try we
shall have an anaesthetic served round with the rations to keep Tommy
Atkins's delicate nerves from suffering from the consciousness of the
slaughter he inflicts upon the enemy."

"Crow, you are violent."

"Yes, I am. I am sick of the whole thing. I would reintroduce
prize-fighting and bear-baiting and gladiatorial shows to brace the
nation up a bit. We'll get jammed full of rotten vices like those
beastly foreigners soon."

"I did not bring you into Regent's Park to hear a tirade upon the
nation's needs, Crow," Anne reminded him, smiling, "but to get your
sympathy and advice upon this affair of Hector. You know you are the
only person in the world I ever talk to about intimate things."

"Dear Queen Anne," he said, "I will always do what I can for you. But I
tell you seriously, when a man like Hector loves a woman really, you
might as well try to direct Niagara Falls as to turn him any way but the
one he means to go."

"He wants me to be kind to her. Do you advise me just to let the thing
drop, then?"

"No; be as kind as you like--only don't assist them to destruction."

"She goes into the country on Saturday for Whitsuntide, as we all do.
Hector is going down to Bracondale alone."

"That looks desperate. I shall see Hector, and judge for myself."

"You must be sure to go to the ball at Harrowfield House to-night,
then," Anne said. "They are both going. I say both because I know she
is, and so, of course, Hector will be there too. I shall go, naturally,
and then we can decide what we can do about it after we have seen them
together."

And all this time Theodora was thinking how charming Anne was, and how
kind, and that she felt a little happier because of her kindness. And,
hard as it would be, she would not leave Josiah's side that night or
dance with Hector.

And Hector was thinking--

"What is the good of anything in this wide world without her? I _must_
see her. For good or ill, I cannot keep away."

He was deep in the toils of desire and passionate love for a woman
belonging to someone else and out of his reach, and for whom he was
hungry. Thus the primitive forces of nature were in violent activity,
and his soul was having a hard fight.

It was the first time in his life that a woman had really mattered or
had been impossible to obtain.

He had always looked upon them as delightful accessories: sport first,
and woman, who was only another form of sport, second.

He had not neglected th