d collecting,
miles away from a railway or telegraph line, and it was all over before
he knew anything about it; it didn't last very long, when you come to
think of it. He was due home somewhere about that time, and when the
weeks slipped by without my hearing from him, I quite thought he'd been
captured in the Baltic or somewhere on the way back. It turned out that
he was down with marsh fever in some out-of-the-way spot, and everything
was over and finished with before he got back to civilisation and
newspapers."

"It must have been a bit of a shock," said Ronnie, busy with a
well-devised salad; "still, I don't see why there should be domestic
storms when he comes back. You are hardly responsible for the
catastrophe that has happened."

"No," said Cicely, "but he'll come back naturally feeling sore and savage
with everything he sees around him, and he won't realise just at once
that we've been through all that ourselves, and have reached the stage of
sullen acquiescence in what can't be helped. He won't understand, for
instance, how we can be enthusiastic and excited over Gorla Mustelford's
debut, and things of that sort; he'll think we are a set of callous
revellers, fiddling while Rome is burning."

"In this case," said Ronnie, "Rome isn't burning, it's burnt. All that
remains to be done is to rebuild it--when possible."

"Exactly, and he'll say we're not doing much towards helping at that."

"But," protested Ronnie, "the whole thing has only just happened; 'Rome
wasn't built in a day,' and we can't rebuild our Rome in a day."

"I know," said Cicely, "but so many of our friends, and especially
Murrey's friends, have taken the thing in a tragical fashion, and cleared
off to the Colonies, or shut themselves up in their country houses, as
though there was a sort of moral leprosy infecting London."

"I don't see what good that does," said Ronnie.

"It doesn't do any good, but it's what a lot of them have done because
they felt like doing it, and Murrey will feel like doing it too. That is
where I foresee trouble and disagreement."

Ronnie shrugged his shoulders.

"I would take things tragically if I saw the good of it," he said; "as
matters stand it's too late in the day and too early to be anything but
philosophical about what one can't help. For the present we've just got
to make the best of things. Besides, you can't very well turn down Gorla
at the last moment."

"I'm not going to turn down Gorl