“It doesn’t matter what you think of him.  You were pretty well gone on him yourself once.”

“When?  When?”

“When you wanted to turn Mac out and make him commandant.”

“Oh, then—­I was a jolly fool to be taken in by him.  So were you.”

She stopped on her way to the door.  “I admit he looks everything he isn’t.  But that only shows what a beastly humbug the man is.”

“No.  He isn’t a humbug.  He really likes going out even if he can’t stand it when he gets there.”

“I’ve no use for that sort of courage.”

“It isn’t courage.  But it isn’t humbug.”

“I’ve no use for your fine distinctions either.”

She heard Alice Bartrum’s voice calling to Trixie as she went out, “It’s jolly decent of her not to go back on him.”

The voice went on.  “You needn’t mind what Trixie says about cold feet.  She’s said it about everybody.  About Sutton and Mac, and all our men, and me.”

She thought:  What’s the good of lying when they all know?  Still, there were things they wouldn’t know if she kept on lying, things they would never guess.

“Trixie doesn’t know anything about him,” she said.  “No more do you.  You don’t know what he was.”

“Whatever he is, whatever he’s done, Charlotte, you mustn’t let it hurt you.  It hasn’t anything to do with you.  We all know what you are.”

“Me?  I’m not bothering about myself.  I tell you it’s not what you think about him, it’s what I think.”

“Yes,” said Alice Bartrum.  Then Gwinnie Denning and John Conway came in and she left them.

John carried himself very straight, and again Charlotte saw about him that odd look of accomplishment and satisfaction.

“So you got through?” he said.

“Yes.  I got through.”  They kept their eyes from each other as they spoke.

Gwinnie struck in, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, rather....  The little Belgian Army doctor was there.  He was adorable, sticking on, working away with his wounded, in a sort of heavenly peace, with the Germans just outside.”

“How many did you get?”

“Eleven—­Thirteen.”

“Oh good....  I’ve the rottenest luck.  I’d have given my head to have gone with you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.  It wasn’t what you’d call a lady’s tea-party.”

“Who wants a lady’s tea-party?  I ought to have gone in with the Mac Corps.  Then I’d have had a chance.”

“Not this time.  Mac draws the line somewhere....  Look here, Gwinnie, I wish you’d clear out a minute and let me talk to John.”

Gwinnie went, grumbling.

For a moment silence came down between them.  John was drinking coffee with an air of being alone in the room, pretending that he hadn’t heard and didn’t see her.

“John—­I didn’t mind driving that car.  I knew I could do it and I did it.  I won’t say I didn’t mind the shelling, because I did.  Still, shelling’s all in the day’s work.  And I didn’t mind your sending me, because I’d rather have gone myself than let you go.  I don’t want you to be killed.  Somehow that’s still the one thing I couldn’t bear.  But if you’d sent Gwinnie I’d have killed you.”