d say, "We're
neither of us first in each other's affections. It's a rough-and-tumble
world! Why be thin-skinned about it? We may become first later. Let's
stop dreaming of kingdoms round the corner and make the best of such
kingdoms as are ours to-day."

The idea took hold of him with force. It fascinated him. He turned his
car about. In passing through Mayfair he made a detour to glance at
Taborley House. The American Hospital had vacated it. It looked ruined
and forlorn. He tried to picture it as it might appear if Maisie were
its mistress.

Twenty minutes later he drew up before the retiring little villa with
its marigold-tinted curtains. He had by no manner of means decided on
his course of action. He could not have told you what he was going to
say to Maisie. In this as in so many other ways, he believed himself
abnormal. No one had ever told him that ninety-nine out of a hundred
married men, if they spoke the truth, would have to confess that they
had been unaware thirty seconds before they proposed that they were
going to do so; and that the most incredible happening in their lives
had been when, thirty seconds later, they had discovered that not only
had they proposed, but that they had been riotously accepted.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

SOME PEOPLE FIND THEIR KINGDOMS

I

He was in the act of shutting off his engine when he heard himself
accosted. "I beg your pardon, but are you, Mr. Gervis?"

It was a pleasant voice--a man's. Keeping his eyes on what he was doing,
Tabs answered in the negative. Then he recalled that Gervis had been the
name of Maisie's second husband. "If it's the Gervis who used to live
here," he indicated the house with a jerk of his head, "I'm afraid you
won't find him. He's been dead these three years--killed at the Front."

A quiet chuckle greeted this piece of information, followed by a hearty,
"Thank the Lord."

Tabs had finished what he was doing. As he stepped out of the car, he
threw a contemptuous glance at the man who could be so callous. He was a
slightly built, fresh-complexioned young fellow of middle height, with
amiable gray eyes and a fair, closely-trimmed mustache. He belonged to
the demobilized subaltern type and had the weary, drawn expression of
over-strained nerves that so many young faces had at that time. He was
dressed in a smartly fitting suit of striped navy-blue flannel and
carried himself with the plucky alertness of a highly bred fox-terrier.
He h