“Then Helen's high spirits, I suppose, are only part of woman's natural inconsistency.--Philippa, dear!” “Yes?” “I am glad to be at home. I am glad to see you sitting there. I know you are nursing up something, some little thunderbolt to launch at me. Won't you launch it and let's get it over?” Philippa laid down the book which she had been reading, and turned to face her husband. He made a little grimace. “Don't look so severe,” he begged. “You frighten me before you begin.” “I'm sorry,” she said, “but my face probably reflects my feelings. I am hurt and grieved and disappointed in you, Henry.” “That's a good start, anyway,” he groaned. “We have been married six years,” Philippa went on, “and I admit at once that I have been very happy. Then the war came. You know quite well, Henry, that especially at that time I was very, very fond of you, yet it never occurred to me for a moment but that, like every other woman, I should have to lose my husband for a time.--Stop, please,” she insisted, as he showed signs of interrupting. “I know quite well that it was through my persuasions you retired so early, but in those days there was no thought of war, and I always had it in my mind that if trouble came you would find your way back to where you belonged.” “But, my dear child, that is all very well,” Sir Henry protested, “but it's not so easy to get back again. You know very well that I went up to the Admiralty and offered my services, directly the war started.” “Yes, and what happened?” Philippa demanded. “You were, in a measure, shelved. You were put on a list and told that you would hear from them--a sort of Micawber-like situation with which you were perfectly satisfied. Then you took that moor up in Scotland and disappeared for nearly six months.” “I was supplying the starving population with food,” he reminded her genially. “We sent about four hundred brace of grouse to market, not to speak of the salmon. We had some very fair golf, too, some of the time.” “Oh, I have not troubled to keep any exact account of your diversions!” Philippa said scornfully. “Sometimes,” she continued, “I wonder whether you are quite responsible, Henry. How you can even talk of these things when every man of your age and strength is fighting one way or another for his country, seems marvellous to me. Do you realise that we are fighting for our very existence? Do you realise that my own father, who is fifteen years older than you, is in the firing line? This is a small place, of course, but there isn't a man left in it of your age, with your physique, who has had the slightest experience in either service, who isn't doing something.” “I can't do more than send in applications,” he grumbled. “Be reasonable, my dear Philippa. It isn't the easiest thing in the world to find a job for a sailor who has been out of it as long as I have.”