hen Geoffrey informed Gladys a fortnight later--again
strictly between themselves--that the regiment was booked for a stunt
at Cuxhaven, it did a great deal of harm. Because, although Gladys did
not know where Cuxhaven was, she looked it up in the atlas when she
got home, and she thereupon realized, with a wriggle of gratification,
that she was "in the know," and under the circumstances she could
hardly have been expected not to tell Agatha--under pledge, needless
to say, of inviolable secrecy. Nor would you have been well advised to
have bet that Agatha would not--in confidence--mention the matter to
Genevieve, because you would have lost your money if you had. Then, it
was only to be expected that Genevieve should let the cat out of the
bag that afternoon at the meeting of Lady Blabit's Committee for the
Development of Discretion in Damsels, observing that in _such_ company
a secret was bound to be absolutely safe. However, that was how the
whole story came to be known, and Geoffrey might just as well have
done the thing handsomely, and have placarded what was contemplated in
Trafalgar Square alongside Mr. Bonar Law's frenzied incitements to buy
war bonds.

Speaking seriously, there is rather too much of the sieve about the
soldier officer when information comes to his knowledge which it is
his duty to keep to himself. He has much to learn in this respect from
his sailor brother. You won't get much to windward of the naval cadet
or the midshipman if you try to extract out of him details concerning
the vessel which has him on her books in time of war--what she is,
where she is, or how she occupies her time. These youngsters cannot
have absorbed this reticence simply automatically and as one of the
traditions of that great Silent Service, to which, more than to any
other factor, we and our Allies owe our common triumph in the Great
War. It must have been dinned into them at Osborne and Dartmouth, and
it must have been impressed upon them--forcibly as is the way amongst
those whose dwelling is in the Great Waters--day by day by their
superiors afloat. The subject used not to be mentioned at the Woolwich
Academy in the seventies. Nor was secretiveness inculcated amongst
battery subalterns a few years subsequently. One does not recollect
hearing anything about it during the Staff College course, nor call to
mind having preached the virtues of discretion in this matter to one's
juniors oneself at a later date. Here is a mat