‘Precisely; therefore I warn you. Why,’ she proceeded, with an unmistakable note of tenderness, which he did not catch, ‘you are even younger than I thought. I am glad—heartily—that you are going to the front. Cut up as many rascals as you can,—a little fighting will bring you a lot of wisdom, and—oh yes! I know what a brute I am!—you want it badly. Come back in a year with your V.C. or without it: anyhow, with an ounce or two of experience in your pocket, and, if you do come back to me’—he winced at the repetition of the ‘if’ and the doubt implied by it—‘I promise to treat you like a man.’

‘And give me my answer?’

‘Yes.’ She pronounced it with sudden softness.

‘Meanwhile?’

‘Meanwhile, husband the “ray” if you like, but don’t extend it; and remember it pledges us both to nothing. You’—she rapidly substituted ‘we—are free.’

‘You are free of course, Lady Hopedene’, he agreed, with becoming solemnity. ‘I shall always consider myself bound. I—I—should like you to know that I do not consider myself free.’

‘As it please you’, she yielded, with a flash of amusement shot at the melancholy countenance.

‘It will be my only consolation’, he returned, with ponderous sadness.

‘So be it, then: I mustn’t rob you of that. But remember, if the occasion calls, that I acquit you absolutely from reappearance at this bar.’

A slight break in her voice reminded her that the time had come for his dismissal, and she proceeded promptly: ‘Now we must say Good-bye.’

‘Only au revoir.’

‘You are very literal; I like the old phrase best.’ She rose and took his hand, holding it longer than usual; and he looked down at her perturbedly. ‘Am I to have only a frown to keep?’

‘Keep that’, he cried, suddenly stooping to kiss the frail white fingers in his palm.

Then he turned away quickly, went out and closed the door, missing, behind it, that curious fragrance of her presence, fresh and keen like morning air in meadows, subtler and sweeter than the faint perfume that hung about her person.

She stood motionless, tasting his departure: the smile which she had given him leave to take had faded from her eyes, and they were staring blankly at the door.

‘Have I done well—for him?’ she asked herself. ‘He may—he will—surely meet other women perhaps less scrupulous than I. And for myself?’ She went towards a mirror set between the windows, and studied critically the reflexion that faced her there. It showed a diminutive, delicately tinted face, beneath the childishly fair hair waved carefully above it, and for the moment, robbed of its insouciance, it looked wistful and a little wan. ‘I can spare a year,’ she decided, after a pause of close regard, ‘and at any rate my conscience is delightfully clear. My heart—“I do not know my heart.”’ She laughed unsteadily. ‘He swallowed that absurdity; he might have read—bah’, she cried, throwing her hands out with a gesture caught abroad, sometimes recurring with other un-English tricks of manner. ‘He is too young to read anything without a stammer yet. A woman has no right to take advantage of such a boy’s first fancy. Assuredly I have done well.’

She went back to the sofa and rested her head among the vivid cushions. When at length she raised it, the gay blue eyes were dim.