was preparing to walk abroad on a drearyshopping excursion--the hospital visiting hour was in the afternoon--atelegram arrived from the Dean. 

 "Just heard that Marmaduke is severely wounded. "

 * * * * *

She scarcely recognized the young private tutor of Denby Hall in theelderly man with the deeply furrowed face, who smiled as sheapproached his bed. She had brought him flowers, cigarettes of theexquisite kind that Doggie used to smoke, chocolates. .. . 

She sat down by his bedside. 

"All this is more than gracious, Mrs. Manningtree, " said Phineas. "Toa _vieux routier_ like me, it is a wee bit overwhelming. "

"It's very little to do for Doggie's best friend. "

Phineas's eyes twinkled. "If you call him Doggie, like that, maybe itwon't be so difficult for me to talk to you. "

"Why should it be difficult at all?" she asked. "We both love him. "

"Ay, " said Phineas. "He's a lovable lad, and it is because othersbesides you and me find him lovable, that I took the liberty ofwriting to you. "

"The girl in France?"

"Eh?" He put out a bony hand, and regarded her in some disappointment. "Has he told you? Perhaps you know all about it. "

"I know nothing except that--'a girl in France, ' was all he told me. But--first about yourself. How badly are you wounded--and what can wedo for you?"

She dragged from a reluctant Phineas the history of his wound andobtained confirmation of his statement from a nurse who happened topass up the gangway of the pleasant ward and lingered by the bedside. McPhail was doing splendidly. Of course, a man with a hole through hisbody must be expected to go back to the regime of babyhood. So long ashe behaved himself like a well-conducted baby all would be well. Peggydrew the nurse a few yards away. 

"I've just heard that his dearest friend out there, a boy whom heloves dearly and has been through the whole thing with him in the samecompany--it's odd, but he was his private tutor years ago--bothgentlemen, you know--in fact, I'm here just to talk about the boy----"Peggy grew somewhat incoherent. "Well--I've just heard that the boyhas been seriously wounded. Shall I tell him?"

"I think it would be better to wait for a few days. Any shock likethat sends up their temperatures. We hate temperatures, and we'regetting his down so nicely. "

"All right, " said Peggy, and she went back smiling to Phineas. "Shesays you're getting on amazingly, Mr. McPhail. "

Said Phineas: "I'm grateful to you, Mrs. Manningtree, for concerningyourself about my entirely unimportant carcass. Now, as Virgil says, '_paullo majora canemus_. '"

"You have me there, Mr. McPhail, " said Peggy. 

"Let us sing of somewhat greater things. That is the bald translation. Let us talk of Doggie--if so be it is agreeable to you. "

"Carry on, " said Peggy. 

"Well, " said Phineas, "to begin at the beginning, we marched into aplace called Frélus----"

In his pedantic way he began to tell her the story of Jeanne, so faras he knew it. He told her of the girl standing in the night wind andrain on the bluff by the turning of the road. He told her of Doggie'sinsane adventure across No Man's Land to the farm of La Folette. Tearsrolled down Peggy's cheeks. She cried, incredulous:

"Doggie did that? Doggie?"

"It was child's play to what he had to do at Guedecourt. "

But Peggy waved away the vague heroism of Guedecourt. 

"Doggie did that? For a woman?"

The whole elaborate structure of her conception of Doggie tumbled downlike a house of cards. 

"Ay, " said Phineas. 

"He did that"--Phineas had given an imaginative and picturesqueaccount of the episode--"for this girl Jeanne?"

"It is a strange coincidence, Mrs. Manningtree, " replied Phineas, witha flicker of his lips elusively suggestive of unctuousness, "thatalmost those identical words were used by Mademoiselle Bossière in mypresence. '_Il a fait cela pour moi!_' But--you will pardon me forsaying it--with a difference of intonation, which, as a woman, nodoubt you will be able to divine and appreciate. "

"I know, " said Peggy. She bent forward and picked with finger andthumb at the fluff of the blanket. Then she said, intent on the fluff:"If a man had done a thing like that for me, I should have crawledafter him to the ends of the earth. " Presently she looked up with aflash of the eyes. "Why isn't this girl doing it?"

