not go about in private life fondling a trophy reeking with the blood of his enemies.  It is the trait of a savage.  That truculent knob and that truculent bull-neck correlated themselves most horribly in my mind.  And again, with a shiver, I had the haunting flash of a vision of him, out of the tail of my eye, standing rigid and gaping between the two cars, while my rugged old Marigold, in a businesslike, old-soldier sort of way, without thought of danger or death, was swaying at the head of the runaway horse.

Presently he turned, and his brows were set above unfathomable hard eyes.  The short-cropped moustache could not hide the curious twitch of the lips which I had seen once before.  It was obvious that these few minutes of silence had been spent in deep thought and had resulted in a decision.  A different being from the gay, successful soldier who had come in to announce his honours confronted me.  He threw down cap and stick and passed his hand over his crisp brown hair.

“I don’t know whether you’re a friend of mine or not,” he said, hands on hips and gaitered legs slightly apart.  “I’ve never been able to make out.  All through our intercourse, in spite of your courtesy and hospitality, there has been some sort of reservation on your part.”

“If that is so,” said I, diplomatically, “it is because of the defects of my national quality.”

“That’s possibly what I’ve felt,” said he.  “But it doesn’t matter a damn with regard to what I want to say.  It’s a question not of your feelings towards me, but my feelings towards you.  I don’t want to make polite speeches—­but you’re a man whom I have every reason to honour and trust.  And unlike all my other brother-officers, you have no reason to be jealous—­”

“My dear fellow,” I interrupted, “what’s all this about?  Why jealousy?”

“You know what a pot-hunter is in athletics?  A chap that is simply out for prizes?  Well, that’s what a lot of them think of me.  That I’m just out to get orders and medals and distinctions and so forth.”

“That’s nonsense,” said I.  “I happen to know.  Your reputation in the brigade is unassailable.”

“In the way of my having done what I’m credited with, it is,” he answered.  “But all the same, they’re right.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What I say.  They’re right.  I’m out for everything I can get.  Now I’m out for a V.C.  I see you think it abominable.  That’s because you don’t understand.  No one but I myself could understand.  I feel I owe it to myself.”  He looked at me for a second or two and then broke into a sardonic sort of laugh.  “I suppose you think me a conceited ass,” he continued.  “Why should Leonard Boyce be such a vastly important person?  It isn’t that, I assure you.”

I lit a cigarette, having waved an invitation to join me, which with a nod he refused.

“What is it, then?”

“Has it ever struck you that often a man’s most merciless creditor is himself?”