"That precious creature, Johnnie. Too guileless for words, my dear; but if there's one thing I do understand, inside out and upside down, it's men. I should have made a _perfect_ mother--young things adore me. Look at my sweet Puffles! But I'm _miserable_ about John, who really has a perfect passion for me, dear lad. Lewis always says that all the boys of his regiment go through it, just like measles." Joanna, who had heard this quotation before, ruthlessly disregarded it. "What is happening to John?" "My dear, do you mean to tell me you haven't seen it? But of course you haven't, at such a time. What a brute I am! Forgive me, Joanna, but you seem so _utterly_ unlike a widow. I can hardly realize it. But, of course, that little secretary creature--she's had her eye on him all along." "I suppose, Lesbia, that you don't mean my poor old Bruce, who's been with me almost ever since John was born?" Lesbia uttered a screech between laughter and reproach. "What an absurdity! Of course I mean the little Canteen girl--Jones, or whatever her name is. My dear, will you believe me when I tell you that when that poor innocent boy drove us up here just now and followed me into the hall, there she was, actually waiting to pounce upon him, sitting over the fire?" "I can believe you quite easily," said Joanna, "all but the pouncing. We none of us knew that John was going to drive you over, so she couldn't have been waiting." "Blind, reckless one!" cried Lesbia excitedly. "I can only tell you that ever since those evenings at the Canteen I've seen what was coming. Do you suppose that a young man wipes up dripping wet mugs for nothing? Besides, Joanna, look at the air-raid! Of course, my poor dear, I know that just at that time you were thinking of something altogether different, but _I_ was there, if you remember." "I remember hearing about it," Joanna admitted, with a vivid recollection of Mrs. Willoughby's spirited behaviour on the occasion in question having been described in unflattering terms by Captain Trevellyan. "My dear, after we'd all dispersed and the whole thing was over, that wretched girl lured him back into the basement, under pretext of fainting or something, and pretended to have hysterics on account of the fright she'd had. And I assure you that she hadn't seen anything at all of the raid, because she was the very first person to make a bolt for downstairs. In fact," said Mrs. Willoughby modestly, "really, for one moment there might have been a panic, if I hadn't _dashed_ into the middle of the hall and called out that we were all Englishwomen and not afraid of anything. And _after_ all that, the miserable girl goes and faints away in his hands!" "I did hear something about it--in fact, she told me herself, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as that, Lesbia. And his coming back and finding her was pure chance. I think it was the last thing she wanted."