ce!" cried Mrs. Clowes, clapping her hands. "Now,
Val, didn't I tell you Isabel was going to be very, very pretty?
That's settled, then, you'll both come: and, to please me," she
looked not much older than Isabel as she took hold of the lapel
of Val's coat, "will you wear your ribbon? I know you hate
wearing it in civilian kit! But I do so love to see you in it:
and it's not as if there would be any one here but ourselves."

Lawrence swung round on his heel and walked away. One may enjoy
the pleasures of the chase and yet draw the line at watching an
application of the rack, and it sickened him to remember that his
own hand had given a turn to the screw. It had needed that brief
colloquy to let him see what Stafford's life was like at Wanhope,
and in what slow nerve-by-nerve laceration amends were being
made. He admired the gallantry of Stafford's reply.

"My dear Laura, I would tie myself up in ribbon from head to foot
if it would give you pleasure. I'll wear it if you like, though
my superior officer will certainly rag me if I do."

"No, I shan't," said Lawrence shortly.

CHAPTER VIII

"And now tell me," murmured Mrs. Clowes in the mischievously
caressing tone that she kept for Isabel, "did mamma's little girl
enjoy her party?"

"Rather!" said Isabel--with a great sigh, the satisfied sigh of
a dog curling up after a meal. "They were lovely strawberries.
And what do you call that French thing? Oh, that's what a
vol-au-vent is, is it? I wish I knew how to make it, but probably
it's one of those recipes that begin 'Take twelve eggs and a quart of
cream.' I wish nice things to eat weren't so dear, Jimmy would love
it. Captain Hyde took two helps--did you see?--big ones! If he
always eats as much as he did tonight he'll be fat before he's fifty,
which will be a pity. He ate three times what Val did."

"Is that what you were thinking of all the time? I noticed you
didn't say very much."

"Well, I was between Captain Hyde and Major Clowes, and they
neither of them think I'm grown up," explained Isabel. "They
talked to each other over the top of me. Oh no, not rudely,
Major Clowes was as nice as he could be" (Isabel salved her
conscience by reflecting that this was verbally true since Major
Clowes could never he nice), "and Captain Hyde asked me if I was
fond of dolls--"

"My dear Isabel!"

"Or words to that effect. Oh! it's perfectly fair, I'm not grown
up, or only by fits and starts.