"'But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near: And yonder all before me lie Deserts of vast eternity!' . . . That's a general's life in this accursed war. . . . You think all generals are illiterate fools. But I have spent a great deal of time in reading, though I never read anything written later than the seventeenth century." Tietjens said: "I know, sir. . . . You made me read Clarendon's _History of the Great Rebellion_ when I was twelve." The general said: "In case we . . . I shouldn't like . . . In short . . ." He swallowed: it was singular to see him swallow. He was lamentably thin when you looked at the man and not the uniform. Tietjens thought: "What's he nervous about? He's been nervous all the morning." The general said: "I am trying to say--it's not much in my line--that in case we never met again, I do not wish you to think me an ignoramus." Tietjens thought: "He's not ill . . . and he can't think me so ill that I'm likely to die. . . . A fellow like that doesn't really know how to express himself. He's trying to be kind and he doesn't know how to. . . ." The general had paused. He began to say: "But there are finer things in Marvell than that. . . ." Tietjens thought: "He's trying to gain time. . . . Why on earth should he? . . . What is this all about?" His mind slipped a notch. The general was looking at his finger-nails on the blanket. He said: "There's, for instance: "'_The graves a fine and secret place But none I think do there embrace_. . . .'" At those words it came to Tietjens suddenly to think of Sylvia, with the merest film of clothing on her long, shining limbs. . . . She was working a powder-puff under her armpits in a brilliant illumination from two electric lights, one on each side of her dressing-table. She was looking at him in the glass with the corners of her lips just moving. A little curled. . . . He said to himself: "One is going to that fine and secret place. . . . Why not have?" She had emanated a perfume founded on sandalwood. As she worked her swansdown powder-puff over those intimate regions he could hear her humming. Maliciously! It was then that he had observed the handle of the door moving minutely. She had incredible arms, stretched out amongst a wilderness of besilvered cosmetics. Extraordinarily lascivious! Yet clean! Her gilded sheath gown was about her hips on the chair. . . . Well! She had pulled the strings of one too many shower-baths! Shining; radiating glory but still shrivelled so that he reminded Tietjens of an old apple inside a damascened helmet; the general had seated himself once more on the bully-beef case before the blanketed table. He fingered his very large, golden fountain-pen. He said: "Captain Tietjens, I should be glad of your careful attention!" Tietjens said: "Sir!" His heart stopped.