He had every kind of idiotic criticism—­incompetence, faint-heartedness, corruption.  Where he got the stuff I can’t imagine, for the most grousing Tommy, with his leave stopped, never put together such balderdash.  Worst of all he asked me to agree with him.

It took all my sense of discipline.  ’I don’t know much about the subject,’ I said, ’but out in South Africa I did hear that the British leading was the weak point.  I expect there’s a good deal in what you say.’

It may have been fancy, but the girl at my side seemed to whisper ‘Well done!’

Wake and I did not remain long behind before joining the ladies; I purposely cut it short, for I was in mortal fear lest I should lose my temper and spoil everything.  I stood up with my back against the mantelpiece for as long as a man may smoke a cigarette, and I let him yarn to me, while I looked steadily at his face.  By this time I was very clear that Wake was not the fellow to give me my instructions.  He wasn’t playing a game.  He was a perfectly honest crank, but not a fanatic, for he wasn’t sure of himself.  He had somehow lost his self-respect and was trying to argue himself back into it.  He had considerable brains, for the reasons he gave for differing from most of his countrymen were good so far as they went.  I shouldn’t have cared to take him on in public argument.  If you had told me about such a fellow a week before I should have been sick at the thought of him.  But now I didn’t dislike him.  I was bored by him and I was also tremendously sorry for him.  You could see he was as restless as a hen.

When we went back to the hall he announced that he must get on the road, and commandeered Miss Lamington to help him find his bicycle.  It appeared he was staying at an inn a dozen miles off for a couple of days’ fishing, and the news somehow made me like him better.  Presently the ladies of the house departed to bed for their beauty sleep and I was left to my own devices.

For some time I sat smoking in the hall wondering when the messenger would arrive.  It was getting late and there seemed to be no preparation in the house to receive anybody.  The butler came in with a tray of drinks and I asked him if he expected another guest that night.

’I ’adn’t ‘eard of it, sir,’ was his answer.  ’There ’asn’t been a telegram that I know of, and I ‘ave received no instructions.’

I lit my pipe and sat for twenty minutes reading a weekly paper.  Then I got up and looked at the family portraits.  The moon coming through the lattice invited me out-of-doors as a cure for my anxiety.  It was after eleven o’clock, and I was still without any knowledge of my next step.  It is a maddening business to be screwed up for an unpleasant job and to have the wheels of the confounded thing tarry.

Outside the house beyond a flagged terrace the lawn fell away, white in the moonshine, to the edge of the stream, which here had expanded into a miniature lake.  By the water’s edge was a little formal garden with grey stone parapets which now gleamed like dusky marble.  Great wafts of scent rose from it, for the lilacs were scarcely over and the may was in full blossom.  Out from the shade of it came suddenly a voice like a nightingale.