“There!” said Sir William.  “We’re all as right as ninepence!  We’re all as right ninepence.  So there well leave it, before the Major has time to say he is twopence short.”  Laughing his strange old soundless laugh, Sir William rose and made a little bow.  “Come up and join the ladies in a minute or two,” he said.  Arthur opened the door for him and he left the room.

The four men were silent for a moment—­then the Colonel whipped up the decanter and filled his glass.  Then he stood up and clinked glasses with Aaron, like a real old sport.

“Luck to you,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Aaron.

“You’re going in the morning?” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Aaron.

“What train?” said Arthur.

“Eight-forty.”

“Oh—­then we shan’t see you again.  Well—­best of luck.”

“Best of luck—­” echoed the Colonel.

“Same to you,” said Aaron, and they all peered over their glasses and quite loved one another for a rosy minute.

“I should like to know, though,” said the hollow-cheeked young Major with the black flap over his eye, “whether you do really mean you are all right—­that it is all right with you—­or whether you only say so to get away from the responsibility.”

“I mean I don’t really care—­I don’t a damn—­let the devil take it all.”

“The devil doesn’t want it, either,” said the Major.

“Then let him leave it.  I don’t care one single little curse about it all.”

“Be damned.  What is there to care about?” said the Colonel.

“Ay, what?” said Aaron.

“It’s all the same, whether you care or don’t care.  So I say it’s much easier not to care,” said Arthur.

“Of course it is,” said the Colonel gaily.

“And I think so, too,” said Aaron.

“Right you are!  We’re all as right as ninepence—­what?  Good old sport!  Here’s yours!” cried the Colonel.

“We shall have to be going up,” said Arthur, wise in his generation.

As they went into the hall, Arthur suddenly put one arm round Aaron’s waist, and one arm round the Colonel’s, and the three did a sudden little barn-dance towards the stairs.  Arthur was feeling himself quite let loose again, back in his old regimental mess.

Approaching the foot of the stairs, he let go again.  He was in that rosy condition when united-we-stand.  But unfortunately it is a complicated job to climb the stairs in unison.  The whole lot tends to fall backwards.  Arthur, therefore, rosy, plump, looking so good to eat, stood still a moment in order to find his own neatly-slippered feet.  Having found them, he proceeded to put them carefully one before the other, and to his enchantment found that this procedure was carrying him magically up the stairs.  The Colonel, like a drowning man, clutched feebly for the straw of the great stair-rail—­and missed it.  He would have gone under, but that