Sybil gave the old man a queer look, more affectionate than reproachful; and when she had finished pouring out tea came and took a vacant seat beside him. For a while she drank her tea in silence, stealing a half-amused glance now and then at the puckered face of the checked hunter of men. The General was gazing moodily across the green expanse of park, wishing with all his heart that Azimoolah, on guard out there in the leafy solitudes, was a fitting oracle to consult in a matter touching the private feelings of _memsahibs_. "No," he growled regretfully, and again aloud; "this must be a white man’s war." Sybil leaned over and tapped his knee with her gold tea-spoon. The General started, smiled fatuously at the celebrated Beaumanoir heirloom, as though he were expected to admire it, and then suddenly came down from the clouds, realizing that the young woman with the bright eyes searching his face was something more than a source of anxiety to him. She was a factor to be reckoned with, and if he was a judge of the human countenance she was about to enforce that view. "A white man’s war with too many women in it, General?" she asked, archly. "Isn’t that rather an anomaly?" "It’s gospel truth," the General replied, with sturdy insistence. "Sign of senile decay, though, thinking aloud." "_You_ are not decayed. You might as well accuse _me_ of being in my first childhood, and I have really passed that," Sybil smiled back at him. "But," she added, "I am childish enough to be a little hurt that you don’t appear to think so." "My dear girl, what have I done? ’Pon honor, I don’t know that I have done anything," the General protested piteously. "That’s just it. It’s because you have done nothing, or next to nothing, that your contemptuous reference to ’too many women’ seems to me a trifle unkind," replied Sybil, pretending to misunderstand him. "What would have happened to my cousin, when the panel was cut the other night at Beaumanoir House, if it hadn’t been for a woman?" The General accepted the reproof in thoughtful silence, forced to admit to himself that it was not uncalled for. If it had not been for Sybil Hanbury’s nerve and courage on the occasion when the bogus detective officer had secreted himself in the Duke’s town house, the answer to her question might have had to be written in blood. Her quick apprehension of subtle danger, her determination to sit up and watch, and her cool presence of mind in face of the emergency when it arose, had saved the situation and stamped her as of sterling metal. "I apologize," he jerked out presently. "I still think there are too many women in the business, but you ain’t one of ’em." "Thank you," Sybil returned, drily. "And, that being so, wouldn’t it be a good plan to ask a woman to help you, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, you know?"