feline mask . . . Val made a
mental note to speak to Jack Bendish about it: otters are bad
housekeepers in a trout stream.

"Hallo! Good man!" Major Clowes was on his back in the
drawingroom, in evening dress, and playing patience. "I've tried
Kings, Queens and Knaves, and Little Demon, and Fair Lucy, and
brought every one of 'em out first round. Something must be
going to happen." With a sweep of his arm he flung all the cards
on the floor. "What do you want?"

"A pipe," said Val, going on one knee to pick up the scattered
pack. "I looked in to see how you were getting on. Aren't you
going to bed?"

"Not before they come in."

"Nor will Jimmy, I left him sitting up for Isabel. You're both
of you very silly, you'll be dead tired tomorrow, and what's the
object of it?"

"To make sure they do come in," Bernard explained with a broad
grin. Val sprang up: intolerable, this reflection of his own
fear in Bernard's distorting mirror! "Ha ha! Suppose they
didn't? Laura was rather fond of larks before she married me.
She was, I give you my word--she and the other girl. You
wouldn't think it of Laura, would you? Butter wouldn't melt in
her mouth. But she might like a fling for a change. Who'd blame
her? I'm no good as a husband, and Lawrence is a picked
specimen. Quelle type, eh?"

"Very good-looking."

"'Very good-looking!'" Bernard mocked at him. "You and your Army
vocabulary! And I'm a nice chap, and Laura's quite a pretty
woman, and this is a topping knife, isn't it, and life's a jolly
old beano-- Pity I can't get out of it, by the by: if physiology
is the basis of marriage, those two would run well in harness."

"There's an otter in the river," remarked Val, examining the
little dagger, the same that Lawrence had given Bernard. "I
heard him from the bridge. They come down from the upper
reaches. Remind me to tell Jack, he's always charmed to get a
day's sport with his hounds." He laid the dagger on a side-table.

"Have one of my cigars? You can't afford cigars, can you? poor
devil! They're on that shelf. Not those: they're Hyde's." Val
put back the box as if it had burnt his fingers. "Leaves his
things about as if the place were a hotel!" grumbled Major
Clowes. "That's one of his books. Pick it up. What is it?" Val
read out the title. "Poetry? Good Lord deliver us! Do you read
poetry, Val?"

"I occasionally dip into Tennyson," Val replied, settling himself
in an easy chair. "I c