xpectedly. To meet a boy going to
the front. Quite a nice boy. Son of Riverton the doctor. The parting had
made them understand one another. It's all right, Ella. It's a little
irregular, but I'd stake my life on the boy. She's very lucky."

Eleanor appeared through the folding doors. She came to business at
once.

"I promised you I'd come back to supper here, Daddy," she said. "But I
don't want to have supper here. I want to stay out late."

She saw her mother look perplexed. "Hasn't Daddy told you?"

"But where is young Riverton?"

"He's outside."

Eleanor became aware of a broad chink in the folding doors that was
making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She shut them
deftly.

"I have told Mummy," Scrope explained. "Bring him in to supper. We ought
to see him."

Eleanor hesitated. She indicated her sisters beyond the folding doors.
"They'll all be watching us, Mummy," she said. "We'd be uncomfortable.
And besides--"

"But you can't go out and dine with him alone!"

"Oh, Mummy! It's our only chance."

"Customs are changing," said Scrope.

"But can they?" asked Lady Ella.

"I don't see why not."

The mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross her
husband that night. "It's an exceptional occasion," said Scrope, and
Eleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant. "I can be late?"

Scrope handed her his latch-key without a word.

"You dear kind things," she said, and went to the door. Then turned and
came back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her mother. "It is
so kind of you," she said, and was gone. They listened to her passage
through a storm of questions in the dining-room.

"Three months ago that would have shocked me," said Lady Ella.

"You haven't seen the boy," said Scrope.

"But the appearances!"

"Aren't we rather breaking with appearances?" he said.

"And he goes to-morrow--perhaps to get killed," he added. "A lad like
a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political foolery that we
priests and teachers have suffered in the place of the Kingdom of God,
because we have allowed the religion of Europe to become a lie; because
no man spoke the word of God. You see--when I see that--see those two,
those children of one-and-twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with
a parting.... It's like a knife slashing at all our appearances and
discretions.... Think of our lovemaking...."

The front door banged.

He had some idea of resuming their talk