wallowing no end in the alleged delights of civilization. I reported
myself, and all seemed well. I took a room at Shepheard's where you and
I had arranged to meet, and when I'd scrubbed, I strolled over to the
Turf Club to see what the gay world would have to say to a fellow in
disgrace."

"Only silly asses swallowed that newspaper spoof! Every one in London
who knows anything about you was betting his boots that the story had
been spread on purpose to save our face with Turkey." I couldn't resist
interrupting his narrative to this extent. But Anthony merely smiled,
and watched a long-lived smokering settle like a halo over the head of
an Arab at the nearest table. He was not giving away official secrets,
but I was sure and always had been sure that he was a martyr, not a
rebel, in the matter of the Balkan incident, just closed. What the
public were led to suppose was this: that Captain Fenton had asked for
two months' leave from regimental duty at Khartum, in order to spend
the time with a relative who was seriously ill in Constantinople. That
instead of remaining at his relative's bedside, he had used his leave
for a dash to the Balkans. That this indiscretion might have been kept
a secret had he not capped it with another: a flight with a Greek
officer in an army aeroplane which had ended by crashing down in the
midst of a Turkish encampment.

What I and friends who knew him best supposed, was that the "leave" had
been a pretext--that Fenton had been sent on a secret mission of some
sort--and that he was bound to take the blame if anything went wrong.
Aeroplanes have the habits of other fierce, untamed animals: they won't
always obey their trainers. Thus Anthony and his plan had both been
upset. (Or had it really been premeditated that he should fall into
that camp?) The remainder of his "leave" was cancelled, in punishment,