That was what General Punnit had said!  Alec Naylor grew impatient.  “That’s the very spirit we have to fight against!” he exclaimed, rather hotly.

“Forgive me, but, please, don’t raise your voice.”

Alec lowered his voice, for a moment anyhow, but the central article of his creed was assailed, and he grew vehement.  “It’s fatal; it’s at the root of all our troubles.  Allow for failures in individuals, and you produce failure all round.  It’s tenderness to defaulters that wrecks discipline.  I would have strict justice, but no mercy, not a shadow of it!”

“But you said that day at your place that the war had made you tender-hearted.”

“Yes, I did, and it’s true.  Is it hard-hearted to refuse to let a slacker cost good men their lives?  Much better take his, if it’s got to be one or the other.”

“A cogent argument.  But, my dear Naylor, I wish you wouldn’t raise your voice.”

“Damn my voice!” said Alec, most vexatiously interrupted just as he had got into his stride.  “You say things that I can’t and won’t let pass, and—­”

“I really wouldn’t have asked you in, if I’d thought you’d raise your voice.”

Alec recollected himself.  “My dear fellow, a thousand pardons!  I forgot!  The old gentleman!”

“Exactly.  But I’m afraid the mischief’s done.  Listen!” Again he pointed to the ceiling, but his eyes set on Captain Alec with a queer, rueful, humorous expression.  “I was an ass to ask you in.  But I’m no good at it, that’s the fact.  I’m always giving the show away!” he grumbled, half to himself, but not inaudibly.

Alec stared at him for a moment in puzzle, but the next instant his attention was diverted.  Another voice besides his was raised; the sound of it came through the ceiling from the room above; the words were not audible; the volubility of the utterance in itself went far to prevent them from being distinguishable; but the high, vibrant, metallic tones rang through the house.  It was a rush of noise, sharp grating noise, without a meaning.  The effect was weird, very uncomfortable.  Alec Naylor knit his brows, and once gave a little shiver, as he listened.  Beaumaroy sat quite still, the expression in his eyes unaltered, or, if altered at all, it grew softer, as though with pity or affection.

“Good God, Beaumaroy, are you keeping a lunatic in this house?” He might raise his voice as loud as he pleased now, it was drowned by that other.

“I’m not keeping him, he’s keeping me.  And, anyhow, his medical adviser tells me there is no reason to suppose that my old friend is not compos mentis.”

“Irechester says that?”

“Mr. Saffron’s medical attendant is Dr. Arkroyd.”

As he spoke the noise from above suddenly ceased.  Since neither of the men in the parlor spoke, there ensued a minute of what seemed intense silence; it was such a change.

Then came a still small sound, a creaking of wood from overhead.