ef in his destiny. Here again his greatness, which was of
course the warp and woof of his destiny, showed a pattern of perplexing
intricacy. He regarded himself with approval. He was putting on weight.
A vigorous man of thirty-odd, coming thousands of miles across the ocean
to fight for his country! He read the roll of honour each week in the
papers that met them on the homeward voyage, and the page blurred to his
sight as he _gazed_ through it into the future. You might almost, he
reflected, count out those who were wounded and missing as well! Whether
he had ever had any genuine intention of becoming a soldier I do not
know. He had a remarkably strong instinct of self-preservation; but then
many soldiers have that. As the liner neared home, however, Mr.
Spokesly's thoughts centred more and more truly about himself and his
immediate future. The seraglios he had quitted in Singapore and Kobe and
Rangoon were, in his own words, "a thing o' the past." The time, "the
psychological moment," as he phrased it without in the least knowing
what the word meant, was come when he would have to marry or, at any
rate, become engaged. He was not, he told himself, "pertickler." He
reckoned he could fall in love with almost anybody who wasn't too old or
too ugly, and providing always that she had "a dot." He was a stern
believer in a dot, even though he did not know how to pronounce it.
Looming behind the steep hill leading to a command were the happy
mountain valleys of a comfortable independence. To marry money! Now he
came to think of it, it had been the pervading ambition of his life. And
here was his chance. He pulled down his vest and settled his tie as he
thought of the golden future before him. He had a vision of an England
full of consolable fiancees, young ladies of wealth, beauty, and
position, sobbing gently for departed heroes, but willing to be
comforted....

It did not turn out that way, of course. Indeed, his first experience on
arrival was of an England of brisk, determined young women making
munitions, clipping tickets, and conducting street cars, and he was
angered at the unwomanliness of it all. Woman's place, he had always
believed, was in the harem. He had held, when lying in his hammock out
East and lazily reading the home news of suffrage riots, that the
Government "ought to have tied some of 'em up and horse-whipped 'em."
But he left the Metropolis behind as soon as possible, and went down to
stay with his fami