Failing to catch his eye, Evelyn turned to her plate filled with a subtle melancholy. When would there be another dinner like this? Not, at all events, until the war was over. Nick had spoken about this--very definitely; there would be no more entertaining. She had agreed with him, of course, not, however, escaping the conviction that her husband's viewpoint was more or less in keeping with a certain unusual sombreness which she had caught creeping into his mood in the past year or so. Still, everybody who amounted to anything was pulling up on the bit and doing something or talking of doing something or other for the country. It was already assured that the season would be insufferably dull--from a social standpoint at least. Evelyn could not suppress a certain resentment. She was not one of those who had found an element of thrill in the suddenly altered perspectives. Her plans for the spring season had been laid; engagements had been accepted or declined, as functions promised to be worth while or uninteresting; all the delicate interlocking machinery of the life in which Evelyn Colcord moved, somewhat prominently, was in motion--then the sudden checking of the wheels: war. Now there were memories of her husband's sober words; now there was young Jeffery Latham at her elbow--he had been almost shot to pieces in France--now there was Simec, the genius of diabolical achievement.... What were things coming to? Even the weather had gone wrong. Outside, an unseasonable cold rain, lashed by a northeast gale, was driving against the panes of the French windows, and the sizzling effulgence of an arc-lamp revealed pools of water lying on the asphalt of the avenue.... The dry, softly modulated voice of Captain Latham at her left lifted Evelyn from her trend of sombre revery. "Nick is looking uncommonly fit--he'll go in for the cavalry, I suppose." The young British officer spoke more with a half-humorous effort at conversation than any other motive, but she turned to him with a gesture of appeal. "Jeffery," she said, "you make me shiver!" The man stared at her curiously. "Why, I--I'm sorry. I'm sure I didn't--" "Oh, of course," she interrupted, "I know you didn't. Don't be silly. As for me, I'm perfectly foolish, don't you know. Only"--she paused--"I detest war talk. It's so fearfully upsetting. It seems only yesterday that it was a subject to drag in when conversation lagged. But now--" Latham's quizzical reply was almost upon his lips, when, evidently changing his mind, he spoke dryly. "No doubt you'll become used to it in time.... By the by, I was in fun about old Nick. His objection to grouse coverts and deer-stalking--I can't fancy him in war." As she didn't reply he picked up his fork, adding: "Yet he's a tremendous athlete--polo and all that sort of thing. Do you know, I suspect that when the real pull comes he won't object to potting at Germans.... Did you do these menu cards, Evelyn? They're awfully well done."