uniform."

"I'm not quite so sure," he said, somewhat ruefully, indicating his
dinner jacket tightly constricted beneath the arms. "Already I've had
to slit my waistcoat down the back. Poor old Peddle will have an
apoplectic fit when he sees it. I've grown a bit since these elegant
rags were made for me."

"_Il faut souffrir pour etre beau_," said Peggy.

"If my being _beau_ pleases you, Peggy, I'll suffer gladly. I've been
in tighter places." He threw himself down in the corner of the sofa
and joggled up and down like a child. "After all," he said, "it's
jolly to sit on something squashy again, and to see a pretty girl in a
pretty frock."

"I'm glad you like this frock."

"New?"

She nodded. "Dad said it was too much of a Vanity Fair of a vanity for
war-time. You don't think so, do you?"

"It's charming," said Doggie. "A treat for tired eyes."

"That's just what I told dad. What's the good of women dressing in
sacks tied round the middle with a bit of string? When men come home
from the Front they want to see their womenfolk looking pretty and
dainty. That's what they've come over for. It's part of the cure. It's
the first time you've been a real dear, Marmaduke. 'A treat for tired
eyes.' I'll rub it into dad hard."

Oliver came in--in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him.

"Look here, Peggy. It's the guard-room for me."

Oliver laughed. "Where the dinner kit I bought when I came home is
now, God only can tell." He turned to Peggy. "I did change, you know."

"That's the pull of being a beastly Major," said Doggie. "They have
heaps of suits. On the march, there are motor-lorries full of them.
It's the scandal of the army. The wretched Tommy has but one suit to
his name. That's why, sir, I've taken the liberty of appearing before
you in outgrown mufti."

"All right, my man," said Oliver. "We'll hush it up and say no more
about it."

Then the Dean and Mrs. Conover entered and soon they went in to
dinner. It was for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had the
superbly healthy man's whole-hearted or whole-stomached appreciation
of unaccustomed good food and drink: so much so, that when the Dean,
after agonies of thwarted mastication, said gently to his wife: "My
dear, don't you think you might speak a word in season to Peck"--Peck
being the butcher--"and forbid him, under the Defence of the Realm
Act, if you like, to deliver to us in the evening as lamb that which
was in the morning a lusty sheep?