"You must listen to the end of the story, " said Phineas. "I may tellyou that I always regarded myself, with my Scots caution, as a modelof tact and discretion; but after many conversations with Doggie, I'mbeginning to have my doubts. I also imagined that I was very carefulof my personal belongings; but facts have convicted me of criminallaxity. "

Peggy smiled. "That sounds like a confession, Mr. McPhail. "

"Maybe it's in the nature of one, " he assented. "But by your leave, Mrs. Manningtree, I'll resume my narrative. "

He continued the story of Jeanne: how she had learned through him ofDoggie's wealth and position and early upbringing; of the memorabledinner-party with poor Mo; of Doggie's sensitive interpretation of herFrench _bourgeoise_ attitude; and finally the loss of the lettercontaining her address in Paris. 

After he had finished, Peggy sat for a long while thinking. Thisromance in Doggie's life had moved her as she thought she could neverbe moved since the death of Oliver. Her thoughts winged themselvesback to an afternoon, remote almost as her socked and sashedchildhood, when Doggie, immaculately attired in grey and pearlharmonies, had declared, with his little effeminate drawl, that tennismade one so terribly hot. The scene in the Deanery garden flashedbefore her. It was succeeded by a scene in the Deanery drawing-roomwhen, to herself indignant, he had pleaded his delicacy ofconstitution. And the same Doggie, besides braving death a thousandtimes in the ordinary execution of his soldier's duties, had performedthis queer deed of heroism for a girl. Then his return toDurdlebury----

"I'm afraid, " she said suddenly, "I was dreadfully unkind to him whenhe came home the last time. I didn't understand. Did he tell you?"

Phineas stretched out a hand and with the tips of his fingers touchedher sleeve. 

"Mrs. Manningtree, " he said softly, "don't you know that Doggie's avery wonderful gentleman?"

Again her eyes grew moist. "Yes. I know. Of course he never would havementioned it. .. . I thought, Mr. McPhail, he had deteriorated--Godforgive me! I thought he had coarsened and got into the ways of anordinary Tommy--and I was snobbish and uncomprehending and horrible. It seems as if I am making a confession now. "

"Ay. Why not? If it were not for the soul's health, the ancient Churchwouldn't have instituted the practice. "

She regarded him shrewdly for a second. "You've changed too. "

"Maybe, " said Phineas. "It's an ill war that blows nobody good. AndI'm not complaining of this one. But you were talking of yourmiscomprehension of Doggie. "

"I behaved very badly to him, " she said, picking again at theblanket. "I misjudged him altogether--because I was ignorant ofeverything--everything that matters in life. But I've learned bettersince then. "

"Ay, " remarked Phineas gravely. 

"Mr. McPhail, " she said, after a pause, "it wasn't those rotten ideasthat prevented me from marrying him----"

"I know, my dear little lady, " said Phineas, grasping the pluckinghand. "You just loved the other man as you never could have lovedDoggie, and there's an end to't. Love just happens. It's the holiestthing in the world. "

She turned her hand, so as to meet his in a mutual clasp, and withdrewit. 

"You're very kind--and sympathetic--and understanding----" Her voicebroke. "I seem to have been going about misjudging everybody andeverything. I'm beginning to see a little bit--a little bit farther--Ican't express myself----"

"Never mind, Mrs. Manningtree, " said Phineas soothingly, "if youcannot express yourself in words. Leave that to the politicians andthe philosophers and the theologians, and other such windy expositorsof the useless. But you can express yourself in deeds. "

"How?"

"Find Jeanne for Doggie. "

Peggy bent forward with a queer light in her eyes. 

"Does she love him--really love him as he deserves to be loved?"

"It is not often, Mrs. Manningtree, that I commit myself to a definitestatement. But, to my certain knowledge, these two are breaking theirhearts for each other. Couldn't you find her, before the poor laddieis killed?"

"He's not killed yet, thank God!" said Peggy, with an odd thrill inher voice. 

He was alive. Only severely wounded. He would be coming home soon, carried, according to convoy, to any unfriendly hospitaldumping-ground in the United Kingdom. If only she could bring thisFrench girl to him! She yearned to make reparation for the past, toact according to the new knowledge that love and sorrow had broughther. 

"But how can I find her--just a girl--an unknown MademoiselleBossière--among the millions of Paris?"

