s sloped down to
the ornamental water in Regent's Park, and if one had not known it, one
might have imagined it to be one of those countless English homes into
which the war had not penetrated.

Captain Bob, looking very different now from the crumpled figure at the
bottom of the trench, had escaped death from the sniper's bullet by a
fraction of an inch, but he had made quick recovery, and before his
month's sick furlough was at an end he was already secretly yearning to
get back again. He knew that there was a great push in contemplation,
and his only fear was that he might not be in it.

Everything in that room spoke of comfort and money, and everything was
very English, except the young man with his back to the windows, and the
young woman with the dark eyes on the opposite side of the table.

Lieutenant Van Drissel, of the Belgian army, whose wound, received in
the fighting outside Dixmude long months before, obstinately refused to
heal, found himself in very pleasant quarters, thanks to the hospitality
of Mrs. Dashwood, who had also given his sister an asylum as French
governess to the small fry.

Like Captain Bob, he was in khaki, but the contrast between the two
officers was very striking. The one was lean and athletic in every line
of his figure, with laughing grey eyes in a handsome face; the other, a
stolid, fair-haired Fleming, whose square visage would have been rather
colourless and commonplace but for the pleasant smile which showed his
white teeth.

He followed Mrs. Dashwood's every movement with the expression of a
grateful dog, and waited upon her hand and foot, doing his best to
justify his presence there.

"Ah, you have better luck than I, Dashwood," he said in perfect English,
with a doleful shrug of his shoulders.

"Don't worry, Van Drissel; keep smiling, as my fellows sing," laughed
Captain Bob encouragingly. "Your turn will come, and we shall both march
into Berlin one of these days."

"It is a long time," said the Belgian lieutenant gravely. "Even Ottilie
here loses heart," and he looked across the table at his sister.

Mademoiselle Ottilie, as dark as her brother was fair, heaved a deep
sigh and made a funny little gesture with her hands. "For myself, I
dread to go back to poor Belgium," she murmured in broken English. "I
wish it might be possible that perhaps I might stay here for evaire--you
are all to me so kind."

"Mamma," said Billy with a perfectly grave face as he mimicked he