ask questions. He just
sat and waited, inviting Luttrell to spread out his troubles by his very
quietude.

"Then there are these games," Luttrell cried in a swift exasperation,
"--these damned games! From the first day when the Finns marched out
with their national flag and the Russians threatened to withdraw if they
did it again----" he broke off suddenly. "Of course you know soldiers
have believed that trouble's coming. I used to doubt, but by God I am
sure of it now. Just a froth of fine words at the opening and
afterwards--honest rivalry and let the best man win? Not a bit of it!
Team-running--a vile business--the nations parked together in different
sections of the Stadium like enemies--and ill-will running here and
there like an infection! Oh, there's trouble coming, and if I don't go I
shan't be fit for it. There, that's the truth."

"The whole truth and nothing but the truth?" Hardiman asked with a
smile. He leaned across the table and drew towards him a case of
telegraph forms. But whilst he was drawing them towards him, Luttrell
spoke again.

"Nothing but the truth--_yes_," he said. He was speaking shyly,
uncomfortably, and he stopped abruptly.

"The whole truth--no." Hardiman added slowly, and gently. He wanted the
complete story from preface to conclusion, but he was not to get it. He
received no answer of any kind for a considerable number of moments and
Luttrell only broke the silence in the end, to declare definitely,

"That, at all events, is all I have to say."

Sir Charles nodded and drew the case of forms close to him. There was
something more then. There always is something more, which isn't told,
he reflected, and the worst of it is, the something more which isn't
told is always the real reason. Men go to the confessional with a
reservation; the secret chamber where they keep their sacred vessels,
their real truths and inspirations, as also their most scarlet
sins--that shall be opened to no one after early youth is past unless it
be--rarely--to one woman. There was another reason at work in Harry
Luttrell, but Sir Charles Hardiman was never to know it. With a shrug of
his shoulders he took a pencil from his pocket, filled up one of the
forms and handed it to Luttrell.

"That's what I should reply."

He had written:

"_I am travelling to London to-morrow to apply for
transfer._--LUTTRELL."

Luttrell read the telegram with surprise. It was not the answer which he
had expected