"Which is why the man who is reputed to know no fear is so universally popular," said the Soldier. "If such a man exists, he is most certainly a fool." The door opened and their hostess put her head into the room. "You men have got to come and dance," she cried. "There’s no good looking at one another and hoping for bridge: you can have that afterwards." The strains of a gramophone came faintly from the drawing-room as they rose dutifully. "I cannot perpetrate these new atrocities, dear lady," remarked the Soldier, "but if anybody would like to have a barn dance, I shall be happy to do my best." "Sybil shall take you in hand, Sir John," she answered, leading the way across the hall. "By the way, young Captain Seymour, the V.C. flying-man, has come up. Such a nice boy—so modest and unassuming." As they entered the room a fresh one-step had just started, and for a while they stood watching. The two sons of the house, just home from Eton, were performing vigorously with two pretty girls from a neighbouring place; while Sybil, their sister, who was to take the General in hand, floated past in the arms of a keen-eyed, bronzed young man who had won the V.C. for a flying exploit that read like a fairy-tale. The other two couples were girls dancing together; while, seated on a sofa, knitting placidly, were two elderly ladies. "And where, Lady Vera," murmured the Actor to his hostess, "is our young friend Peter?" She frowned almost imperceptibly and looked away. "He disappeared after he left the dining-room," she remarked, shortly. "I suppose, in view of what occurred this afternoon, he prefers to be by himself." The Actor ran a delicate hand through his magnificent grey hair—it was a gesture for which he was famous—and regarded his hostess in surprise. "Even you, Lady Vera!" he remarked pensively. "I can understand these young girls blaming the boy; but for you—a woman of sense——" He shrugged his shoulders—another world-famed movement, feebly imitated by lesser lights. "I don’t think we will discuss the matter, Mr. Peering," she said, turning away a little abruptly. It had been a somewhat unpleasant incident at the time, and the unpleasantness was still apparently far from over. Madge Saunderson, one of the girls stopping in the house, had been the owner of a small dog of rat-like appearance and propensities, to which she had been devoted. She shared this devotion with no one, the animal being of the type that secretes itself under chairs and nips the ankle of the next person who unsuspectingly sits down. However, _De mortuis_ ... And since its violent death that afternoon, Toots—which was the animal’s name—had been invested with a halo. Its atrocious habits were forgotten: it lived in everyone’s memory as poor little Toots.