The committee sat on the first floor in the back drawing-room, whose furniture consisted of a deal table, Windsor chairs, a row of hat-pegs, a wooden box containing coal, half a poker, two unshaded lights; the walls, from which all the paper had been torn off, were decorated with lists of sub-committees, posters, and rows of figures scrawled here and there in pencil.  The room was divided from the main drawing-room by the usual folding-doors.  The smaller apartment had been chosen in the winter because it was somewhat easier to keep warm than the other one.  In the main drawing-room the honorary secretary camped himself at a desk near the fireplace.

When the clock struck, G.J., one of whose monastic weaknesses was a ritualistic regard for punctuality, was in his place at the head of the table, and the table well filled with members, for the honorary secretary’s harmless foible was known and admitted.  The table and the chairs, the scraping of the chair-legs on the bare floor, the agenda papers and the ornamentation thereof by absent-minded pens, were the same as in the committee’s youth.  But the personnel of the committee had greatly changed, and it was enlarged—­as its scope had been enlarged.  The two Lechford hospitals behind the French lines were now only a part of the committee’s responsibilities.  It had a special hospital in Paris, two convalescent homes in England, and an important medical unit somewhere in Italy.  Finance was becoming its chief anxiety, for the reason that, though soldiers had not abandoned in disgust the practice of being wounded, philanthropists were unquestionably showing signs of fatigue.  It had collected money by postal appeals, by advertisements, by selling flags, by competing with drapers’ shops, by intimidation, by ruse and guile, and by all the other recognised methods.  Of late it had depended largely upon the very wealthy, and, to a less extent, upon G.J., who having gradually constituted the committee his hobby, had contributed some thousands of pounds from his share of the magic profits of the Reveille Company.  Everybody was aware of the immense importance of G.J.’s help.  G.J. never showed it in his demeanour, but the others continually showed it in theirs.  He had acquired authority.  He had also acquired the sure manner of one accustomed to preside.

“Before we begin on the agenda,” he said—­and as he spoke a late member crept apologetically in and tiptoed to the heavily charged hat-pegs—­“I would like to mention about Miss Trewas.  Some of you know that through an admirable but somewhat disordered sense of patriotism she has left us at a moment’s notice.  I am glad to say that my friend Mrs. Carlos Smith, who, I may tell you, has had a very considerable experience of organisation, has very kindly agreed, subject of course to the approval of the committee, to step temporarily into the breach.  She will be an honorary worker, like all of us here, and I am sure that the committee will feel as grateful to her as I do.”