Gaston Arbuthnot, it should be explained, dined on the preceding night at the mess of the Maltshire Royals. He had dined at mess often of late, and on each occasion Dinah’s heart felt that it had got a reprieve. Dinah believed that dining at the mess of the Maltshire Royals meant, for one evening at least, seeing nothing of The Bungalow, and of Doctor and Mrs. Thorne. ‘You have good musicians among you, no doubt. I know,’ she observed, remembering long and not successful practising of her own, ‘that the accompaniment of this song is hard. But it has become the fashion for young men to play the piano lately.’ ‘We can most of us get through a polka, played with one finger, or Malbrook. When I am alone,’ said Lord Rex, ‘I execute the Marseillaise, with chords. No man in the regiment could play a true accompaniment to “A vingt ans.”’ ‘No? My husband played it for himself, then?’ asked Dinah, unaccountably persistent. ‘Not a bit of it! A singer never sings his best unless he stand, head up, chest expanded.’ Lord Rex dramatised the operatic attitude as they walked. ‘Mrs. Thorne accompanied Arbuthnot--deliciously, as she always does.’ It was seldom Dinah’s policy to discover her feelings by speech. So much worldly wisdom she had learnt, through most unworldly forbearance towards Gaston. Her complexion showed one of its over-quick changes, her mouth fell. But she spoke not. That there must be deviation from truth somewhere, she divined, with a bitter personal sense of humiliation. But where? She shrank from the possible answer to this question. A good-humoured epitome of the dinner-party had been given by Gaston, over this morning’s breakfast-table, for her own and Geoffrey’s benefit. ‘The usual guest-night at mess. Curious how precisely alike all mess dinners are. The Engineer Colonel’s never finished commencement, “When we were in the lines before Sebastopol;” the Major’s tiger-slaying adventures in Bengal; the elderly Captain’s diatribes against Liberal Governments and enforced retirements, “A man in the very prime--no, sir, a man before he is in the prime of life put on the shelf.” And the Irishman’s story. And the subaltern’s witticisms.’ Gaston, I say, had enlivened the breakfast-table with his lively putting together of these oft-used materials. He had made no reference to the singing of French songs, or to Linda Thorne. Then Lord Rex Basire’s memory must be at fault. ‘You cannot mean last night. You must be thinking of some former time. Mr. Arbuthnot dined with you at mess yesterday.’ ‘Of course he did. After dinner we adjourned--we, the favoured few--as our manner is, to The Bungalow.’ ‘Where Mrs. Thorne played accompaniments for Gaston.’ Dinah made the observation with mechanical self-control, hardly knowing what cold repetition of words this was that escaped her.