nded at all. Jeanne saw that very clearly. To have
exposed himself to the risk of his exploit was contrary to all his
country's interests. His wound had robbed her of a fighting man, not a
particularly valuable warrior, but a soldier in the firing line all
the same. If every man went off like that on private missions of his
own and got properly potted, there would be the end of the Army. It
was horrible to be an interesting hero under false pretences.

Of course he might have been George Washingtonian enough to shout: "I
cannot tell a lie. I didn't." But that would have meant relating the
whole story of Jeanne. And would Peggy have understood the story of
Jeanne? Could Peggy, in her plain-sailing, breezy British way, have
appreciated all the subtleties of his relations with Jeanne? She would
ask pointed, probably barbed, questions about Jeanne. She would tear
the whole romance to shreds. Jeanne stood too exquisite a symbol for
him to permit the sacrilege of Peggy's ruthless vivisection. For
vivisect she would, without shadow of doubt. His long and innocent
familiarity with womankind in Durdlebury had led him instinctively to
the conclusion formulated by one of the world's greatest cynics in his
advice to a young man: "If you care for happiness, never speak to a
woman about another woman."

Doggie felt uncomfortable as he looked into Peggy's clear blue eyes;
not conscience-stricken at the realization of himself as a scoundrelly
Don Juan--that never entered his ingenuous mind; but he hated his
enforced departure from veracity. The one virtue that had dragged the
toy Pom successfully along the Rough Road of the soldier's life was
his uncompromising attitude to Truth. It cost him a sharp struggle
with his soul to reply to Peggy:

"All right. Have it so if it pleases you, my dear. But it was an idiot
fluke all the same."

"I wonder if you know how you've changed," she said, after a while.

"For better or worse?"

"The obvious thing to say would be 'for the better.' But I wonder. Do
you mind if I'm frank?"

"Not a bit."

"There's something hard about you, Marmaduke."

Doggie wrinkled lips and brow in a curious smile. "I'll be frank too.
You see, I've been living among men, instead of a pack of old women."

"I suppose that's it," Peggy said thoughtfully.

"It's a dud sort of place, Durdlebury," said he.

"Dud?"

He laughed. "It never goes off."

"You used to say, in your letters, that you longed for it."

"