"Henry Wilson's in touch with Maxse and the Conservative press," he said. "He's getting at the Opposition. There's to be a meeting at Lansdowne House to-night. H.W.'s going to ginger em." The Colonel looked away. "And what are you doing down here?" he asked. "They sent me down to Newhaven last night--embarkation. I'm off in two minutes." He jerked his head towards a racing car standing outside the garage, white with dust. "Got to catch the 7 o'clock at Lewes, and be back at the War Office at 9 p.m. An all-night sitting, I expect." That austere gaze of his returned to the playing-fields. "Little they know what they're in for," he said, as though to himself. For the first time the Colonel found something admirable, almost comforting, in the hardness of his old adjutant. He followed the other's gaze and then said quietly, almost tenderly, as one breathing a secret in the ear of a dying man. "That's the child, Royal--that one in the white frock and black legs running over by the elms. And that's her mother in the brown dress--the one waving. And there's her husband under the trees--that shabby feller." Royal arched his fine eyebrows in faint surprise. "Is she married?" he asked coolly. "Yes," replied the Colonel. "The feller who seduced her wouldn't do the straight thing by her." Again the eyebrows spoke, this time with an added touch of sarcasm, almost of insolence. "How d'you know?" The Colonel was roused. "Well, did you?" he asked, with rare brutality. Royal shrugged. Then he turned slow and sombre eyes on the other. There was no anger in them, no hostility. "Perhaps I shall make it up to them now, Colonel," he said.... The Colonel crossed the road to the garage. There was a stir of busyness about two of the new motor char-a-bancs of the Touring Syndicate. Alf was moving amid it all in his shirt-sleeves, without collar or tie, his hands filthy. His moustache still waxed, and his hair parted down the middle and plastered, made an almost comic contrast to the rest of his appearance. But there was nothing comic about his expression. He looked like a dog sickening for rabies; ominous, surly, on the snarl. He did not seem to see the Colonel, who tackled him at once, however, about the need for summoning a meeting of the League. "Summon it yourself then," said Alf. "I got something better to do than that. Such an idea! Coming botherin me just now. Start on Monday. Ruin starin me in the face. Who wants war? Might ha done it on purpose to do me down." The Colonel climbed the hill to the Manor-house to sup with the Trupps.