But I don't see why." The general smiled, but with a kind of tremulous eagerness which might have been pathetic to any one who liked him.

"Do you know this is almost the first time I have spoken alone with you ?" "Really, I hadn't noticed," said Mrs.Adding.
General Triscoe laughed in rather a ghastly way.

"Well, that's encouraging, at least, to a man who's had his doubts whether it wasn't intended." "Intended?
By whom?
What do you mean, General Triscoe?
Why in the world shouldn't you have spoken alone with me before ?" He was not, with all his eagerness, ready to say, and while she smiled pleasantly she had the look in her eyes of being brought to bay and being prepared, if it must come to that, to have the worst over, then and there.

She was not half his age, but he was aware of her having no respect for his years; compared with her average American past as he understood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in the least awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behave like a coward.

He was in a false position, and if he had any one but himself to blame he had not her.