odded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was
out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north
of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded."
Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was
not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion.

"I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew
Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself
a salad.

"Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like
that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and
Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--"

"Lawrence Hyde?"

"Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?"

"Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it
down a trifle, I can't reach."

"Let me, let me?-- What was he like?"

"Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us
--very tired."

"Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he
couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like
when he wasn't tired?"

"That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val
answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child,
I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and
commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant."

"Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if
he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in
Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry
bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to
his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could
call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any
modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish
you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to
sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?"

"Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off."
After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me."

"Was he? Then he was nice?"

"Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel
rounded him indignantly.

"I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am
I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in
another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before
they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters
once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr.