"Now, Ethel, my dear," came the crass boom of her father-in-law's voice, "when you've finished your spooning, let's have something jolly. What about that bit out of 'Not a Word to the Wife!' Tra-la-la-la-la!" He sketched a hideous caricature of blatant banality. "We're all jolly to-night--none of your mooning sentiment, but jolly. Eh, ladies and gentlemen?--properly jolly for Harry's first night back." Ethel got up from the piano, coupling an allegation of another's superior capacity with an invitation to perform, an invitation smirkingly accepted. The slangy crash and bang alternating with hyper-emphasized sentimentality of the current tune was a cover under which Ethel Hathaway retreated to happy intimacy with her husband. Not for long was she allowed it. The very-consciously best-looking of the co-directors' wives sidled up and subsided into the adjacent chair. She yearned up into Captain Hathaway's face, while she cooed deprecation of her intrusion to his wife. "But I do so want to hear how Captain Hathaway earned his Military Cross! Of course, I read all about it in the papers--but then--they're so bald, aren't they? One misses, what shall I say?--the human touch of heroism." Mrs. Hathaway caught her husband's eye and forbade the instant flight. "Tell Mrs. Jameson all about it, Harry," she commanded coolly. There was something in the tone which rendered Mrs. Jameson's extorted confidence quite worthless. "There's little to tell," said Captain Hathaway. "The fellow who really earned anything there was to get--and, I'm glad to say, got the D.C.M.--was one of my men, a chap named Jim Swain. He used to be in our employment, Ethel, by the way. It was a pretty tight corner and I got practically left alone--all the other fellows knocked out--and this chap Swain came up with a bag of bombs--jolly plucky thing, for there didn't seem a dog's chance--and we chucked the bombs at the Hun till he didn't dare raise his head. After a bit, some of another company came up and we consolidated that bit of trench. That's all there was to it." "Oh, how splendid!" Mrs. Jameson enthused vaguely. "Leadership _is_ everything, isn't it?" "When you've got something to lead, Mrs. Jameson. One couldn't have better stuff than my men--they're magnificent. They're the nation--and now they're coming back they've got to be treated like the men they are and not like soulless machinery." He wound up on a note of fierce protest against something not obvious to his hearers. "Now, Harry," said his wife, "don't inflict your theories on Mrs. Jameson. We both of us positively refuse to be sympathetic with the working class, don't we, Mrs. Jameson?" She laughed lightly. "The working class is just as selfish as any other." A wave of collective chatter from an approaching group engulfed this conversation. Late that night Sir Thomas Hathaway sat alone with his son.