With quiet, and Mrs. Vernley's assiduous attention, John quickly recovered. She had aged much since the death of her eldest boy, and sorrow had rendered her more gentle and self-effacing than ever. These were lonely days for her, with Mr. Vernley away as a Director in one of the Ministries, her daughters all on war work. They had long talks at tea time, when John read the pages he had gathered together of a book of despatches. He was a famous man now, and he rather enjoyed the experience. There was nothing elating in being famous, just because every one was glad to shake you by the hand or because your name was a password whenever and wherever it was uttered; it was indeed wearisome to be pestered with petitions for your support of all kinds of fantastic charities, to be expected to speak here, there and everywhere, or to be an afternoon's attraction at an ambitious lady's drawing-room party. What he enjoyed was the freemasonry in which he could now move among the men and women of the earth who did things, and were great, simply because their natures were rich in character and prodigal with varying gifts. After his sojourn at "The Croft," he spent a fortnight in town looking up old friends. It was a London strangely, terribly changed. It was, in one phase, a London more interesting. Down its pavements in great variety of uniforms, passed the young men of all the earth; youth from the plains, the jungle, the prairie, the veldt, the backwoods and the ranch, youth in splendid careless vigour, snatching hectically at joy, not turning to see the shadowy spectre over their shoulders. It was strange to stand in Piccadilly Circus, dimly lit, and watch the theatres pour out their festive crowds, to sit in the busy restaurants, to see mankind, strained, feverish, but debonair, trying to laugh in the face of ruin and death. It was a London of extremes; the wounded silently borne from Charing Cross, the beautiful living swept out in the deadly maelstrom at Victoria Station; the painted women gaily surrendering to the rabid hunger of youth in arms, full-blooded and reckless; the air of intense expectation of fresh development, the swift rise and fall of national heroes, the craving for a strong man to lead the nation to victory; the silent evidence of the wreckage in those endless hospitals, the fierce old women full of hate, and the beardless boys drilled and transported like sheep under the charge of hard-voiced blasphemous sergeants,--all these things revealed a nation at war, a nation unnatural in its hopes, fears, suspicions, enthusiasms, yet heroically treading the inevitable path through chaos to some kind of ending, either of victory or defeat.