Imagination got away with her again. Happy? Yes, in a way she was happy. Only. . . . Why didn’t Peter realize things? Why couldn’t Peter work a little less strenuously? He took soldiering as he had taken business. It _absorbed_ him. When he mounted his horse of a morning—Driver Jelks holding out the stirrup—his face wore the old “office look.” . . . Of an evening, he studied his new profession. . . . And of course, he was smoking too much. . . . The children said Daddy was worried. . . . How did they know? . . . Perhaps he still regretted Nirvana. . . . Oh, why couldn’t she console him—time, time flew—and soon, a black hand must stretch out across the sea, take him from her—perhaps for ever. . . . “You’re looking very serious, Mrs. P.J.” Bromley lounged across to her. “Am I?” she smiled at him. “You won’t desert us when we go into Camp, Mrs. P.J.?” He pulled gravely at his moustaches. “I was just wondering if you’d help me with the Mess. Colonel says men are no good at these things. You might help a fellow, Mrs. P.J.?” “Why don’t you get Mutton’s to do the whole thing for you, Mr. Bromley?” “Colonel says we ought to do it ourselves. It trains the cooks, you see. But _I_ don’t know much about it. In South Africa, we ate when we could. . . .” They began a grave discussion on crockery, mess-furniture, groceries, the wine-cellar: a discussion which lasted till the party broke up. Jack Baynet had taken a room at the Metropole; walked home with Alice and her husband. Bromley and Straker stayed for a last drink; departed together. “Rather amusing, I thought”—commented Peter to his wife—“that first meeting between your brother and Mrs. Weasel. She looked as though she’d like to kiss him.” “My dear Peter. . . .” “Well, didn’t she?” Patricia looked her husband straight in the face. Then she said deliberately: “You don’t know much about women, old thing. Alice is madly in love with the Colonel. She’d no more dream of letting another man kiss her than,” a pause “_I_ should.” She marched out of the room, gold head high. “I wonder what’s worrying Pat?” thought Peter as he picked a small cigar from the box on the mantelpiece; took up his “Manual of Field Engineering,” and began to study section 39, _Cover for Artillery_. § 4 Nevertheless, Patricia enjoyed those weeks at Brighton, the surreptitious rides on government horses provided by Torrington, the occasional visits to “morning stables,” the talks with Alice, the convivial tea-parties at her own flat.