. This is the first time I've been
out anywhere except for an invalid crawl or two. It's only three days
since we left the nursing home in Fitzroy Square, where Prince and
Princess Sanzanow visited us several times. Skobeleff is their nephew,
you know. They asked us both to stay with them, and Skobeleff is being
moved here by his servant to-night; but I made an excuse not to
come--said it would hurt the feelings of an old friend who had offered
to lend me his chambers in Whitehall Court to finish getting well in.
The Sanzanows wouldn't take a refusal for dinner this evening, though.
It made no difference my telling them who I really am, March instead of
Mars. I thought they were sure to know something of my story. They said,
when I tried to cry off, that it was going to be a small dinner--just a
few friends who would like to meet Skobeleff and me, so I let myself be
persuaded. This is the result!"

As we spoke together, the conversation around us murmured vaguely in my
ears. I heard it without listening, as one can hear an undertone of
murmuring sea beneath all other sounds. People were talking of the one
inevitable subject, the war, with variations; the New Patriotism which
has made the Tory Lion and the Liberal Lamb lie down together in peace,
side by side, paying each other compliments; the good-girl tactics of
the suffragettes; the surprising slump in murders and every sort of
crime; possible raids of Zeppelins; and the amusingly persistent legend
of Russians in France; the same things which were being discussed at
that very moment, no doubt, in every household high and low, from one
end of Great Britain to the other, but always new and ever interesting,
yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow. I glanced at Di and Major Vandyke and
Milly, to see how they were bearing themselves, and I was not pleased
with what I saw.

The princess had distributed her guests at three small tables, and, of
course, had separated Di and Sidney. I had to crane my head round a
floral monoplane, which was our centrepiece, to catch sight of them at
their separate tables; and even so, I had but a glimpse now and then of
a profile. But the expression of those profiles, and the earnest,
confidential way in which they turned toward their neighbours, convinced
me that they were not talking war-talk. Milly faced me where I sat, and
though the tables were lit by amber-shaded wax candles which gave an
ivory effect to the women's complexions, the primrose