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Meanwhile the Hawk had refilled his glass from the decanter before him.

“Gave ’em all a shock”, he mused. “Do ’em good. Won’t do me any good, though. Not if the powers that be get to hear of it. Hidebound lot. Snooker me for my general-ship if they possibly can. Well, let ’em, if they want to be such fools. Thank the lord, I’ve plenty of money without my pension.

“And”—added the secret musings of Colonel Sir Guy Wethered—“a lovely young wife.”

For a second, his thoughts switched to his wife. For the fraction of a second, the lids snapped down over his fierce eyes as he let imagination visualise her. Then the eyes were wide open again, flashing more glances up and down and all about this high cream and gold room.

A long time—a hell of a long time—since he had first drunk port in this room. These walls had been dark red then; and those two pictures unpainted.

He could remember the hanging of both those pictures—Edward the Seventh, his youth’s idol; and George the Fifth, by Oswald Birley. A great man—though one hadn’t realised it at the outset—King George.

Thought diffused, as the senior major on his left—Dallingford of the Horse Gunners—spoke.

“Funeral go off all right?” he asked—there had never been much reverence about Dallingford. “I rather gathered from this morning’s paper that the staff work wasn’t quite up to standard.”

“The cheap press”, ejaculated the Hawk, “is the curse of this country. If I had my way with some of ’em ...”

He elaborated. The lieutenant-colonel of a Medium Brigade, seated on his right—Gilbert Murchison—broke in sombrely, “The old monarch did more for this country and the Empire than most people realise. I wish he hadn’t gone”.

“We’ve all got to go sooner or later.” Dallingford spoke. “Edward P’ll be just as good a man as his father, once he settles himself in the saddle.”

“Let’s hope so”, said Murchison; and broke off, while the Hawk brooded, “I ought to stop this. But I won’t. I’ll lead ’em on a bit.”

Aloud he said, lowering his voice, “You sound a bit doubtful?”

“I am—in a way.” Murchison’s voice was equally low. “I can’t help wishing he were married.”

“And you a woman-hater”, put in Dallingford.

“A king isn’t like an ordinary man. Besides——”

But there again Murchison broke off; and switched the conversation, not without a certain adroitness, to:

“By the way, I haven’t congratulated you on your new appointment yet, sir. When do you take over?”

“Next week, I believe.”

“I bet you’re glad to be back from India. How’s our friend the Fakir of Ipi?”

“We’d have had him scuppered, if the lord high panjandrum had only taken my advice. But he got the wind up. Not that I blame him. You know what our politicians are.”

Hawk Wethered elaborated once more. Listening, Dallingford had a twenty-year-old memory of him, speaking other words at a brigade conference.

“I’m afraid I don’t agree with you, sir”, said the Hawk in that memory. “If the Huns really mean business, they’ll be through our support line before you can say Lloyd George, and we’ll be damn lucky if we manage to save Amiens, let alone that advanced section of mine.”

Yet the Hawk had obeyed orders—he himself helping to limber up one gun of that needlessly exposed section, and to keep the other in action, over open sights, till the team was away ...

“Ought to have got something better than a D.S.O. for that”, mused Dallingford. “Ought to have been a brigadier then. Grand man to go tiger shooting with. Too much of a tiger himself though. Always used to be snapping and snarling and telling everybody where they got off, generals included. Doesn’t seem any tamer than he used to be either. Not mellowing well.”

Presently, at a pause in the monologue, he managed to suggest, “How about making a move, sir? Some of these subalterns have quite a lot of evening work to do”.

Colonel Sir Guy Wethered fished out his heavy gold watch.

“Serve ’em right”, he said; but rose.