rous and infamous of all human madnesses.

O'Moy proceeded to do his best to explain the unexplainable, and since,
himself a professional soldier, he could not take the sane view of his
sane young questioner, hot argument ensued between them, to the infinite
weariness of Lady O'Moy, who out of self-protection gave herself to the
study of the latest fashion plates from London and the consideration
of a gown for the ball which the Count of Redondo was giving in the
following week.

It was thus in all things, for these cousins represented the two poles
of womanhood. Miss Armytage without any of Lady O'Moy's insistent and
excessive femininity, was nevertheless feminine to the core. But hers
was the Diana type of womanliness. She was tall and of a clean-limbed,
supple grace, now emphasised by the riding-habit which she was
wearing--for she had been in the saddle during the hour which Lady,
O'Moy had consecrated to the rites of toilet and devotions done before
her mirror. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, vivacity and intelligence lent her
countenance an attraction very different from the allurement of her
cousin's delicate loveliness. And because her countenance was a true
mirror of her mind, she argued shrewdly now, so shrewdly that she drove
O'Moy to entrench himself behind generalisations.

"My dear Sylvia, war is most merciful where it is most merciless," he
assured her with the Irish gift for paradox. "At home in the Government
itself there are plenty who argue as you argue, and who are
wondering when we shall embark for England. That is because they
are intellectuals, and war is a thing beyond the understanding of
intellectuals. It is not intellect but brute instinct and brute force
that will help humanity in such a crisis as the present. Therefore,
let me tell you, my child, that a government of intellectual men is the
worst possible government for a nation engaged in a war."

This was far from satisfying Miss Armytage. Lord Wellington himself was
an intellectual, she objected. Nobody could deny it. There was the work
he had done as Irish Secretary, and there was the calculating genius he
had displayed at Vimeiro, at Oporto, at Talavera.

And then, observing her husband to be in distress, Lady O'Moy put down
her fashion plate and brought up her heavy artillery to relieve him.

"Sylvia, dear," she interpolated, "I wonder that you will for ever be
arguing about things you don't understand."

Miss Armytage laughed good-humo