ncheon."

Aaron sat again on his hostess' left hand. The Colonel was more affable
now it was meal-time. Sir William was again in a good humour, chaffing
the young ladies with an old man's gallantry. But now he insisted on
drawing Aaron into the play. And Aaron did not want to be drawn. He did
not one bit want to chaffer gallantries with the young women. Between
him and Sir William there was a curious rivalry--unconscious on both
sides. The old knight had devoted an energetic, adventurous, almost an
artistic nature to the making of his fortune and the developing of later
philanthropies. He had no children. Aaron was devoting a similar nature
to anything but fortune-making and philanthropy. The one held life to
be a storing-up of produce and a conservation of energy: the other held
life to be a sheer spending of energy and a storing-up of nothing but
experience. There they were, in opposition, the old man and the young.
Sir William kept calling Aaron into the chaffer at the other end of
the table: and Aaron kept on refusing to join. He hated long distance
answers, anyhow. And in his mood of the moment he hated the young women.
He had a conversation with Arthur about statues: concerning which Aaron
knew nothing, and Arthur less than nothing. Then Lady Franks turned the
conversation to the soldiers at the station, and said how Sir William
had equipped rest-huts for the Italian privates, near the station: but
that such was the jealousy and spite of the Italian Red Cross--or
some such body, locally--that Sir William's huts had been left
empty--standing unused--while the men had slept on the stone floor of
the station, night after night, in icy winter. There was evidently much
bitter feeling as a result of Sir William's philanthropy. Apparently
even the honey of lavish charity had turned to gall in the Italian
mouth: at least the official mouth. Which gall had been spat back at
the charitable, much to his pain. It is in truth a difficult world,
particularly when you have another race to deal with. After which came
the beef-olives.

"Oh," said Lady Franks, "I had such a dreadful dream last night, such a
dreadful dream. It upset me so much. I have not been able to get over it
all day."

"What was it?" said Aaron. "Tell it, and break it."

"Why," said his hostess, "I dreamed I was asleep in my room--just as I
actually was--and that it was night, yet with a terrible sort of light,
like the dead light before dawn, so that one c