He gathered roses for her, and did his utmost to please her.

But she seemed to him all the time like a little hovering elf--smiling and gay--but quite intangible.
* * * * * Dinner in the 'cottage' was short, but in Bridget's eyes perfect.
Personally, she was not enjoying herself very much, for she had made up her mind that she did not get on with military men, and that it was their fault, not hers; so that she sat often silent, a fact however unnoticed in the general clatter of the table.

She took it quite calmly, and was more than compensated for the lack of conversation by the whole spectacle of the Farrell wealth; the flowers, the silver, the costly accessories of all kinds, which even in war-time, and in a 'cottage,' seemed to be indispensable.

It would have been more amusing, no doubt, if it had been the big house and not the cottage.

Sometimes through the open windows and the trees, she caught sight of the great lighted pile a little way off, and found herself dreaming of what it would be to live there, and to command all that these people commanded.