Mabel’s eyes shone with pleasure.

“You poor dear!” she said.  “Are you in pain?”

“Not much.  Besides, Christ! what do I care?  If only this infernal Eastern affair would end!”

He knew he was feverish and irritable, and made a great effort to drive it down.

“Oh, my dear!” he went on, flushed a little.  “If they would not be such heavy fools:  they don’t understand; they don’t understand.”

“Yes, Oliver?”

“They don’t understand what a glorious thing it all is Humanity, Life, Truth at last, and the death of Folly!  But haven’t I told them a hundred times?”

She looked at him with kindling eyes.  She loved to see him like this, his confident, flushed face, the enthusiasm in his blue eyes; and the knowledge of his pain pricked her feeling with passion.  She bent forward and kissed him suddenly.

“My dear, I am so proud of you.  Oh, Oliver!”

He said nothing; but she could see what she loved to see, that response to her own heart; and so they sat in silence while the sky darkened yet more, and the click of the writer in the next room told them that the world was alive and that they had a share in its affairs.

Oliver stirred presently.

“Did you notice anything just now, sweetheart—­when I said that about Jesus Christ?”

“She stopped knitting for a moment,” said the girl.

He nodded.

“You saw that too, then....  Mabel, do you think she is falling back?”

“Oh! she is getting old,” said the girl lightly.  “Of course she looks back a little.”

“But you don’t think—­it would be too awful!”

She shook her head.

“No, no, my dear; you’re excited and tired.  It’s just a little sentiment....  Oliver, I don’t think I would say that kind of thing before her.”

“But she hears it everywhere now.”

“No, she doesn’t.  Remember she hardly ever goes out.  Besides, she hates it.  After all, she was brought up a Catholic.”

Oliver nodded, and lay back again, looking dreamily out.

“Isn’t it astonishing the way in which suggestion lasts?  She can’t get it out of her head, even after fifty years.  Well, watch her, won’t you?...  By the way ...”

“Yes?”

“There’s a little more news from the East.  They say Felsenburgh’s running the whole thing now.  The Empire is sending him everywhere—­ Tobolsk, Benares, Yakutsk—­everywhere; and he’s been to Australia.”

Mabel sat up briskly.

“Isn’t that very hopeful?”

“I suppose so.  There’s no doubt that the Sufis are winning; but for how long is another question.  Besides, the troops don’t disperse.”

“And Europe?”

“Europe is arming as fast as possible.  I hear we are to meet the Powers next week at Paris.  I must go.”

“Your arm, my dear?”

“My arm must get well.  It will have to go with me, anyhow.”