'Oh, go along,' said Landi, who sometimes broke into peculiar English which he thought was modern slang. Raising his voice, he said: 'The dinner is _exquis--exquis_,' so that Mr Mitchell could hear. 'I can't help noting what you've eaten tonight, Landi, though I don't usually observe these things,' Edith said. 'You've had half-a-tomato, a small piece of vegetable marrow, and a sip of claret. Aren't you going to eat anything more?' 'Not much more. I look forward to my coffee and my cigar. Oh, how I look forward to it!' 'You know very well, Landi, they let you smoke cigarettes between the courses, if you like.' 'It would be better than nothing. We'll see presently.' 'Might I inquire if you live on cigars and coffee?' 'No,' he answered satirically; 'I live on eau sucre. And porreege. I'm Scotch.' 'I can't talk to you if you're so silly.' 'You'll tell me the important part on the little sofa upstairs in the salon,' he said. 'After dinner. Tonight, here, somehow, the food and the faces distract one--unless one is making an acquaintance. I know you too well to talk at dinner.' 'Quite true. I ought to take time to think then.' 'There's no hurry. Good heavens! the man has waited four years; he can wait another week. Quelle idee!' 'He's going back,' said Edith, 'as soon as he's well. He wants me to promise before he goes.' 'Does he! You remind me of the man who said to his wife: "Good-bye, my dear, I'm off to the Thirty Years' War." It's all right, Edith. We'll find a solution, I have no fears.' She turned to Mr Mitchell. * * * * * The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. Alone with the women, Madame Frabelle was the centre of an admiring circle, as she lectured on 'dress and economy in war-time,' and how to manage a house on next to nothing a year. All the ladies gasped with admiration. Edith especially was impressed; because the fact that Madame Frabelle was a guest, and was managing nothing, did not prevent her talking as if she had any amount of experience on the subject, although, by her own showing she had been staying at hotels ever since the war began, except the last weeks she had spent with the Ottleys. The men soon joined them. A group of war valetudinarians, amongst whom Bruce was not the least emphatic, told each other their symptoms in a quiet corner. They described their strange shiverings down the spine; the curious fits of hunger that came on before meals; the dislike to crossing the road when there was an accident; the inability to sleep, sometimes taking the form of complete insomnia for as much as twenty minutes in the early morning. They pitied each other cordially, though neither listened to the other's symptoms, except in exchange for sympathy with their own. 'The war has got on my nerves; I can't think of anything else,' Bruce said. 'It's an _idee fixe_. I pant for the morning when the newspaper's due, and then I can't look at it! Not even a glance! Odd, isn't it?'