“‘Good; we want to get games going really strong.’ I talked with them both—squadron ‘shop’—a bit longer, and all the time I was trying to probe behind the impassive mask of Trevor’s face. Incidentally, I think he knew it; once or twice I caught a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes—a gleam that seemed to me a little weary. And when I left them and went across the parade ground towards the mess, his face haunted me. I hadn’t probed—not the eighth of an inch; he was still as much a mystery as ever. But he’d got a pair of deep blue eyes, and though I wasn’t a girl to be attracted by a man’s eyes, I couldn’t get his out of my mind. They baffled me; the man himself baffled me—and I’ve always disliked being baffled. “It was a few nights after, in mess, that the next piece in the puzzle came along. We had in the regiment—he was killed in the war, poor devil!—a fellow of the name of Blenton, a fairly senior captain. He wasn’t in my squadron, and his chief claim to notoriety was as a cricketer. Had he been able to play regularly he would have been easily up to first-class form—as it was he periodically turned out for the county; but he used to go in first wicket down for the Army. So you can gather his sort of form. “It was over the port that the conversation cropped up, and it interested me because it was about Trevor. As far as cricket was concerned I hardly knew which end of a bat one held. “‘Dog-face has got a winner,’ I heard Blenton say across the table. I may say that I answered to that tactful sobriquet, for reasons into which we need not enter. ‘One Sergeant Trevor in your squadron, old boy,’ he turned to me. ‘I was watching him at the nets to-night.’ “‘Is he any good?’ I said. “‘My dear fellow,’ answered Blenton, deliberately, ‘he is out and away the best bat we’ve had in the regiment for years. He’s up to Army form!’ “‘Who’s that?’ demanded the commanding officer, sitting up and taking notice at once. “‘Sergeant Trevor in B squadron, Colonel,’ said Blenton. ‘I was watching him this evening at nets. Of course, the bowling was tripe, but he’s in a completely different class to the average soldier cricketer.’ “‘Did you talk to him?’ I asked, curiously. “‘I did. And he struck me as being singularly uncommunicative. Asked him where he learnt his cricket, and he hummed and hawed, and finally said he’d played a lot in his village before joining the Army. I couldn’t quite make him out, Dog-face. And why the devil didn’t he play for us out in Jo’burg?’ “‘Because he only joined a couple of months before we sailed,’ I answered. ‘Came with that last draft we got.’ “‘Well, I wish we had a few more trained in his village,’ said Blenton. ‘We could do with them.’ “After mess, I tackled Philip Blenton in the ante-room. “‘What’s your candid opinion of Trevor, Philip?’ I demanded. “He stopped on his way to play bridge, and bit the end off his cigar. “‘As a cricketer,’ he said, ‘or as a man?’ “‘Both,’ I answered.