Our hosts, the Verity-Stewarts, were pleasant people, old friends of mine,
inhabiting a Somerset manor-house which had belonged to their family since
the days of Charles the Second. They were proud of their descent; the
Stewart being hyphenated to the first name by a genealogically enthusiastic
Verity of a hundred years ago; but the alternative to their motto suggested
by the son of the house, Captain Charles Verity-Stewart, "The King can do
no wrong," found no favour in the eyes of his parents, who had lived remote
from the democratic humour of the officers of the New Army.

It was to this irreverent Cavalier, convalescent at home from a machine-gun
bullet through his shoulder, and hero-worshipper of his Colonel, that
Andrew Lackaday owed his shy appearance at Mansfield Court. He was proud of
the boy, a gallant and efficient soldier; Lady Verity-Stewart had couched
her invitation in such cordial terms that a refusal would have been
curmudgeonly; and the Colonel was heartily tired of spending his hard-won
leave horribly alone in London.

Perhaps I may seem to be explaining that which needs no explanation. It is
not so. In England Colonel Lackaday found himself in the position of many
an officer from the Dominions overseas. He had barely an acquaintance.
Hitherto his leave had been spent in France. But one does not take a
holiday in France when the War Officer commands attention at Whitehall. He
was very glad to go to the War Office, suspecting the agreeable issue of
his visit. Yet all the same he was a stranger in a strange land, living
on the sawdust and warmed-up soda-water of unutterable boredom. He had
spent--so he said--his happiest hours in London, at the Holborn Empire.
Three evenings had he devoted to its excellent but not soul-enthralling