"To tell you the truth," he confided, "I am a little tired of my job. Neither fish nor fowl, don't you know. I took an observation course at Scotland Yard, but I suppose I am too slow-witted for what they call secret-service work over here." "America wouldn't provide you with many opportunities, would it?" she observed. "You are quite right," he replied. "I am much more at home upon the Continent. The Secret Service in America, as we understand it, does not exist. One finds oneself continually in collaboration with police inspectors, and people who naturally do not understand one's point of view. At any rate," he concluded, with a little sigh, "if I have any talents, they haven't come to the front in Washington. I don't believe that dear old Sir Richard was at all sorry to see the last of me." "And you think you will prefer your new profession?" "Soldiering? Well, I shall have to train up a bit and see. Beastly ugly work they seem to make of it, nowadays. I don't mind roughing it up to the extent of my capacity, but I do think that the advice of one's medical man should be taken into consideration." She laughed at him openly. "Do you know," she said, "I can't picture you campaigning in France!" "To tell you the truth I can't picture it myself," he confessed frankly. "The stories I have heard with reference to the absence of physical comforts are something appalling. By-the-by," he went on, as though the idea had suddenly occurred to him, "I can't think how your patient can rest, anyhow, after an operation, on beds like there are on this steamer. I call it positively disgraceful of the company to impose such mattresses upon their patrons. My bones positively ache this morning." "Mr. Phillips has his own mattress," she told him, "or rather one of the hospital ones. He was carried straight into the ambulance from the ward." "Mr.--er--Phillips," Crawshay repeated. "Have I ever met him?" "I should think not." "He is, of course, a very great friend of yours?" "I don't know why you should suppose that." "Come, come," he remonstrated, "I suppose I am an infernally curious, prying sort of chap, but when one thinks of you, a society belle of America, you know, and, further, the patroness of that great hospital, crossing the Atlantic yourself in charge of a favoured patient, one can't help--can one?" "Can one what?" she asked coolly. "Scenting a romance or a mystery," he replied. "In any case, Mr. Phillips must be a man of some determination, to risk so much just for the sake of getting home." She turned and recommenced their promenade. "I wonder whether you realise that it isn't etiquette to question a nurse about her patient," she reminded him. "I'm sure I am very sorry," he assured her. "I didn't imagine that my questions were in any way offensive. I told you from the first that I was always interested in invalids and cases of illness." She turned her head and looked at him. Her glance was reproving, her manner impatient.