"I've been racking my brains all the morning, " replied Phineas, "torecall the address, and out of the darkness there emerges just twowords, _Port Royal_. If you know Paris, does that help you at all?"

"I don't know Paris, " replied Peggy humbly. "I don't know anything. I'm utterly ignorant. "

"I beg entirely to differ from you, Mrs. Manningtree, " said Phineas. "You have come through much heavy travail to a correct appreciation ofthe meaning of human love between man and woman, and so you have inyou the wisdom of all the ages. "

"Yes, yes, " said Peggy, becoming practical. "But _Port Royal_?"

"The clue to the labyrinth, " replied Phineas. 

CHAPTER XXIV

The Dean of an English cathedral is a personage. 

He has power. He can stand with folded arms at its door and forbidentrance to anyone, save, perhaps, the King in person. He can tell notonly the Bishop of the Diocese, but the very Archbishop of theProvince, to run away and play. Having power and using it benignly andgraciously, he can exert its subtler form known as influence. In thecourse of his distinguished career he is bound to make many queerfriends in high places. 

"My dear Field-Marshal, could you do me a little favour. .. ?"

"My dear Ambassador, my daughter, etc. , etc. .. . "

Deans, discreet, dignified gentlemen, who would not demand theimpossible, can generally get what they ask for. 

When Peggy returned to Durdlebury and put Doggie's case before herfather, and with unusual fervour roused him from his firststupefaction at the idea of her mad project, he said mildly:

"Let me understand clearly what you want to do. You want to go toParis by yourself, discover a girl called Jeanne Bossière, concerningwhose address you know nothing but two words--Port Royal--of coursethere is a Boulevard Port Royal somewhere south of the LuxembourgGardens----"

"Then we've found her, " cried Peggy. "We only want the number. "

"Please don't interrupt, " said the Dean. "You confuse me, my dear. Youwant to find this girl and re-establish communication between her andMarmaduke, and--er--generally play Fairy Godmother. "

"If you like to put it that way, " said Peggy. 

"Are you quite certain you would be acting wisely? From Marmaduke'spoint of view----"

"Don't call him Marmaduke"--she bent forward and touched his kneecaressingly--"Marmaduke could never have risked his life for a woman. It was Doggie who did it. She thinks of him as Doggie. Every onethinks of him now and loves him as Doggie. It was Oliver's name forhim, don't you see? And he has stuck it out and made it a sort oftitle of honour and affection--and it was as Doggie that Oliverlearned to love him, and in his last letter to Oliver he signedhimself 'Your devoted Doggie. '"

"My dear, " smiled the Dean, and quoted: "'What's in a name? Arose----'"

"Would be unendurable if it were called a bug-squash. The poetry wouldbe knocked out of it. "

The Dean said indulgently: "So the name Doggie connotes somethingpoetic and romantic?"

"You ask the girl Jeanne. "

The Dean tapped the back of his daughter's hand that rested on hisknee. 

"There's no fool like an old fool, my dear. Do you know why?"

She shook her head. 

"Because the old fool has learned to understand the young fool, whereas the young fool doesn't understand anybody. "

She laughed and threw herself on her knees by his side. 

"Daddy, you're immense!"

He took the tribute complacently. "What was I saying before youinterrupted me? Oh yes. About the wisdom of your proposed action. Areyou sure they want each other?"

"As sure as I'm sitting here, " said Peggy. 

"Then, my dear, " said he, "I'll do what I can. "

Whether he wrote to Field-Marshals and Ambassadors or to lesserluminaries, Peggy did not know. The Dean observed an old-worldpunctilio about such matters. At the first reply or two to his lettershe frowned; at the second or two he smiled in the way any elderlygentleman may smile when he finds himself recognized byhigh-and-mightiness as a person of importance. 

"I think, my dear, " said he at last, "I've arranged everything foryou. "

 * * * * *

So it came to pass that while Doggie, with a shattered shoulder and atouched left lung, was being transported from a base hospital inFrance to a hospital in England, Peggy, armed with all kinds ofpassports and recommendations, and a very fixed, personal sanctifiedidea, was crossing the Channel on her way to Paris and Jeanne. 

 * * * * *

And, after all, it was no wild-goose chase, but a very simple matter. An urbane, elderly person at the British Embassy performed certaintelephonic gymnastics. At the end:

"_Merci, merci. Adieu!_"

He turned to her. 

