her silly." I had many a time
qualified the adjective much more forcibly. I took her to have the
intellectual endowment of a hen. But then she flashed out suddenly
before me an elderly Jeanne d'Arc. That to me Leonard Boyce was suspect
did not enter at all into the question. To her--and that was all that
mattered--he was Sir Galahad, Lancelot, King Arthur, Bayard, St.
George, Hector, Lysander, Miltiades, all rolled into one. The passion
of her life was spent on him. To do him justice, he had never failed to
display to her the most tender affection. In her eyes he was
perfection. His death would mean the wiping out of everything between
Earth and Heaven. And yet, paramount in her envisagement of such a
tragedy was the idea of a public proclamation of the cause of England
in which he died.

In this war the women of England--the women of Great Britain and
Ireland--the women of the far-flung regions of the British Empire, have
their part.

Now and then mild business matters call me up to London. On these
occasions Marigold gets himself up in a kind of yachting kit which he
imagines will differentiate him from the ordinary chauffeur and at the
same time proclaim the dignity of the Meredyth-Marigold establishment.
He loves to swagger up the steps of my Service Club and announce my
arrival to the Hall Porter, who already, warned by telephone of my
advent, has my little wicker-work tricycle chair in readiness. I think
he feels, dear fellow, that he and I are keeping our end up; that,
although there are only bits of us left, we are there by inalienable
right as part and parcel of the British Army--none of your Territorials
or Kitcheners, but the old original British Army whose prestige and
honour were those of his own straight soul. The Hall Porter is an
ex-Sergeant-Major, and he and Marigold are old acquaintances, and the
meeting of the two warriors is acknowledged by a wink and a military
jerk of the head. I think it is Marigold that impresses Bunworthy with
a respect for me, for that august functionary never fails to descend
the steps and cross the pavement to my modest little two-seater; an act
of graciousness which (so I am given to understand by my friends) he
will only perform in the case of Royalty Itself. A mere Field-marshal
has to mount the steps unattended like any subaltern.

These red-letter days when I drive through the familiar (and now
exciting) hubbub of London, I love (strange taste!) every motor
omnibus,