"Do you know," she said, "I can't picture you campaigning in France!"

"To tell you the truth I can't picture it myself," he confessed
frankly. "The stories I have heard with reference to the absence of
physical comforts are something appalling. By-the-by," he went on, as
though the idea had suddenly occurred to him, "I can't think how your
patient can rest, anyhow, after an operation, on beds like there are
on this steamer. I call it positively disgraceful of the company to
impose such mattresses upon their patrons. My bones positively ache
this morning."

"Mr. Phillips has his own mattress," she told him, "or rather one of
the hospital ones. He was carried straight into the ambulance from
the ward."

"Mr.--er--Phillips," Crawshay repeated. "Have I ever met him?"

"I should think not."

"He is, of course, a very great friend of yours?"

"I don't know why you should suppose that."

"Come, come," he remonstrated, "I suppose I am an infernally curious,
prying sort of chap, but when one thinks of you, a society belle of
America, you know, and, further, the patroness of that great
hospital, crossing the Atlantic yourself in charge of a favoured
patient, one can't help--can one?"