"A representative from the Prefecture of Police will wait on you atyour hotel at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. "

The official called, took notes, and confidently assured her that hewould obtain the address of Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière withintwelve hours. 

"But how, monsieur, are you going to do it?" asked Peggy. 

"Madame, " said he, "in spite of the war, the telegraphic, telephonic, and municipal systems of France work in perfect order--to say nothingof that of the police. Frélus, I think, is the name of the place shestarted from?"

At eight o'clock in the evening, after her lonely dinner in the greathotel, the polite official called again. She met him in the lounge. 

"Madame, " said he, "I have the pleasure to inform you thatMademoiselle Jeanne Bossière, late of Frélus, is living in Paris at743^bis Boulevard Port Royal, and spends all her days at thesuccursale of the French Red Cross in the Rue Vaugirard. "

"Have you seen her and told her?"

"No, madame, that did not come within my instructions. "

"I am infinitely grateful to you, " said Peggy. 

"_Il n'y a pas de quoi_, madame. I perform the tasks assigned to meand am only too happy, in this case, to have been successful. "

"But, monsieur, " said Peggy, feeling desperately lonely in Paris, andpathetically eager to talk to a human being, even in her rusty Véveyschool French, "haven't you wondered why I've been so anxious to findthis young lady?"

"If we began to wonder, " he replied with a laugh, "at the things whichhappen during the war, we should be so bewildered that we shouldn't beable to carry on our work. Madame, " said he, handing her his card, "ifyou should have further need of me in the matter, I am always at yourservice. "

He bowed profoundly and left her. 

Peggy stayed at the Ritz because, long ago, when her parents hadfetched her from Vévey and had given her the one wonderful fortnightin Paris she had ever known, they had chosen this dignified and notinexpensive hostelry. To her girlish mind it had breathed the lastword of splendour, movement, gaiety--all that was connoted by themagical name of the City of Light. But now the glamour had departed. She wondered whether it had ever been. Oliver had laughed at herexperiences. Sandwiched between dear old Uncle Edward and Aunt Sophia, what in the sacred name of France could she have seen of Paris? Waittill they could turn round. He would take her to Paris. She would havethe unimagined time of her life. They dreamed dreams of the Rue de laPaix--he had five hundred pounds laid by, which he had ear-marked foran orgy of shopping in that Temptation Avenue of a thoroughfare; ofMontmartre, the citadel of delectable wickedness and laughter; offunny little restaurants in dark streets where you are delighted topay twenty francs for a mussel, so exquisitely is it cooked; of daintyand crazy theatres; of long drives, folded in each other's arms, whenmoonlight touches dawn, through the wonders of the enchanted city. 

Her brief dreams had eclipsed her girlish memories. Now the dreams hadbecome blurred. She strove to bring them back till her soul ached, till she broke down into miserable weeping. She was alone in astrange, unedifying town; in a strange, vast, commonplace hotel. Thecold, moonlit Place de la Vendôme, with its memorable column, justopposite her bedroom window, meant nothing to her. She had thedesolating sense that nothing in the world would ever matter to heragain--nothing as far as she, Peggy Manningtree, was concerned. Herlife was over. Altruism alone gave sanction to continued existence. Hence her present adventure. Paris might have been Burslem for all theinterest it afforded. 

 * * * * *

Jeanne worked from morning to night in the succursale of the CroixRouge in the Rue Vaugirard. She had tried, after the establishment ofher affairs, to enter, in no matter what capacity, a British basehospital. It would be a consolation for her surrender of Doggie towork for his wounded comrades. Besides, twice in her life she owedeverything to the English, and the repayment of the debt was a matterof conscience. But she found that the gates of English hospitals werethronged with English girls; and she could not even speak thelanguage. So, guided by the Paris friend with whom she lodged, shemade her way to the Rue Vaugirard, where, in the packing-room, she hadfound hard unemotional employment. Yet the work had to be done: and itwas done for France, which, after all, was dearer to her than England;and among her fellow-workers, women of all classes, she had pleasantcompanionship. 

