“Playing?” he remonstrated, pulling up the point of his Napoleon and trying to look down at it with melancholy regret. “Playing, indeed!” “I fathom it,” said Vic gleefully. “It’s an omen. Germany’s going to be beaten so you’ve transformed yourself into the likeness--such as it is--of Napoléon Trois. Good business!” “Napoléon Trois has always been my particular detestation, Miss Vic-who-ought-to-have-been-Balaclava,”--which was his usual counter-stroke to her thrust,--“as you very well know. This was imposed upon me by force of circumstance. I had to get home, you see,--for all your sakes. And to get home I had to come across France.” “And you were afraid of being taken for a German spy! I see.” But he had known her since her hair hung down her back and he would not take offence. “I might very well have been taken for a German, anyway, and Germans are not held in high esteem in France at the moment.” “Nor anywhere else in the world except in Germany. And I hope they’ll be blotted out even there before long. Detestable wretches!” “Ta--ta! There speaks hot youth. But it does not trouble me since I have nothing in common with Germany.” “Except your name, and your birth, and your looks,--when they’re normal that is, mein Herr! They’ll intern you, for certain, at Dorchester, or Porchester, or wherever it is, and you _will_ have a time.” “All that does not concern me, my dear. I am a British subject just as much as you are.” “Not a bit of it, mein Herr! I was born one.” “The more credit to me. You couldn’t help yourself. I acquired the right of my own good free-will.” “He has you there, Vic,” said the Colonel, who always found huge enjoyment in their sparring. “But he has brought us news of Ray and Lois--Mr and Mrs Ray Luard, I should say----” “No!” and the two girls flopped down into chairs simultaneously. “Fact,--at least we have every reason to hope so. When the Doctor saw them--at Hospenthal--they were making their way down to Montreux, with the expressed intention of getting married as soon as they got there.” “Well!... I--am----” “‘Hammered!’ as Gregor says,” supplied Honor. “What a pair of families we are! Vic, my dear, the atmosphere of war is packed with marriage-germs. We must be careful. I’m sure they’re catching. Mother, dear, some tea, please. Quick! I feel faint,” and, first carefully taking off her hat, she subsided gracefully against the back of her chair. “All the same, Nor, it’s rather too bad, you know,” said Vic resentfully. “That’s two weddings we’ve been done out of. It’s really anything but fair.” “It’s abominably shameful,” said Honor, undergoing a quick revival at thought of their wrongs. “I don’t believe they’ll have been properly married out there. It ought to be done over again as soon as they get home. How do you know it will be all right?” she put it to the Colonel. “Ten years hence it may come out that they are not really married at all and there’ll be a dreadful scandal.”