'How do you think Harry is looking?' she said. 'You probably know better than I do, nowadays.'

I said I thought he seemed pretty fit, considering all things.

'Do you think he'll have to go out again?' she asked. 'I don't think he ought to—but they seem so short of men still. He's not really strong, you know.'

So she knew nothing about the 'job'; and this put me in a hole. For if I told her about it, and he did not take it, but went out again, the knowledge would be a standing torture to her. On the other hand, I wanted him to take it, I thought he ought to—and if she knew about it she might be able to make him. Wives can do a great deal in that way. But that would be disloyal to Harry....

Well, I temporized with vague answers while I wrestled with this problem, and she told me more about Harry. 'You know, he has the most terrible dreams ... wakes up screaming at night, and quite frightens me. And I don't think they ought to be allowed to go out again when they're like that.... I don't want him to go out again.... At least,' she added half-heartedly (as a kind of concession to convention), 'if it's his duty, of course....' Then, defiantly, 'No, I don't want him to go ... anyhow ... I think he's done his bit ... hasn't he, Mr. Benson?'

'He has, indeed,' I said, with sincerity at last.

'Well, you have some influence with him. Can't you——'

But then Harry came in, and I had lost my chance. I have noticed that while on the stage, conversations which must necessarily be private are invariably concluded without interruption, in private life, and especially private houses, are always interrupted long before the end.

Mrs. Harry went to the piano, and Harry and I sat down to smoke; and since it was the last night Harry was allowed to smoke his pipe. The way Mrs. Harry said that nearly made me weep.

So I sat there and watched Harry, and his wife played and played—soft, melancholy, homesick things (Chopin, I think), that leagued with the wine and the warm fire and the deep chairs in an exquisite conspiracy of repose. She played for a long time, but I saw that she too was watching. And the fancy came to me that she was fighting for Harry, fighting, perhaps unconsciously, that vague danger she had seen at dinner, when it had beaten her ... fighting it with this music that made war seem so distant and home so lovable....