His wife—­her name was Kathleen—­smiled.  She looked very pretty and cool, Mr. Bosengate thought.  To him bound on this dull and stuffy business everything he owned seemed pleasant—­the geranium beds beside the gravel drive, his long, red-brick house mellowing decorously in its creepers and ivy, the little clock-tower over stables now converted to a garage, the dovecote, masking at the other end the conservatory which adjoined the billiard-room.  Close to the red-brick lodge his two children, Kate and Harry, ran out from under the acacia trees, and waved to him, scrambling bare-legged on to the low, red, ivy-covered wall which guarded his domain of eleven acres.  Mr. Bosengate waved back, thinking:  ‘Jolly couple—­by Jove, they are!’ Above their heads, through the trees, he could see right away to some Downs, faint in the July heat haze.  And he thought:  ‘Pretty a spot as one could have got, so close to Town!’

Despite the war he had enjoyed these last two years more than any of the ten since he built “Charmleigh” and settled down to semi-rural domesticity with his young wife.  There had been a certain piquancy, a savour added to existence, by the country’s peril, and all the public service and sacrifice it demanded.  His chauffeur was gone, and one gardener did the work of three.  He enjoyed-positively enjoyed, his committee work; even the serious decline of business and increase of taxation had not much worried one continually conscious of the national crisis and his own part therein.  The country had wanted waking up, wanted a lesson in effort and economy; and the feeling that he had not spared himself in these strenuous times, had given a zest to those quiet pleasures of bed and board which, at his age, even the most patriotic could retain with a good conscience.  He had denied himself many things—­new clothes, presents for Kathleen and the children, travel, and that pine-apple house which he had been on the point of building when the war broke out; new wine, too, and cigars, and membership of the two Clubs which he had never used in the old days.  The hours had seemed fuller and longer, sleep better earned—­wonderful, the things one could do without when put to it!  He turned the car into the high road, driving dreamily for he was in plenty of time.  The war was going pretty well now; he was no fool optimist, but now that conscription was in force, one might reasonably hope for its end within a year.  Then there would be a boom, and one might let oneself go a little.  Visions of theatres and supper with his wife at the Savoy afterwards, and cosy night drives back into the sweet-smelling country behind your own chauffeur once more teased a fancy which even now did not soar beyond the confines of domestic pleasures.  He pictured his wife in new dresses by Jay—­she was fifteen years younger than himself, and “paid for dressing” as they said.  He had always delighted—­as men older than their wives will—­in the admiration she excited from