She arrived about half-past eight, and he received her in the drawing-room. She wore a simple, semi-evening old black dress into which she had changed before her quiet dinner with her friend, a long pre-war confection, a favourite of Godfrey’s, moulding her, as he said, in soldierly daring, like Juno. Her thick brown hair crowned her gloriously. Rest had restored her to health, and in spite of the anxiety in her eyes, she appeared to Baltazar in the ripe fullness of her beauty. He strode to meet her, with his usual gesture of outstretched hands, strong, confident, admiring, smiling. Yet never did she appear more desirable, or more remote from his desires. “What is the meaning of it—your resignation? I thought it was the one thing in life you were working for.” “I find,” said he, “I can serve my country better in other ways.” She put a hand to a puzzled forehead. “How?” He looked steadily into her eyes. What was the use of beating the air with idle words? She would have to know the truth sooner or later. “By going to China.” She stared at him open-mouthed. “China?” “Why not?” He stood, his hands deep in his dinner-jacket pockets, balancing himself alternately on toes and heels, with the air of a conqueror. “I know more about inner China, I suppose, than any man living. I go out with a free hand to pull two or three million people together and establish a wise government and exterminate the German. Hundreds of men can do my job in England. But those who can do it in China may be counted on the fingers of a mutilated hand.” “It’s all so sudden.” “I’m a sudden sort of fellow, as you ought to know,” he laughed. “But you always said you hated the place—would rather die than go back.” “In these days you’ve got to do things you hate—for the good of your country.” She sat down, feeling stupefied by his news. She asked: “How long will you be away?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly years. Who knows?” “And when do you start?” “As soon as I can wind up here. Say in a fortnight’s time.” She shook her head and looked at the floor, making little hopeless gestures with her fingers. “You see, my dear,” said he, “except my own personal ambitions, which I have scrapped for the time, there’s nothing very much to keep me here. I’ve done my duty by Quong Ho. He’s on the road to fame at Cambridge. Godfrey’s settled in France till the end of the war. And you—well, my dear,” he smiled, “we won’t lose touch with each other for another twenty years.” “No, of course not,” she said in a queer voice. “We’ll—we’ll write to each other.” She raised her eyes to his timidly. “Won’t you be rather lonely out there, without us?”