“Darling!” she whispered in consternation, “don’t they give you anything in camp?”

“Sometimes,” he enunciated, chewing vigorously on the bread.  “We don’t get much of this, darling.  And the onions have all sprouted, and the potatoes are rotten.”

She regarded him for a moment, then laughed hysterically.

“I beg your pardon, Phil, but somehow this reminds me of our cook feeding her policeman:—­just for one tiny second, darling——­”

They abandoned any effort to control their laughter.  Ailsa had become transfigured into a deliciously mischievous and bewildering creature, brilliant of lip and cheek and eye, irresponsible, provoking, utterly without dignity or discipline.

She taunted him with his appetite, jeered at him for his recent and marvellous conversion to respectability, dared him to make love to her, provoked him at last to abandon his plate and rise and start toward her.  And, of course, she fled, crying in consternation:  “Hush, Philip!  You mustn’t make such a racket or they’ll put us both out!”—­keeping the table carefully between them, dodging every strategy of his, every endeavour to make her prisoner, quick, graceful, demoralising in her beauty and abandon.  They behaved like a pair of very badly brought up children, until she was in real terror of discovery.

“Dearest,” she pleaded, “if you will sit down and resume your gnawing on that crust, I’ll promise not to torment you. . . .  I will, really.  Besides, it’s within a few minutes of my tour of duty——­”

She stopped, petrified, as a volley of hoof-beats echoed outside, the clash of arms and accoutrements rang close by the porch.

“Phil!” she gasped.

And the door opened and Colonel Arran walked in.

There was a dreadful silence.  Arran stood face to face with Berkley, looked him squarely in the eye where he stood at salute.  Then, as though he had never before set eyes on him, Arran lifted two fingers to his visor mechanically, turned to Ailsa, uncovered, and held out both his hands.

“I had a few moments, Ailsa,” he said quietly.  “I hadn’t seen you for so long.  Are you well?”

She was almost too frightened to answer; Berkley stood like a statue, awaiting dismissal, and later the certain consequences of guard running.

And, aware of her fright, Arran turned quietly to Berkley: 

“Private Ormond,” he said, “there is a led-horse in my escort, in charge of Private Burgess.  It is the easier and—­safer route to camp.  You may retire.”

Berkley’s expression was undecipherable as he saluted, shot a glance at Ailsa, turned sharply, and departed.

“Colonel Arran,” she said miserably, “it was all my fault.  I am too ashamed to look at you.”

“Let me do what worrying is necessary,” he said quietly.  “I am—­not unaccustomed to it. . . .  I suppose he ran the guard.”