At that moment someone slipped into the vacant seat on my right hand.  I turned and saw the V.A.D. girl who had brought tea to Blaikie that afternoon at the hospital.

‘He was exempted by his Department,’ the lady went on, ’for he’s a Civil Servant, and so he never had a chance of testifying in court, but no one has done better work for our cause.  He is on the committee of the L.D.A., and questions have been asked about him in Parliament.’

The man was not quite comfortable at this biography.  He glanced nervously at me and was going to begin some kind of explanation, when Miss Doria cut him short.  ’Remember our rule, Launcelot.  No turgid war controversy within these walls.’

I agreed with her.  The war had seemed closely knit to the Summer landscape for all its peace, and to the noble old chambers of the Manor.  But in that demented modish dining-room it was shriekingly incongruous.

Then they spoke of other things.  Mostly of pictures or common friends, and a little of books.  They paid no heed to me, which was fortunate, for I know nothing about these matters and didn’t understand half the language.  But once Miss Doria tried to bring me in.  They were talking about some Russian novel—­a name like Leprous Souls—­and she asked me if I had read it.  By a curious chance I had.  It had drifted somehow into our dug-out on the Scarpe, and after we had all stuck in the second chapter it had disappeared in the mud to which it naturally belonged.  The lady praised its ‘poignancy’ and ‘grave beauty’.  I assented and congratulated myself on my second escape—­for if the question had been put to me I should have described it as God-forgotten twaddle.

I turned to the girl, who welcomed me with a smile.  I had thought her pretty in her V.A.D. dress, but now, in a filmy black gown and with her hair no longer hidden by a cap, she was the most ravishing thing you ever saw.  And I observed something else.  There was more than good looks in her young face.  Her broad, low brow and her laughing eyes were amazingly intelligent.  She had an uncanny power of making her eyes go suddenly grave and deep, like a glittering river narrowing into a pool.

‘We shall never be introduced,’ she said, ’so let me reveal myself.  I’m Mary Lamington and these are my aunts . . .  Did you really like Leprous Souls?’

It was easy enough to talk to her.  And oddly enough her mere presence took away the oppression I had felt in that room.  For she belonged to the out-of-doors and to the old house and to the world at large.  She belonged to the war, and to that happier world beyond it—­a world which must be won by going through the struggle and not by shirking it, like those two silly ladies.

I could see Wake’s eyes often on the girl, while he boomed and oraculated and the Misses Wymondham prattled.  Presently the conversation seemed to leave the flowery paths of art and to verge perilously near forbidden topics.  He began to abuse our generals in the field.  I could not choose but listen.  Miss Lamington’s brows were slightly bent, as if in disapproval, and my own temper began to rise.