When, one day, the old concierge, bemedalled from the war of 1870, appeared to her in the packing-room, with the announcement that a_dame anglaise_ desired to speak to her, she was at first bewildered. She knew no English ladies--had never met one in her life. It took asecond or two for the thought to flash that the visit might concernDoggie. Then came conviction. In blue overall and cap, she followedthe concierge to the ante-room, her heart beating. At the sight of theyoung Englishwoman in black, with a crape hat and little white bandbeneath the veil, it nearly stopped altogether. 

Peggy advanced with outstretched hand. 

"You are Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière?"

"Yes, madame. "

"I am a cousin of Monsieur Trevor----"

"Ah, madame"--Jeanne pointed to the mourning--"you do not come to tellme he is dead?"

Peggy smiled. "No. I hope not. "

"Ah!" Jeanne sighed in relief, "I thought----"

"This is for my husband, " said Peggy quietly. 

"_Ah, madame! je demande bien pardon. J'ai dû vous faire de la peine. Je n'y pensais pas_----"

Jeanne was in great distress. Peggy smiled again. "Widows dressdifferently in England and France. " She looked around and her eyesfell upon a bench by the wall. "Could we sit down and have a littletalk?"

"_Pardon, madame, c'est que je suis un peu émue_ . .. " said Jeanne. 

She led the way to the bench. They sat down together, and for afeminine second or two took stock of each other. Jeanne's firstrebellious instinct said: "I was right. " In her furs and her perfectmillinery and perfect shoes and perfect black silk stockings thatappeared below the short skirt, Peggy, blue-eyed, fine-featured, thefine product of many generations of scholarly English gentlefolk, seemed to incarnate her vague conjectures of the social atmosphere inwhich Doggie had his being. Her peasant blood impelled her tosuspicion, to a half-grudging admiration, to self-protective jealousy. The Englishwoman's ease of manner, in spite of her helter-skelterFrench, oppressed her with an angry sense of inferiority. She was alsoconscious of the blue overall and close-fitting cap. Yet theEnglishwoman's smile was kind and she had lost her husband. .. . AndPeggy, looking at this girl with the dark, tragic eyes and refined, pale face and graceful gestures, in the funny instinctive British waytried to place her socially. Was she a lady? It made such adifference. This was the girl for whom Doggie had performed his deedof knight-errantry; the girl whom she proposed to take back to Doggie. For the moment, discounting the uniform which might have hidden amidinette or a duchess, she had nothing but the face and the gesturesand the beautifully modulated voice to go upon, and between the accentof the midinette and the duchess--both being equally charming to herEnglish ear--Peggy could not discriminate. She had, however, beautiful, capable hands, and took care of her finger-nails. 

Jeanne broke the tiny spell of embarrassed silence. 

"I am at your disposal, madame. "

Peggy plunged at once into facts. 

"It may seem strange, my coming to you; but the fact is that mycousin, Monsieur Trevor, is severely wounded. .. . "

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Jeanne. 

"And his friend, Mr. McPhail, who is also wounded, thinks that ifyou--well----"

Her French failed her--to carry off a very delicate situation one musthave command of language--she could only blurt out--"_Il fautcomprendre, mademoiselle. Il a fait beaucoup pour vous. _"

She met Jeanne's dark eyes. Jeanne said:

"_Oui, madame, vous avez raison. Il a beaucoup fait pour moi. _"

Peggy flushed at the unconscious correction--"_beaucoup fait_" for"_fait beaucoup_. "

"He has done not only much, but everything for me, madame, " Jeannecontinued. "And you who have come from England expressly to tell methat he is wounded, what do you wish me to do?"

"Accompany me back to London. I had a telegram this morning to saythat he had arrived at a hospital there. "

"Then you have not seen him?"

"Not yet. "

"Then how, madame, do you know that he desires my presence?"

Peggy glanced at the girl's hands clasped on her lap, and saw that theknuckles were white. 

"I am sure of it. "

"He would have written, madame. I only received one letter from him, and that was while I still lived at Frélus. "

"He wrote many letters and telegraphed to Frélus, and received noanswers. "

"Madame, " cried Jeanne, "I implore you to believe what I say: but notone of those letters have ever reached me. "

"Not one?"

At first Peggy was incredulous. Phineas McPhail had told her ofDoggie's despair at the lack of response from Frélus; and, after all, Frélus had a properly constituted post office in working order, whichmight be expected to forward letters. She had therefore come preparedto reproach the girl. But . .. 

