“You’re a brilliant soldier, my son, but you’re no match for a foxy old politician—a past master of dirty craft. He put himself right with the Prime Minister this morning. Besides, there’s the lady to be considered—not that I think she deserves much consideration. Still, it’s a convention of honour.” Godfrey flashed: “I’m not going to bring her name into it!” “He will. He’ll get the whole story out of you.” “What the devil am I to do?” asked Godfrey with a helpless gesture. Baltazar rose. “My boy,” said he, “in two or three days’ time they’re going to make me, a man suddenly sprung from nowhere, a Minister of the Crown. That shows I’m not altogether a silly fool.” In spite of the welter of disillusion and catastrophe in which the boy foundered, he detected in his father’s voice the pathetic, apologetic note which he had never been able to resist, the note conveying his father’s yearning desire to make good in his eyes. “You know I’m proud of you, sir,” he said. “Which is a lot more,” he added with a break in his voice, “than you can say of me.” Baltazar put his arm round his son’s shoulders very tenderly. “My boy,” said he, “I’d give my life for you.” And the young man hung his head. “The only thing is, will you trust me?” Ten minutes afterwards Baltazar, cheery and confident, stood at the door preparing to depart from a chastened though more hopeful Godfrey. Love had conquered. What had passed between his father and the Donnithorpes the boy did not know. Of his father’s assumption of the part of indiscreet lover he had no suspicion. But his father had fascinated him, dominated his will, evoked in him a blind, unquestioning confidence, compelled from him a promise of implicit obedience. Of course there were conditions. He was to petition the War Office to be allowed to sacrifice his leave and start for France, at the earliest opportunity, the next day if possible. He was not to communicate with Lady Edna until his return to England, whenever that might be. He gave the latter undertaking readily, her lie rankling in his heart, her callous disregard of his honour monstrous in its incomprehensibility. Whatever might be his revulsion of feeling afterwards—and his clear young brain grappled with the possibility—whatever might be his unregenerate torment of longing, he accepted the condition as his punishment. She, so his father said, was bound by the same condition. . . . Baltazar stood by the door. “It’s all damned hard, old man, I know. But you’ll worry through. It’s the English way.” He walked out, humming “Tipperary” out of tune, the only modern air he knew, and ascended the stairs and thrust his head into the drawing-room. There, as he expected, he found a desolate Marcelle, who, throwing down the book which she was trying to read, jumped up and ran to the door. What had happened? Quong Ho had told her of Edgar Donnithorpe’s call. Godfrey was in black anger against her.