eir faded summer gowns--they're not even worth
abusing."

"Then you do enjoy a little vinegar?" volunteered Yate, with eyes that
declared her all honey.

"No, it's too crude; but I like spice--just a pinch or two to leaven
appreciation."

Mrs Silver at this moment loomed expansively in the distance.
Harry leapt up to join her, and only the acacia leaves above
were eavesdroppers to the rest of the conversation. It flowed
evenly, sometimes stopping against an impedimental stone of
argument--occasionally gushing with iridescent bubbles from the force of
energetic collision. Yate was a serious thinker and a confident talker.
Carol had by nature that light quality of intellectual exuberance which,
ornamental and active as foam, has no kinship with real erudition. They
were speaking of Yate's career, the first steps, the coveted Victoria
Cross, the laurels, and a warm blush underlay the bronze of the young
soldier's cheek.

"A year ago," she said, "I was rampant with your ambition, now I cannot
forget that the rungs of a soldier's ladder are made of dead men."

"What are a few lives compared with a country's greatness?"

"Only a subtraction from a multiplicity of mourners whom death rejects,
the numberless babes bereft, the women starved of love."

"Surely love were a petty consideration, a paralysis to the hand of----"

"Don't you remember what Byron says?" she uttered, her glance fastening
itself on the floating mists of sunset, "'Love is of man's life a thing
apart, 'tis woman's whole existence.' If war costs him his life, it
takes her whole existence too!"

"Yes, but--but--" stammered Yate, fighting with a wave of sentimentality
deeper than any to which he had been accustomed, "women nowadays don't
love in that way."

"The more fools they if they do," she answered, flippantly, coming
abruptly from the clouds, and flicking at a gnat with the stem of her
fan. "Have some tea, it is iced and flavoured with lemon peel, _a la
Russe_."

"No tea, thanks. There is Burnley waving at us. I think he has an
engagement, and means me to be off."

"Not yet, surely. If you are not booked for anything you need not
hurry."

"Thanks. I should be glad to stay. I say, Harry, there's no good
dragging me to the Waymans, is there?"

"Besides," interposed Carol, as her mother approached, "he has not been
introduced to mamma."

"I beg your pardon," said Burnley, posing himself with mock formality,
"Mrs Silver, let me present to