"_Je le jure_, madame, " said Jeanne. 

And Peggy believed her. 

"But I wrote to Monsieur McPhail, giving him my address in Paris. "

"He lost the letter before he saw Doggie again"--the name slippedout--"and forgot the address. "

"But how did you find me?"

"I had a lot of difficulty. The British Embassy--the Prefecture ofPolice----"

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Jeanne again. "Did you do all that for me?"

"For my cousin. "

"You called him Doggie. That is how I know him and think of him. "

"All right, " smiled Peggy. "For Doggie then. "

Jeanne's brain for a moment or two was in a whirl--Embassies andPrefectures of Police!

"Madame, to do this, you must love him very much. "

"I loved him so much--I hope you will understand me--my French I knowis terrible--but I loved him so much that until he came home woundedwe were _fiancés_. "

Jeanne drew a short breath. "I felt it, madame. An English gentlemanof great estate would naturally marry an English lady of his ownsocial class. That is why, madame, I acted as I have done. "

Then something of what Jeanne really was became obvious to Peggy. Ladyor no lady, in the conventional British sense, Jeanne appealed to her, in her quiet dignity and restraint, as a type of Frenchwoman whom shehad never met before. She suddenly conceived an enormous respect forJeanne. Also for Phineas McPhail, whose eulogistic character sketchshe had accepted with feminine reservations subconsciously derisive. 

"My dear, " she said. "_Vous êtes digne de toute dameanglaise!_"--which wasn't an elegant way of putting it in the Frenchtongue---but Jeanne, with her odd smile of the lips, showed that sheunderstood her meaning; she had served her apprenticeship in theinterpretation of Anglo-Gallic. "But I want to tell you. Doggie and Iwere engaged. A family matter. Then, when he came home wounded--youknow how--I found that I loved some one--_aimais d'amour_, as yousay--and he found the same. I loved the man whom I married. He lovedyou. He confessed it. We parted more affectionate friends than we hadever been. I married. He searched for you. My husband has been killed. Doggie, although wounded, is alive. That is why I am here. "

They were sitting in a corner of the ante-room, and before them passeda continuous stream of the busy life of the war, civilians, officers, badged workers, elderly orderlies in pathetic bits of uniform thatmight have dated from 1870, wheeling packages in and out, groupstalking of the business of the organization, here and there ablue-vested young lieutenant and a blue-overalled packer, talking--itdid not need God to know of what. But neither of the two women heededthis multitude. 

Jeanne said: "Madame, I am profoundly moved by what you have told me. If I show little emotion, it is because I have suffered greatly fromthe war. One learns self-restraint, madame, or one goes mad. But asyou have spoken to me in your noble English frankness--I have only toconfess that I love Doggie with all my heart, with all my soul----"With her two clenched hands she smote her breast--and Peggy noted itwas the first gesture that she had made. "I feel the infinite need, madame--you will understand me--to care for him, to protect him----"

Peggy raised a beautifully gloved hand. 

"Protect him?" she interrupted. "Why, hasn't he shown himself to be ahero?"

Jeanne leant forward and grasped the protesting hand by the wrist; andthere was a wonderful light behind her eyes and a curious vibration inher voice. 

"It is only _les petits héros tout faits_--the little ready-madeheroes--ready made by the _bon Dieu_--who have no need of a woman'sprotection. But it is a different thing with the great heroes who havemade themselves without the aid of a _bon Dieu_, from little dogs ofno account (_des petits chiens de rien du tout_) to what Doggie is atthe moment. The woman then takes her place. She fixes things for ever. She alone can understand. "

Peggy gasped as at a new Revelation. The terms in which this Frenchgirl expressed herself were far beyond the bounds of her philosophy. The varying aspects in which Doggie had presented himself to her, inthe past few months, had been bewildering. Now she saw him, in a freshlight, though as in a glass darkly, as reflected by Jeanne. Still, sheprotested again, in order to see more clearly. 

"But what would you protect him from?"

"From want of faith in himself; from want of faith in his destiny, madame. Once he told me he had come to France to fight for his soul. It is necessary that he should be victorious. It is necessary that thewoman who loves him should make him victorious. "

Peggy put out her hand and touched Jeanne's wrist. 

"I'm glad I didn't marry Doggie, mademoiselle, " she said simply. "Icouldn't have done that. " She paused. "Well?" she resumed. "Will younow come with me to London?"

