"I'm not," Perowne said, "going to Lady Sachse's. Why, he is going to be one of the principal witnesses to sign the marriage contract. And Old Campion and all the rest of the staff are going to be there. . . . You don't catch me. . . . An unexpected prior engagement is my line. No fear."
"You'll come with me, my little man," Sylvia said, "if you ever want to bask in my smile again. . . . I'm not going to Lady Sachse's alone, looking as if I couldn't catch a man to escort me, under the eyes of half the French house of peers. . . . If they've got a house of peers! . . . You don't catch me. . . . No fear!" she mimicked his creaky voice. "You can go away as soon as you've shown yourself as my escort. . . ."
"But, good God!" Perowne cried out, "that's just what I mustn't do. Campion said that if he heard any more of my being seen about with you he would have me sent back to my beastly regiment. And my beastly regiment is in the trenches. . . . You don't see me in the trenches, do you?"
"I'd rather see you there than in my own room," Sylvia said. "Any day!"
"Ah, there you are!" Perowne exclaimed with animation. "What guarantee have I that if I do what you want I shall bask in your smile as you call it? I've got myself into a most awful hole, bringing you here without any papers. You never told me you hadn't any papers. General O'Hara, the P.M., has raised a most awful strafe about it. . . . And what have I got for it? . . . Not the ghost of a smile. . . . And you should see old O'Hara's purple face! . . . Someone woke him from his afternoon nap to report to him about your heinous case and he hasn't recovered from the indigestion yet. . . . Besides, he hates Tietjens . . . Tietjens is always chipping away at his military police . . . O'Hara's lambs. . . ."
Sylvia was not listening, but she was smiling a slow smile at an inward thought. It maddened him.
"What's your game?" he exclaimed. "Hell and hounds, what's your game? . . . You can't have come here to see . . . him. You don't come here to see me, as far as I can see. Well then . . ."
Sylvia looked round at him with all her eyes, wide open as if she had just awakened from a deep sleep.
"I didn't know I was coming," she said. "It came into my head to come suddenly. Ten minutes before I started. And I came. I didn't know papers were wanted. I suppose I could have got them if I had wanted them. . . . You never asked me if I had any papers. You just froze on to me and had me into your special carriage. ... I didn't know you were coming."
That seemed to Perowne the last insult. He exclaimed: