“Dear old mother,” said he, “you keep this room like an oven.”

“It is you who have got so excited talking, dear,” said Mrs. Boyce.  “I’m sure it can’t be good for your heart.  It is just the same with me.  I remember I had to speak quite severely to Mary a week—­no, to-day’s Tuesday—­ten days ago, and I had dreadful palpitations afterwards and broke out into a profuse perspiration and had to send for Doctor Miles.”

“Now, that’s funny,” said I.  “When I’m excited about anything I grow quite cold.”

Boyce lit a cigarette and laughed.  “I don’t see where the excitement in the present case comes in.  Mother started an interesting hare, and I followed it up.  Anyhow—­“he threw himself on the sofa, blew a kiss to his mother in the most charming way in the world, and smiled on me—­“anyhow, to see you two in this dearest bit of dear old England is like a dream.  And I’m not going to think of the waking up.  I want all the cushions and the lavender and the neat maid’s caps and aprons—­I said to Mary this morning when she drew my curtains:  ’Stay just there and let me look at you so that I can realise I’m at home and not in my little grey trench in West Flanders’—­she got red and no doubt thought me a lunatic and felt inclined to squawk—­but she stayed and looked jolly pretty and refreshing—­only for a minute or two, after which I dismissed her—­yes, my dears, I want everything that the old life means, the white table linen, the spring flowers, the scent of the air which has never known the taint of death, and all that this beautiful mother of England, with her knitting needles, stands for.  I want to have a debauch of sweet and beautiful things.”

“As far as I can give them you shall have them.  My dear—­” she dropped her knitting in her lap and looked over at him tragically —­“I quite forgot to ask.  Did Mary put bath-salts, as I ordered, into your bath this morning?”

Leonard threw away his cigarette and slapped his leg.

“By George!” he cried.  “That explains it.  I was wondering where the Dickens that smell of ammonia came from.”

“If you use it every day it makes your skin so nice and soft,” remarked Mrs. Boyce.

He laughed, and made the obvious jest on the use of bath-salts in the trenches.

“I wonder, mother, whether you have any idea of what trenches and dug-outs look like.”

He told her, very picturesquely, and went on to a general sketch of life at the front.  He entertained me with interesting talk for the rest of my visit.  I have already said that he was a man of great personal charm.

He accompanied me to the car and saw me comfortably tucked in.

“You won’t give me away, will you?” he said, shaking hands.

“How?” I asked.

“By telling any one I’m here.”

I promised and drove off.  Marigold, full of the tea that is given to a guest, strove cheerfully to engage me in conversation.  I hate to snub Marigold, excellent and devoted fellow, so I let him talk; but my mind was occupied with worrying problems.