"Well, it wasn't any kind of a beanfeast for me," Sylvia went on, when she again gave him her attention. "Good heavens! . . . Do you think it _would_ be any kind of a beanfeast with you, _pour tout potage_? Why should I remember the name of the hateful place?" Perowne said: "Yssingueux-les-Pervenches, such a pretty name," reproachfully. "It's no good," Sylvia answered, "your trying to awaken sentimental memories in me. You will have to make me forget what you were like if you want to carry on with me. . . . I'm stopping here and listening to your corncrake of a voice because I want to wait until Christopher goes out of the hotel . . . Then I am going to my room to tidy up for Lady Sachse's party and you will sit here and wait for me." "I'm _not_," Perowne said, "going to Lady Sachse's. Why, _he_ is going to be one of the principal witnesses to sign the marriage contract. And Old Campion and all the rest of the staff are going to be there. . . . You don't catch _me_. . . . An unexpected prior engagement is my line. No fear." "You'll come with me, my little man," Sylvia said, "if you ever want to bask in my smile again. . . . I'm not going to Lady Sachse's alone, looking as if I couldn't catch a man to escort me, under the eyes of half the French house of peers. . . . If they've got a house of peers! . . . You don't catch _me_. . . . No fear!" she mimicked his creaky voice. "You can go away as soon as you've shown yourself as my escort. . . ." "But, good God!" Perowne cried out, "that's just what I mustn't do. Campion said that if he heard any more of my being seen about with you he would have me sent back to my beastly regiment. And my beastly regiment is in the trenches. . . . You don't see _me_ in the trenches, do you?" "I'd rather see you there than in my own room," Sylvia said. "Any day!" "Ah, there you are!" Perowne exclaimed with animation. "What guarantee have I that if I do what you want I shall bask in your smile as you call it? I've got myself into a most awful hole, bringing you here without any papers. You never told me you hadn't any papers. General O'Hara, the P.M., has raised a most awful strafe about it. . . . And what have I got for it? . . . Not the ghost of a smile. . . . And you should see old O'Hara's purple face! . . . Someone woke him from his afternoon nap to report to him about your heinous case and he hasn't recovered from the indigestion yet. . . . Besides, he hates Tietjens . . . Tietjens is always chipping away at his military police . . . O'Hara's lambs. . . ." Sylvia was not listening, but she was smiling a slow smile at an inward thought. It maddened him. "What's your game?" he exclaimed. "Hell and hounds, what's your game? . . . You can't have come here to see . . . _him_. You don't come here to see me, as far as I can see. Well then . . ." Sylvia looked round at him with all her eyes, wide open as if she had just awakened from a deep sleep.