"Just this once I think I can stretch a point and pardon you," she said. "But in future you must be provided with a man carrying a red flag." "It shall be done," he answered. "Only for absolute safety, I suggest the tee beside me." He looked at her tentatively. "Do you play the noble game yourself?" The mocking look returned to her eyes. "I don’t think that we have been introduced, have we?" she murmured. "An attempt at murder is not a bad introduction," he returned, with becoming gravity. "And, in addition, I can assure you that I know some very nice people. Two war knights—pickles and artificial legs—frequently ask me to dinner...." For a moment he was amazed at the look of weary contempt that flamed in her eyes. "They’re the only sort of people who can these days, aren’t they?" she said. "The rest of us just pick up the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table and wonder why. You’re a soldier, of course?" Hugh Ralton nodded gravely, and his eyes suddenly rested on the wedding-ring she wore. "And you?" he asked. "Are you one too?" "I don’t quite follow," she said, slowly. "My husband was killed on the Somme, as a matter of fact." "Ah!" The man’s voice seemed studiously non-committal. "That makes it all the more important, doesn’t it, that you should keep the flag flying ... and fight?" "What makes you think I’m not?" she demanded, staring at him defiantly. "And anyway, it’s no..." "Business of mine." He concluded the half-finished sentence with a slight smile. "I know it isn’t. Will you forgive me? Somehow I thought that you would understand." He took two or three steps towards her. "Somehow I think you do understand.... Don’t you?" The girl made no answer, but only stared with troubled eyes over the sea to where the low-lying spit of land which flanked Portsdown on the south merged into the grey mist. It all seemed so grey ... grey and lifeless. Then she heard him speaking again. "Which bunker did you say the ball was in?" "That one." Without turning her head, she pointed it out, and with a quick sideways look at her averted face, Hugh Ralton walked past her and retrieved his ball. "Would you care for a game to-morrow?" He was standing close behind her, and after a short pause she swung round and looked at him. "What did you mean," she asked, quietly, "about it being all the more important to go on fighting?" "One doesn’t want two people killed with the same bullet, that’s all," he answered. "It makes the damned Boche so pleased." "Is that the only reason?" She was looking at him anxiously, her hands thrust in the pockets of her jersey. "Why, no," Ralton said, gravely. "One always starts off with the lesser reason. The real, important thing is that you shouldn’t hurt the first casualty." "And you think he would know?" "Wouldn’t you hate it if he didn’t?"