LITMIR.BIZ

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honour doesn't tell you, sir," added Mrs. Duveen, "that he brought Michael in on his back with the bullets thick around him."

      "Oh! oh!" cried Don gaily. "So that's the story, is it! Well, never mind, Mrs. Duveen; it was all in the day's work. What the Sergeant did deserved the V.C., and he'd have had it if I could have got it for him. What I did was no more than the duty of a stretcher-bearer."

      Mrs. Duveen shook her head, smiling wanly, the thin hand pressed to her breast. "I'm sorry you couldn't meet Flamby, sir," she said. "She should have been home before this."

      "No matter," replied Don. "I shall look forward to meeting her on my next visit."

      They took their departure, Mrs. Duveen accompanying them to the gate and watching Don as long as he remained in sight.

      "Did you observe the drawings on the wall?" he asked Paul, as they pursued their way along Babylon Lane.

      "I did. They were original and seemed to be interesting."

      "Remarkably so; and they are the work of our wood nymph."

      "Really! Where can she have acquired her art?"

      "From her father, I gather. Paul, I am keenly disappointed to have missed Flamby. The child of such singularly ill-assorted parents could not well fail to be unusual. I wonder if the girl suspects that her father was not what he seemed? Mrs. Duveen has always taken the fact for granted that her husband was a nobleman in disguise! It may account for her adoration of a man who seems to have led her a hell of a life. I have placed in her hands a certain locket which Duveen wore attached to a chain about his neck; I believe that it contains evidence of his real identity, but he clearly intended his wife to remain in perpetual ignorance of this, for the locket is never to be opened except by Flamby, and only by Flamby on the day of her wedding. I fear this popular-novel theme will offend your æsthetic sensibilities, Paul!"

      "My dear fellow, I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that life is made up more of melodrama than of psychological hair-splitting and that the penmen dear to the servants' hall more truly portray it than Henry James ever hoped to do or Meredith attempted. The art of to-day is the art of deliberate avoidance of the violent, and many critics persist in confusing it with truth. There is nothing precious about selfish, covetous, lustful humanity; therefore, good literature creates a refined humanity of its own, which converses in polished periods and never comes to blows."

      "What of Madame Caligula? And what of the critics who hailed Francesca of the Lilies as a tragedy worthy to name with Othello!"

      "Primitive passions are acceptable if clothed in doublet and hose, Don. My quarrel with to-day is that it pretends to have lived them down."

      "Let us give credit where credit is due. Prussia has not hesitated to proclaim her sympathy with the primitive. Did you observe an eagle-crowned helmet above Mrs. Duveen's fireplace?"

      "Yes; you know its history?"

      "Some part of its history. It was worn by a huge Prussian officer, who, together with his staff, was surprised and captured during the operations of March 1st, 1916; a delightful little coup. I believe I told you that Sergeant Duveen had been degraded, but had afterwards recovered his stripes?"

      "You did, yes."

      "It was this incident which led to his losing them. He was taking particulars of rank and so forth of the prisoners, and this imposing fellow with the golden helmet stood in front of all the others, arms folded, head aloft, disdainfully surveying his surroundings. He spoke perfect English and when Duveen asked him his name and rank and requested him to hand over the sword he was wearing, he bluntly refused to have any dealings whatever with a 'damned common sergeant.' Those were his own words.

      "Duveen very patiently pointed out that he was merely performing a duty for which he had been detailed and added that he resented the Prussian's language and should have resented it from one of his own officers. He then repeated the request. The Prussian replied that if he had him in his own lines he would tie him to a gun and flog him to death.

      "Duveen stood up and walked around the empty case which was doing service as a table. He stepped up to take the sword which the other had refused to surrender; whereupon the Prussian very promptly and skilfully knocked him down. Immediately some of the boys made a rush, but Duveen, staggering to his feet, waved them back. He deliberately unbuttoned his tunic, took off his cap and unhitching his braces, fastened his belt around his waist. To everybody's surprise the lordly Prussian did likewise. A ring was formed and a fight began that would have brought in the roof of the National Sporting Club!

      "Feeling ran high against the Prussian, but he was a bigger man than Duveen and a magnificent boxer. Excited betting was in full swing when I appeared on the scene. Of course my duty was plain. But I had young Conroy with me and he pulled me aside before the men saw us.

      "'Five to one in fivers on the sergeant!' he said.

      "I declined the bet, for I knew something of Duveen's form; but I did not interrupt the fight! And, by gad! it was a splendid fight! It lasted for seventeen minutes without an interval, and Duveen could never have stayed another two, I'll swear, when the Prussian made the mistake of closing with him. I knew it was finished then. Duveen got in his pet hook with the right and fairly lifted his opponent out of the sentient world.

      "I felt like cheering; but before I could retire Duveen turned, a bloody sight, and looked at me, out of puffy eyes. He sprang to attention, and 'I am your prisoner, sir,' said he.

      "That left me no way out, and I had to put him under arrest. Just as he was staggering off between his guards the Prussian recovered consciousness and managed to get upon his feet. His gaze falling on Duveen, he held out one huge hand to him—"

      "Good! he was a sportsman after all!"

      "Duveen took it—and the Prussian, grasping that dangerous right of the sergeant's in his iron grip, struck him under the ear with his left and knocked him insensible across the improvised table!"

      Paul pulled up in the roadway, his dark eyes flashing: "The swine!" he exclaimed—"the—ee swine!"

      "I had all my work cut out then to keep the men off the fellow. But finally a car came for him he was the Grand Duke of Something or other—and he was driven back to the base. He had resumed his golden helmet, and he sat, in spite of his bloody face, scornfully glancing at the hostile group about the car, like a conquering pagan emperor. Then the car moved off out of the heap of rubbish, once a village, amid which the incident had taken place. At the same moment, a brick, accurately thrown, sent the golden helmet spinning into the road!

      "Search was made for it, but the helmet was never found. I don't know who threw the brick, Paul (Duveen was under arrest at the time), but that is the helmet above his widow's mantelpiece! The men who have witnessed incidents of this kind will no longer continue to believe in the veneer of modern life, for they will know that the true savage lies hidden somewhere underneath."

      They were come to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer. Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming in the sunlight. The remote strains of a military band were audible.

      "The Roman road," mused Don, "constructed in the misty unimaginable past, for war, and used by us to-day—for war. Oh, lud! in a week I shall be in the thick of it again. Babylon Hall? Who resides at that imposing mansion, Paul?"

      They stood before the open gates of a fine Georgian building, lying far back from the road amid neatly striped lawns and well-kept gardens.

      "The celebrated Jules Thessaly, I believe," replied Paul; "but I have never met him."

      "Jules Thessaly! Really? I met him only three months ago near Bethune (a neighbourhood which I always associate with Milady and the headsman in The Three Musketeers)."

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