There—with the attempt to subdue the trembling flesh and defy brute insolence and tyranny—the resemblance between the two men’s cases ended. For the time being William ran no risk of a violent and bloody ending; there was no further need of an example and he had offended the conqueror only by his poor little presence. Further—though he expressed his enjoyment of it less noisily and emphatically than his three subordinates had done—the humour of his prisoner’s situation appealed to Heinz’s superior officer almost as much as it had appealed to Heinz himself. He grinned perceptibly as he questioned the couple in his somewhat halting English; chuckled audibly when they confirmed his subordinate’s statement as to their complete ignorance of the European upheaval; and when he had elicited the fact that the hapless pair had been spending their honeymoon in the secluded valleys of Ardennes he removed his cigar from his moustachioed lips that he might chuckle long and unhindered. "Honeymoon," he repeated, his stout shoulders trembling with merriment. "In a nice, quiet place, wiz no one to interrupt zee kissings. Never mind—you will have a very good honeymoon with us and you will very soon be able to go back to England. Just so soon as the Sherman Army shall have been there. You should be very pleased that you are safe with us: it is more dangerous to be in London." William, with his nerves tuned up to face a firing party, withered miserably under heavy jocularity. He knew instinctively that his life was saved to him; but the assurance of safety was conveyed in a jeer, and at the moment (so oddly are we made) the jeer hurt more than the assurance of safety relieved him. He had mastered his anguish and strung himself up—to be treated as a figure of fun; the spectacled clerk at the writing-table was laughing so heartily that he had to remove his glasses and wipe them before he continued his labours. William tingled all over with helpless rage as Griselda tingled beside him. But yesterday he would have told you loftily that both he and his wife were inured to public, above all to official, ridicule; but it is one thing to brave ridicule with an approving audience in the background, another to face it unapplauded, uncrowned with the halo of the martyr.... They reddened and quivered whilst incomprehensible witticisms passed between the captain and his clerk. It was an intense relief when a nod and a brief order signified that the jest was sufficiently enjoyed and their audience with the captain at an end. They were too thankful even to resent the roughness with which Heinz collared his man while his comrade collared Griselda. *CHAPTER IX*