want. It pleases me to see a lot of you, and to spoil you and pay you
extravagant compliments about your good looks and your music, and to
imagine at times that I'm in danger of getting fond of you; I don't see
any harm in it, and I don't suppose Murrey will either--in fact, I
shouldn't be surprised if he takes rather a liking to you. No, it's the
general situation that will trouble and exasperate him; he's not had time
to get accustomed to the fait accompli like we have. It will break on
him with horrible suddenness."

"He was somewhere in Russia when the war broke out, wasn't he?" said
Ronnie.

"Somewhere in the wilds of Eastern Siberia, shooting and bird collecting,
miles away from a railway or telegraph line, and it was all over before
he knew anything about it; it didn't last very long, when you come to
think of it. He was due home somewhere about that time, and when the
weeks slipped by without my hearing from him, I quite thought he'd been
captured in the Baltic or somewhere on the way back. It turned out that
he was down with marsh fever in some out-of-the-way spot, and everything
was over and finished with before he got back to civilisation and
newspapers."

"It must have been a bit of a shock," said Ronnie, busy with a
well-devised salad; "still, I don't see why there should be domestic
storms when he comes back. You are hardly responsible for the
catastrophe that has happened."

"No," said Cicely, "but he'll come back naturally feeling sore and savage
with everything he sees around him, and he won't realise just at once
that we've been through all that ourselves, and have reached the stage of