have to fight against!" he exclaimed,
rather hotly.

"Forgive me, but, please, don't raise your voice."

Alec lowered his voice, for a moment anyhow, but the central article
of his creed was assailed, and he grew vehement. "It's fatal; it's at
the root of all our troubles. Allow for failures in individuals, and
you produce failure all round. It's tenderness to defaulters that
wrecks discipline. I would have strict justice, but no mercy, not a
shadow of it!"

"But you said that day at your place that the war had made you
tender-hearted."

"Yes, I did, and it's true. Is it hard-hearted to refuse to let a slacker
cost good men their lives? Much better take his, if it's got to be one or
the other."

"A cogent argument. But, my dear Naylor, I wish you wouldn't raise
your voice."

"Damn my voice!" said Alec, most vexatiously interrupted just as he
had got into his stride. "You say things that I can't and won't let
pass, and--"

"I really wouldn't have asked you in, if I'd thought you'd raise
your voice."

Alec recollected himself. "My dear fellow, a thousand pardons! I forgot!
The old gentleman!"

"Exactly. But I'm afraid the mischief's done. Listen!" Again he pointed
to the ceiling, but his eyes set on Captain Alec with a queer, rueful,
humorous expression. "I was an ass to ask you in. But I'm no good at it,
that's the fact. I'm always giving the show away!" he grumbled, half to
himself, but not inaudibly.

Alec stared at him for a moment in puzzle, but the next instant his
attention was diverted. Another voice besides his was raised; the sound
of it came through the ceiling from the room above; the words were not
audible; the volubility of the utterance in itself went far to prevent
them from being distinguishable; but the high, vibrant, metallic tones
rang through the house. It was a rush of noise, sharp grating noise,
without a meaning. The effect was weird, very uncomfortable. Alec Naylor
knit his brows, and once gave a little shiver, as he listened. Beaumaroy
sat quite still, the expression in his eyes unaltered, or, if altered at
all, it grew softer, as though with pity or affection.

"Good God, Beaumaroy, are you keeping a lunatic in this house?" He might
raise his voice as loud as he pleased now, it was drowned by that other.

"I'm not keeping him, he's keeping me. And, anyhow, his medical adviser
tells me there is no reason to suppose that my old friend is not
_compos mentis_."

"Irechester says t