Presently Fred Riversley wandered out and stood watching them, stolid and heavy as usual, but his nod to North held meaning, and a great content. North was beginning to like this rather dull young man in a way he would once have thought impossible. He had been the plainest, the least attractive, and the least interesting of the group of brilliant children who had grown up in such a bewilderingly sudden way, almost, it seemed, on the declaration of war, and of whom so few were left. North’s mind drifted back to those days which seemed so long ago, another lifetime, to those gay glad children who had centred round his friend and so been part of his own life. And then a sudden nostalgia seized him, a sick sense of the purposeless horror of life. And you cared—really cared—if you made a bad shot at croquet, or if your wife objected to your sucking oranges. Mansfield, who had faced death by torture minute after minute out there, was worried because he could not arrange the chairs at a tennis party. And those boys and the girl, little Sybil Rawson, were all broken up, smashed out of existence, finished. They had not even left any other boys and girls of their own behind; they were some of nature’s waste. He missed his shot, and Violet gave a cry of triumph. It gave the game into her hands. She went out with a few pretty finish shots. “Not up to your usual mark that, sir!” said Riversley. “No,” said North. “It was a rotten shot!” And he _did_ care. He was annoyed with himself. “Rotten!” he said, and played the stroke over again. “Absolutely unworthy!” laughed his daughter. She put out first one and then the other of her balls with deft precision and waved her mallet to an approaching car. “Here are the Condors,” she said. “And Condie himself! I haven’t seen him for ages, the old dear!” She skimmed the lawn like a bird towards the front door. Mansfield was tenderly assisting an enormously stout gentleman to get out of the car backwards. “Excellent, bombardier!” said the stout gentleman. “Excellent. You have let me down without a single twinge. Now they put my man into the motor transport. Most unfortunate for me. The knowledge of how to handle a live bomb would have been invaluable.” He heaved slowly round in time to receive Violet Riversley’s enthusiastic welcome. His face was very round and full, the features, in themselves good, partially buried in many rolls of flesh, the whole aspect one of benign good nature. Only an occasional penetrating flash from under his heavy eyelids revealed the keen intelligence which had given him no small reputation in the political world. “Ah, little Vi! It’s pleasant to see you again,” he said. “How are you, North?” His voice was soft and thick, but had the beauty of perfect pronunciation. It was the only sound ever known to check his wife’s amazing flow of conversation. She owned herself that it had been difficult, but she had recognized the necessity early in their married life.