BOOK II

THE HOUSE WITH THE TWISTED CHIMNEY

CHAPTER I

THE SHELL-SHOCK MAN

"Do you want to be a Life Preserver as well as a Brightener, Elizabeth,
my child?" asked Mrs. Carstairs.

"Depends on whose life," I replied, making a lovely blue smoke ring
before I spoke and another when I'd finished.

I hoped to shock Mrs. Carstairs, in order to see what the nicest old
lady on earth would look like when scandalized. But I was disappointed.
She was not scandalized. She asked for a cigarette, and took it; my
last.

"The latest style in my country is to make your smoke ring loop the
loop, and do it through the nose," she informed me, calmly. "I can't do
it myself--yet. But Terry Burns can."

"Who's Terry Burns?" I asked.

"The man whose life ought to be preserved."

"It certainly ought," said I, "if he can make smoke rings loop the loop
through his nose. Oh, you know what I _mean_!"

"He hardly takes enough interest in things to do even that, nowadays,"
sighed Mrs. Carstairs.

"Good heavens! what's the matter with the man--senile decay?" I flung at
her. "Terry isn't at all a decayed name."

"And Terry isn't a decayed man. He's about twenty-six, if you choose to
call that senile. He's almost _too_ good-looking. He's not physically
ill. And he's got plenty of money. All the same, he's likely to die
quite soon, I should say."

"Can't anything be done?" I inquired, really moved.

"I don't know. It's a legacy from shell shock. You know what _that_ is.
He's come to stay with us at Haslemere, poor boy, because my husband was
once in love with his mother--at the same time I was worshipping his
father. Terry was with us before--here in London in 1915--on leave soon
after he volunteered. Afterward, when America came in, he transferred.
But even in 1915 he wasn't exactly _radiating_ happiness (disappointment
in love or something), but he was just boyishly cynical then, nothing
worse; and _the_ most splendid specimen of a young man!--his father over
again; Henry says, his _mother_! Either way, I was looking forward to
nursing him at Haslemere and seeing him improve every day. But, my
_dear_, I can do _nothing_! He has got so on my nerves that I _had_ to
make an excuse to run up to town or I should simply have--_slumped_. The
sight of me slumping would have been terribly bad for the poor child's
health. It might have finished him."

"So you want to exchange my nerves for yours," I said. "You want me to