n recalled to his battalion
by a telegram. I knew you were expecting one. When this one came, I
thought that it might be important and that you ought to have it at
once. On the other hand it might be another telegram," and her face
dimpled into smiles, "from Linda Spavinsky. I didn't know what to do
about it. But Mario Escobar was quite certain that I ought to open it."

"Mario Escobar?" cried Hillyard.

"Yes. He had just arrived. He was quite certain that we ought to open
it, so we did."

"We?" A note of regret in his voice made her ask anxiously:

"Was I wrong?"

Hillyard hastened to reassure her.

"Not a bit. Of course you were quite right, and I am very grateful."

Joan's face cleared again.

"You see, I thought that if it was important I could bring it over and
drive you back again."

"Will you?" Hillyard asked eagerly. "But now you are here you ought to
stay."

Joan would not hear of the proposal, and Hillyard himself was in a fever
to be off. They found Sir Chichester and his wife in the paddock, and
Hillyard wished his hosts good-bye. Mario Escobar, who had driven over
with Joan Whitworth, was talking to them. Escobar turned to Martin
Hillyard.

"We met at Sir Charles Hardiman's supper party. You have not forgotten?
You are off? A new play, I hope, to go into rehearsal."

He smiled and bowed, and waved his hands. Hillyard went away with Joan
Whitworth and mounted beside her into a little two-seated car which she
had been accustomed to drive in her unregenerate days. She had not
forgotten her skill, and she sent the little car spinning up and down
the road into the hills. It was an afternoon of blue and gold, with the
larks singing out of sight in the sky. The road wound up and down, dark
hedges on one side, fields yellow with young wheat upon the other, and
the scent of the briar-rose in the air. Joan said very little, and
Hillyard was content to watch her as she drove, the curls blowing about
her ears and her hands steady and sure upon the wheel as she swung the
car round the corners and folds of the hills. Once she asked of him:

"Are you glad to go?"

He made no pretence of misunderstanding her.

"Very," he answered. "If the great trial is coming, I want to fall back
into the rank and file. Pushing and splashing is for peace times."

"Oh, I understand that!" she cried.

These were the young days. The jealousies of Departments, the intrigues
to pull this man down and put that man up, not