for weeks together on an old sofa more or less dressed, kept warm by his great-coat and two Army blankets of woven porcupine quills (seemingly) the ends of which tickled his nose and scratched his face.  He had been very cold and sweatingly hot, furiously hungry with no meal to satisfy his healthy appetite, madly thirsty and no long drink attainable; unable to sleep for three nights at a time owing to the noise of the bombardment; surfeited with horrible smells; sickened with butchery; shocked at his own failures to retrieve life, yet encouraged by an isolated victory, here and there, over death and disablement.  So the never-before-appreciated comfort of his Park Crescent home filled him with intense gratitude to Linda.

Had he known, he owed some of his acknowledgment to Mrs. Adams; who had worked both hard and tactfully in her undefined position of lady’s-maid-housekeeper-companion.  But naturally he didn’t know, though he praised his wife warmly for her charity of soul in taking pity on the poor little woman and her two children.  He could only give the slightest news about Bertie, but said he was a sort of jack-of-all-trades for the Y.M.C.A.  As to Vivie—­“that Miss Warren”—­he answered his wife’s questions neither with the glowering taciturnity nor suspicious loquacity of former times.  “Miss Warren?  Vivie?  I fancy she’s still at Brussels, but there is no chance of finding out.  There is a story that her mother is dead.  P’raps now they’ll let her come away.  She must be jolly well sick of Brussels by now.  When I last heard of Adams he was still hoping to get into touch with her.  I hope he won’t take any risks.  She’s a clever woman and I dare say can take care of herself.  I hope we shall all meet again when the War is over.”

He seemed very pleased to hear of the new Conciliation Bill, the general agreement all round on the Suffrage question and the enlargement of the electorate.  He had always told Linda it was bound to come.  “And after it has come, dearie, you mark my words:  things will go on pretty much as before.”  But his real, intense, absorbing interest lay in the new experiments he was about to make in bone grafting and cartilage replacing, and the functions of the pituitary body and the interstitial glands.  To carry these out adequately the Zoological Society had accumulated troops of monkeys and baboons.  At a certain depot in Camden Town dogs were kept for his purposes.  And the vaults and upper floors of the Royal College of Surgeons were at Rossiter’s disposal, with Professor Keith to co-operate.  Never had his house in Portland Place—­to be accurate the Park Crescent end thereof—­seemed so conveniently situated, or its studio-laboratory so well designed.  “Air-raids?  Pooh!  Just about one chance in a million we should be struck.  Besides:  can’t think of that, when so much is at stake.  That’s a fine phrase, ‘Menders of the Maimed.’  Just what we want to be!  No more artificial limbs if we can help you to grow your own new legs and arms—­perhaps.  At any rate, mend up those that are a hopeless mash.  Grand work!  Only bright thing in the War.  Now dear, are you ready with that lymph?”