"Yes, your Lordship."
"I was sorry I couldn't tell you the exact hour. I didn't know it myself. I hope you didn't trouble to prepare lunch."
"It was no trouble, your Lordship."
"Then you've managed to get some one in the kitchen? They tell me that all the cooks have become bus-conductresses or lady-secretaries."
"I did, your Lordship. My sister—the one who lost her husband at Mons. I thought you wouldn't object——"
He cut her short. "Ann, you know I never object; you never need to go into details. Whatever you've done is right. From what I've seen already you've done splendidly."
Under his praise she flushed and became a little less the servant. "I was afraid you might think I'd taken too much upon myself, what with the flower-boxes and having the house repainted. I wanted to have things nice for your Lordship after——" She hesitated for a word, and then burst out, "After all the dirt and beastliness! Your Lordship ought never to have gone in the ranks, begging your pardon; you weren't fitted for it. You ought to have gone as a General. Then you wouldn't have come home with that poor leg and——" She saw him wince and changed the subject. "But about doing things without orders, I knew that if Braithwaite—if Braithwaite——" Her voice sagged and her eyes misted over. At last Tabs saw how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she wasn't occupied with being respectful. The sudden memory came back of intuitions he had had that she and his valet might one day marry. From time to time he had twitted them on their fondness, taking an idle pleasure in forwarding the match. And Braithwaite had kissed her before he marched away. Ridiculous to remember it now! It signified nothing. People in their station kissed when they felt kindly, and on that occasion they had had an epoch-making pretext.
Her eyes were searching his with a hungry wistfulness. "What I was meaning, your Lordship, was that if he had been spared, he'd have done things on his own and gone ahead, the same as he always did. So I, seeing as how he wasn't——"
Tabs touched her shoulder gently. "It's all right, Ann. I appreciate your motives. I'm glad you