use they are to be the builders and upholders of our Empire. Don't
you think that little girls, who are destined some day to be the mates
of these boys, should be prepared in a way that will make them worthy
of their share of the inheritance? They have to be taught ideals of
honour and courage and intelligent patriotism, so that they can help
and encourage their men in years to come. They must learn to cook and
sew, learn the laws of Nature and hygiene, so that they can make the
home not 'an habitation enforced'--as it is for so many women--but a
place where they may with all honour bring into the world other little
girls and boys. . . ." She drew her breath quickly. "Ah, that is not
a thing anyone can do, teaching all that! It must be someone who gives
all--and who gives herself gladly . . . as I have."

Torps turned his head as if to speak, but checked himself.

"Don't think I am setting myself upon a pedestal. Don't think my heart
is too anaemic to--to care for you, and that I am trying to shelter
myself behind talk of a life's mission. Oh!" she cried, "be generous.
Don't try to make it harder."

She leaned towards him a little as he sat with lowered eyes. "This is
a time of grave anxiety, isn't it?" she continued gently, as if
explaining something to an impatient child. "You naval men ought to
know. There is talk of war everywhere--of war with Germany. They say
we are on the brink of it to-day." Torps nodded. "Supposing it came
now . . . and you were recalled. How do they recall you? Sound a
bugle--beat a drum?"

Torps smiled faintly. "Something of the sort--no, not a drum; a bugle,
perhaps."

"Well, we'll suppose it is a drum. One somehow associates it with war
and alarms. Would you hesitate to obey?" Torps refrained from the
obvious answer and plucked a grass-stem to put between his teeth. "You
would obey, wouldn't you, because it is your duty--however much you'd
like to sit here with me? Will you try to realise that I shall be only
answering the drum, too, when--I go back."

The breeze that strayed about the floor of the Channel fanned their
faces and set the bright sea-poppies nodding all along the edge of the
cliffs. The sun was low in the west, and a snake-like flotilla of
destroyers crept out across the quiet sea from the harbour hidden by a
fold in the hills. Torps watched them with absent eyes, and there was
a long silence. The wind had loosened a strand of his companion's
ha