" he said lightly, "and free play's all very well
and pretty; but I've always thought that the real thing, with the
buttons off the foils, must have been a lot more sport than anything we
get now."

Again Jan was silent.

"You've fenced with me, Jan," he said slowly, "ever since I turned up
that day unexpectedly. Now, I want a straight answer. Do you care at
all, or have you only friendship for me? Look at me; tell me the truth."

"It's all so complicated and difficult," she faltered, and her eyes fell
beneath Peter's.

"What is?"

"This caring--when you aren't a free agent."

"Free fiddlestick! You either care or you don't--which is it?"

"I care a great deal too much for my own peace of mind," said Jan.

"I am quite satisfied," said Peter. And if Mr. Withells had seen what
happened to the "sensible" Miss Ross just then, his neatly-brushed hair
would have stood straight on end.

In the road, too!

CHAPTER XXVII

AUGUST, 1914

"No," said Jan, "it would be like marrying a widow ... with
encumbrances."

"But you don't happen to be a widow--besides, if you were, and had a
dozen encumbrances, if we want to get married it's nobody's business but
our own."

Peter spoke testily. He wanted Jan to marry him before he went back to
India in October, and if he got the billet he hoped for, to follow him,
taking the two children out, early in November.

But Jan saw a thousand lions in the way. She was pulled in this
direction and that, and though she knew she had got to depend on Peter
to--as she put it--"a dreadful extent," yet she hesitated to saddle him
with her decidedly explosive affairs, without a great deal more
consideration than he seemed disposed to allow her.

Hugo, for the present, was quiet. He was in Guernsey with his people,
and beyond a letter in which he directly accused Peter Ledgard of
abducting Tony when his father was taking him to visit his grandparents,
Jan had heard nothing.

By Peter's advice she did not answer this letter. But they both knew
that Hugo was only waiting to make some other and more unpleasant
demonstration than the last.

"You see," Jan began again, "I've got so many people to think of. The
children and Meg and the house and all the old servants.... You mustn't
hustle me, dear."

"Yes, I see all that; but I've got _you_ to think of, and if we're
married and anything happens to me you'll get your pension, and I want
you to have that."

"And if anything happen