But the satisfactoriness of the evening had suddenly ceased.  Scarcely had Resmith begun to expound the orders, and George to read the thrilling words, ‘Second Lieutenant G.E.  Cannon to ride with Captain Resmith,’ when the mess had impulsively decided to celebrate the last night in camp by a dinner at the hotel near the station, and George, fit for nothing more important, had been detailed to run off and arrange for the rich repast.  The bulk of the mess was late to arrive, and George spent the time in writing a descriptive and falsely gay letter on slips of yellow Army paper to Lois.  The dinner, with its facile laughter and equally facile cynicism, had bored him; for he had joined the Army in order to save an Empire and a world from being enslaved.  He had lain down in his truckle-bed and listened to the last echoing sounds in the too-resonant corridor of the hutments, and thought of the wisdom of Sir Isaac Davids, and of the peril to his wife, and of the peril to the earth, and of his own irremediable bondage to the military machine.  He, with all his consciousness of power, had been put to school again; deprived of the right to answer back, to argue, even to think.  If one set in authority said that black was white, his most sacred duty was to concur and believe.  And there was no escape....

And then, no sooner had he gone to sleep than it was bright day, and the faint, clear call of bugles had pierced the clouds of his depression and they had vanished!  Every moment of the early morning had been exquisite.  Although he had not been across a horse for months, he rode comfortably, and the animal was reliable.  Resmith in fact had had to warn him against fatiguing himself.  But he knew that he was incapable of fatigue.  The day’s trek was naught—­fifteen miles or less—­to Epsom Downs, at a walk!...  Lois?  He had expected a letter from ‘Nunks’ or his mother, but there was no letter, and no news was good news, at any rate with ‘Nunks’ in charge of communications.  Lois could not fail to be all right.  He recalled the wise generalization of ‘Nunks’ on that point ...  Breakfast was a paradisiacal meal.  He had never ‘fancied’ a meal so much.  And Resmith had greatly enheartened him by saying sternly:  “You’ve got exactly the right tone with the men.  Don’t you go trying to alter it.”  The general excitement was intense, and the solemn synchronizing of watches increased it further.  An orderly brought a newspaper, and nobody would do more than disdainfully glance at it.  The usual daily stuff about the war!...  Whereas Epsom Downs glittered in the imagination like a Canaan.  And it lay southward.  Probably they were not going to France, but probably they would have the honour of defending the coast against invasion.  George desired to master gunnery instantly, and Resmith soothed him with the assurance that he would soon be sent away on a gunnery course, which would give him beans.  And in the meantime George might whet his teeth on the detailed arrangements for feeding