charming daughter-in-law.  I loved to look upon Wellingsford as an open book.  Can you blame me for my resentment at coming across, so to speak, a couple of pages glued together?  The only logical inference from Betty’s remark was that Boyce had behaved abominably and even notoriously to a woman in Wellingsford.  To do him justice, I declare I had never heard his name associated with any woman or girl in the place save Betty herself.  I felt that, in some crooked fashion, or the other, I had been done out of my rights.

And there, placidly smoking his cigar and watching the wreaths of blue smoke with the air of an idle seraph contemplating a wisp of cirrus in Heaven’s firmament, sat the man who could have given me the word of the enigma.

He broke the silence by saying: 

“Have you ever seriously considered the real problems of the Balkans?”

Now what on earth had the Balkans to do with the thoughts that must have been rolling at the back of the man’s mind?  I was both disappointed and relieved.  I expected him to resume the personal talk, and I dreaded lest he should entrust me with embarrassing confidences.  After three strong whiskies and sodas a man is apt to relax hold of his discretion. ...  Anyhow, he jerked me back to my position of host.  I made some sort of polite reply.  He smiled.

“You, my dear Meredyth, like the rest of the country, are half asleep.  In a few months’ time you’ll get the awakening of your life.”

He began to discourse on the diplomatic situation.  Months afterwards I remembered what he had said that night and how accurate had been his forecast.  He talked brilliantly for over an hour, during which, keenly interested in his arguments, I lost the puzzle of the man in admiration of the fine soldier and clear and daring thinker.  It was only when he had gone that I began to worry again.

And before I went to sleep I had fresh cause for anxious speculation.

“Marigold,” said I, when he came in as usual to carry me to bed, “didn’t I tell you that Major Boyce particularly wanted no one to know that he was in the town?”

“Yes, sir,” said Marigold.  “I’ve told nobody.”

“And yet you showed him in without informing him that Mrs. Connor was here.  Really you ought to have had more tact.”

Marigold received his reprimand with the stolidity of the old soldier.  I have known men who have been informed that they would be court-martialled and most certainly shot, make the same reply.

“Very good, sir,” said he.

I softened.  I was not Marigold’s commanding officer, but his very grateful friend.  “You see,” said I, “they were engaged before Mrs. Connor married—­I needn’t tell you that; it was common knowledge—­ and so their sudden meeting was awkward.”

“Mrs. Marigold has already explained, sir,” said he.

I chuckled inwardly all the way to my bedroom.