A faint smile crept into Jeanne's eyes. 

"_Mais oui, madame. _"

 * * * * *

Doggie lay in the long, pleasant ward of the great London hospital, the upper left side of his body a mass of bandaged pain. Neck andshoulder, front and back and arm, had been shattered and torn by highexplosive shell. The top of his lung had been grazed. Only theremorseless pressure at the base hospital had justified the sending ofhim, after a week, to England. Youth and the splendid constitutionwhich Dr. Murdoch had proclaimed in the far-off days of the war'sbeginning, and the toughening training of the war itself, carried himthrough. No more fighting for Doggie this side of the grave. But thegrave was as far distant as it is from any young man in his twentieswho avoids abnormal peril. 

Till to-day he had not been allowed to see visitors, or to receiveletters. They told him that the Dean of Durdlebury had called; hadbrought flowers and fruit and had left a card "From your Aunt, Peggyand myself. " But to-day he felt wonderfully strong, in spite of theunrelenting pain, and the nurse had said: "I shouldn't wonder if youhad some visitors this afternoon. " Peggy, of course. He followed thehands of his wrist-watch until they marked the visiting hour. And sureenough, a minute afterwards, amid the stream of men and women--chieflywomen--of all grades and kinds, he caught sight of Peggy's facesmiling beneath her widow's hat. She had a great bunch of violets inher bodice. 

"My dear old Doggie!" She bent down and kissed him. "Those rottenpeople wouldn't let me come before. "

"I know, " said Doggie. He pointed to his shoulder. "I'm afraid I'm ina hell of a mess. It's lovely to see you. "

She unpinned the violets and thrust them towards his face. 

"From home. I've brought 'em for you. "

"My God!" said Doggie, burying his nose in the huge bunch. "I neverknew violets could smell like this. " He laid them down with a sigh. "How's everybody?"

"Quite fit. "

There was a span of silence. Then he stretched out his hand and shegave him hers and he gripped it tight. 

"Poor old Peggy dear!"

"Oh, that's all right, " she said bravely. "I know you care, dearDoggie. That's enough. I've just got to stick it like the rest. " Shewithdrew her hand after a little squeeze. "Bless you. Don't worryabout me. I'm contemptibly healthy. But you----?"

"Getting on splendidly. I say, Peggy, what kind of people are thePullingers who have taken Denby Hall?"

"They're all right, I believe. He's something in theGovernment--Controller of Feeding-bottles--I don't know. But, oh, Doggie, what an ass you were to sell the place up!"

"I wasn't. "

"You were. "

Doggie laughed. "If you've come here to argue with me, I shall cry, and then you'll be turned out neck and crop. "

Peggy looked at him shrewdly. "You seem to be going pretty strong. "

"Never stronger in my life, " lied Doggie. 

"Would you like to see somebody you are very fond of?"

"Somebody I'm fond of? Uncle Edward?"

"No, no. " She waved the Very Reverend the Dean to the empyrean. 

"Dear old Phineas? Has he come through? I've not had time to askwhether you've heard anything about him. "

"Yes, he's flourishing. He wrote to me. I've seen him. "

"Praise the Lord!" cried Doggie. "My dear, there's no one on earth, save you, whom I should so much love to see as Phineas. If he's there, fetch him along. "

Peggy nodded and smiled mysteriously and went away down the ward. AndDoggie thought: "Thank God, Peggy has the strength to face theworld--and thank God Phineas has come through. " He closed his eyes, feeling rather tired, thinking of Phineas. Of his last words as hepassed him stretcher-borne in the trench. Of the devotion of the man. Of his future. Well, never mind his future. In all his vague post-warschemes for reorganization of the social system, Phineas had hisplace. No further need for dear old Phineas to stand in light greenand gold outside a picture palace. He had thought it out long ago, although he had never said a word to Phineas. Now he could set thepoor chap's mind at rest for ever. 

He looked round contentedly, and saw Peggy and a companion coming downthe ward, together. But it was not Phineas. It was a girl in black. 

He raised himself, forgetful of exquisite pain, on his right elbow, and stared in a thrill of amazement. 

And Jeanne came to him, and there were no longer ghosts behind hereyes, for they shone like stars.