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"WHY so pensive?"

I paused on my way across the crowded restaurant and found myself looking into the grey, laughing eyes of Beryl Travers. She and her large, lazy-looking husband Billy were just finishing their dinner, and the smoke of their cigarettes drifted slowly up into the general blue haze of the room.

"Hallo, people!" I murmured. "You both of you look horribly overfed and pleased with yourselves. Billy—you're getting fat."

"So much warmer, old bean," he answered. "And with tailors what they are these days..."

"Sit down and have a cup of coffee, Peter." Beryl pointed to a third chair, and I did as she told me. What matter that my intention a few moments previously had been to join a pal at the other end of the room: I generally did what Beryl told me. The fact that in years gone by I had repeatedly asked her to consent—theoretically, at any rate—to do as I told her (obey seemed a ridiculously archaic word), and that she, as repeatedly, had declined with thanks, had never altered our friendship. And she still gave me orders with that calm assumption of authority which she reserved exclusively for the not very small but extremely select band who were in like case to myself.

"Wake up, Billy, you lazy blighter," she remarked to her husband, "and order the gentleman some brandy. Your manners get worse daily."

With a grunt he extended a long arm and seized a passing waiter, while Beryl turned to me again.

"Why haven't I seen you, Peter?" she demanded. "Where have you been?"

"I've been in Peru," I answered blandly, stirring my coffee. "I was under the impression that I had written you a letter from Lima, but doubtless the fact slipped your memory."

"I never got it, Peter," she said decidedly. "Then how the deuce did the youngster get that Peruvian stamp a few months ago?" asked her husband slyly. "That makes us all square, old thing. Don't you get gay with your husband's manners again."

"You are the most tactless man I ever met," said Beryl, laughing in spite of herself. "Of course, I remember now, Peter. Did you have a good time?"

"So so." I passed my open cigarette case to her across the table. "How is Jack?"

"Fit as a colt," answered Billy. "Bursting his skin with condition. And growing more like dear old John every day."

For a moment his eyes met Beryl's with a tender gleam in them, and I glanced away. Never having undertaken the proposition myself of marrying at all, much less a widow, I am not in a position to advance any opinion on the matter. But to the looker-on in such things it might seem as if there must be, at times, some slight feeling of constraint—a tendency, perhaps, to involuntary contrast, which only a very real give and take on each side would smooth over. Especially when there is a youngster in the house "growing more like dear old John every day." Especially, too, when John Manley had been one of Billy Travers's greatest friends.... Personally, I can't help thinking that I should prefer not to have known the dear departed. And yet I know perfectly well that should anything happen to Billy—which Heaven forbid—my intimate friendship with him would not restrain me from yet another attempt.

But as I say, it's all theory in nay case—and probably wrong. Certain it is that it would be well-nigh impossible to conceive of two more ideal marriages than Beryl's. Before John Manley paid the big price in April, 1918, during the German drive on the Lys, Beryl and he were utterly happy. Jack was two years odd: everything was as perfect as things may be in a time when men are up and doing and women sit and wait. And then had come the news that had turned Heaven into Hell.... There were not very many details, though after a while Beryl had tried to find out a little more fully. She wrote to me, I remember, but I was down in the Somme area, and could find out nothing. Some months afterwards I met his battalion resting, and made inquiries, but only the Quartermaster remained of the crowd who had been with them when John was killed. And he had been with the transport somewhere up by the Mont des Cats when it happened....

"The C.O. was blown to pieces, sir," he said to "The battalion had a fearful time, and the C.O. was in some estaminet, I believe—his temporary headquarters. Down Meteren way...." I nodded; in earlier days I had known Bailleul and Meteren well. "Apparently the shell burst in the room, and blew him and the adjutant and one of the company commanders to pieces.... In fact, the only thing in the room that wasn't blown to pieces was one of those penny-in-the-slot automatic pianos."

And with such meagre information, Beryl had had to be content. For many months it had been only the sad-eyed ghost of the Beryl I knew, who went about mechanically, living only for Jack then, because youth is youth and time is a merciful healer, Billy Travers got his reward. I had hoped that perhaps—well, nothing can stop a man hoping anyway—but when the hopes went west once more, I accompanied them—to Peru. Billy is a peerless fellow, one of the salt of the earth, and I'm not at all certain that I'm a marrying man—not really....

"What are you going to do now, Peter?" demanded Beryl, breaking the silence.

"You'll laugh when I tell you," I answered. "I frequently laugh myself. I'm taking the car over to France, and I'm going to have a solitary ramble over the battlefields."

"Ramble over the battlefields," Billy blinked at me speechlessly. "My dear old boy—my very dear old boy.... What under the sun are you going to do that for? Don't you know that that portion of the battle area which is not covered with vast dumps of mouldering sandbags and rusty traction engines, it completely obscured from view by hordes of personally conducted tourists?"

"It may be all you say, and more," I laughed. "Nevertheless, I'm going. And if the weather is not too utterly foul I shall sleep in the car."

Shaking his head sadly Billy rose.

"Excuse me a moment, darling. I see young Summers over there. Restore him to sanity if you can; and, anyway, get him to promise he won't go near that pub out by Doullens."

With a grin he sauntered away, leaving Beryl staring at me thoughtfully.

"I wish I could come, Peter," she said, at length.

"Why don't you?" I cried eagerly. "There's room in the car for all of us."

But she only shook her head with a ghost of a smile. "I meant with you alone, Peter. Somehow I couldn't go with Billy.... He's suggested it two or three times: he thought I'd like to see where John was killed.... But I couldn't—not with him. And since unkind people might say something if I went with you, I'm afraid I shan't be able to go at all."

Idly she traced a pattern on the cloth, and it being, as I said before, all theory on my part, I decided that silence was the wisest course.

"Will you be going near Meteren?" she asked presently.

"I expect so," I said. "I'll make a point of it if you like."

Again she gave the ghost of a smile.

"You might take a photograph, Peter, if you can find the house.... And perhaps you might discover something.... There were a few civilians still left there when it happened, you know."

"I'll see if I can," I said quickly.

Suddenly she leaned forward, her right fist clenched, rolling it round and round in the palm of her left hand.

"Do you remember that trick of his, Peter, whenever he was excited?" she asked me quickly. "Can't you see John doing it now?"

"I can," I answered, pressing out nay cigarette.

"Quite clearly. Dear old chap! But you're happy, Beryl—quite, quite happy, aren't you? Tell me that, my dear."

"Quite, quite happy, mon ami." She nodded her head slowly. "Quite, quite happy. Only... sometimes I feel, that—well, that I'd give anything in the world just to know how he died—how John died. My John.... "

With a smile she looked up as Billy came back. "Ready, old boy?"

"Ready, aye, ready! Have you cured him?"

"No," she answered. "Peter always was pigheaded."

Just for a moment our eyes met. "Always," I affirmed, as I followed them out of the restaurant.