“Oh, yes, Henry referred to it all right. At least I drew his attention to the report in last night’s paper, and--oh, you should have heard him! I felt I wanted to scream. I longed to strike him. He has no heart, Yootha, no sympathy for anything or any one. I wonder sometimes why I go on living with him. He said he felt only contempt for any man who took his life, no matter in what circumstances!” Like many another, Henry Hartsilver had succeeded in supplying himself with petrol during the war, and as his limousine sped slowly down Bond Street a little later that morning with his wife and Yootha Hagerston in it, officers home on leave who noticed it wondered if people at home actually realized what was happening on the Western front. “More profiteers’ belongings!” a captain in the Devons, limping painfully out of Clifford Street, observed grimly. “I sometimes wish the Boches could land a few thousand troops here to give our folk a taste of the real thing. Who’s that they are talking to? I seem to know his face.” For the car, after slowing down, had stopped owing to the traffic congestion, and a tall, good looking, well-groomed man who could not have been more than seven-and-twenty, had raised his hat to its occupants and now stood on the curb, talking to them. “Know him!” the officer’s companion answered; he was a gray-haired man who looked as if he had been a sportsman. “Probably you do know him--I wonder who doesn’t. It’s Archie La Planta, one of the most popular men in town, some say because he’s so handsome, but I expect it’s largely because he is such a good matrimonial catch.” “Why isn’t he serving?” “Oh, ask me another, Charlie. Why are half the youths one meets not serving? They’ve managed to wangle it somehow. Haven’t you ever met him?” “Not to the best of my recollection. You see, I’ve been in France three years. But I am sure I have seen him somewhere.” “Here he comes. I’ll introduce you. He knows everybody worth knowing, and is quite an interesting lad.” La Planta was about to cross the street, when he caught sight of his friend on the pavement, hesitated an instant, then waited for his friend and the wounded officer to come up. “’Morning, Archie,” the man exclaimed who had told Captain Preston who La Planta was. “Preston, let me introduce Mr. La Planta.” The two men bowed formally to each other. “Archie, who are those two ladies to whom you were talking, if you don’t mind my asking?” his friend said a moment later. La Planta told him. “You must have heard of Henry Hartsilver,” he added. “You won’t find a list of contributors to any public war charity in which his name doesn’t appear--mind, I emphasize the _public_. Mrs. Hartsilver is his wife, a charming woman.” “Oh, that bounder,” the first speaker observed. “Yes, I know all about him; one of our profiteers!” “Exactly, and a quite impossible person in addition. Which way are you going?”