He considered that here was the makings of a very nasty row for himself if, by any means, his sayings came round to the ears of Lord Beichan. But that he had to chance. He could not let a horse for which he was responsible be martyred. . . . There was too much to think about . . . so that nothing at all stood out to be thought of. The sun was glowing. The valley of the Seine was blue-grey, like a Gobelin tapestry. Over it all hung the shadow of a deceased Welsh soldier. An odd skylark was declaiming over an empty field behind the incinerators' headquarters. . . . An odd lark. For as a rule larks do not sing in December. Larks sing only when courting, or over the nest. . . . The bird must be oversexed. O Nine Morgan was the other thing, that accounting for the prize-fighter! They dropped down a mud lane between brick walls into the town. . . . PART II CHAPTER I In the admirably appointed, white-enamelled, wickerworked, bemirrored lounge of the best hotel of that town Sylvia Tietjens sat in a wickerwork chair, not listening rather abstractedly to a staff-major who was lachrymosely and continuously begging her to leave her bedroom door unlocked that night. She said: "I don't know. . . . Yes, perhaps. . . . I don't know. . . ." And looked distantly into a bluish wall-mirror that, like all the rest, was framed with white-painted cork bark. She stiffened a little and said: "There's Christopher!" The staff-major dropped his hat, his stick and his gloves. His black hair, which was without parting and heavy with some preparation of a glutinous kind, moved agitatedly on his scalp. He had been saying that Sylvia had ruined his life. Didn't Sylvia know that she had ruined his life? But for her he might have married some pure young thing. Now he exclaimed: "But what does he want? . . . Good God! . . . what does he want?" "He wants," Sylvia said, "to play the part of Jesus Christ." Major Perowne exclaimed: "Jesus Christ! . . . But he's the most foul-mouthed officer in the general's command. . . ." "Well," Sylvia said, "if you had married your pure young thing she'd have . . . What is it? . . . cuckolded you within nine months. . . ." Perowne shuddered a little at the word. He mumbled: "I don't see. ... It seems to be the other way . . ." "Oh, no, it isn't," Sylvia said. "Think it over. . . . Morally, _you're_ the husband. . . . _Im_morally, I should say. . . . Because he's the man I want. . . . He looks ill. . . . Do hospital authorities always tell wives what is the matter with their husbands?" From his angle in the chair from which he had half-emerged Sylvia seemed to him to be looking at a blank wall. "I don't see him," Perowne said. "I can see him in the glass," Sylvia said. "Look! From here you can see him." Perowne shuddered a little more. "I don't want to see him. . . . I have to see him sometimes in the course of duty. . . . I don't like to . . . ." Sylvia said: