"Jolly dress that for a fancy ball, and what a jolly scent it's got. It is that flower, isn't it? You look awfully well in it, Kate! In fact, you look wonderfully fit all round."
"So do you!" she said hurriedly, her hand going up to the henna blossom. There was a sudden quiver in her voice, a sudden fierce pain in her heart. "You--you look----"
"Oh! I," he replied carelessly, still with admiring eyes, "I'm as fit as a fiddle. I say! where did you get all those jewels? What a lot you have! They're awfully becoming."
"They are Mr. Greyman's," she said; "they belonged to his--to----" then she paused. But the contemptuously comprehending smile on her husband's face made her add quietly, "to a woman--a woman he loved very dearly, Herbert."
There was a moment or two of silence, and then Major Erlton went to the entrance, raised the curtain, and looked out. A flood of moonlight streamed into the tent.
"It's about time I was off," he said after a bit, and there was a queer constraint in his voice. Then he came over and stood by Kate again.
"It isn't any use talking over--over things to-night, Kate," he said quietly. "There's a lot to think of and I haven't thought of it at all. I never knew, you see--if this would happen. But I dare say you have; you were always a oner at thinking. So--so you had better do it for both of us. I don't care, now. It will be what you wish, of course."
"We will talk it over to-morrow," she said in a low voice. She would not look in his face. She knew she would find it soft with the memory held in that one word--now. Ah! how much easier it would have been if she had never come back! And yet she shrank from the same thought on his lips.
"There was always the chance of my getting potted," he said almost apologetically. "But I'm not. So--well! let's leave it for to-morrow."
"Yes," she replied steadily, "for to-morrow."