'Where are you lunching?'
'At Brooks', with my father.'
'Oh, then I'll walk there with you.'
They struck across the park, and talk fell on a recent small set-back which had happened to a regiment with which they were both well acquainted.
Chicksands shrugged his shoulders.
'I've heard some details at the War Office. Just ten minutes' rot! The Colonel stopped it with his revolver. Most of them splendid fellows. Two young subs gave way under a terrific shelling and their men with them. And in ten minutes they were all rushing forward again, straight through the barrage—and the two lieutenants were killed.'
'My God!—lucky fellows!' cried Mannering, under his breath, with a passion and suddenness that struck astonishment into his companion.
'Well, yes,' said Arthur, 'in a sense—but—nothing would have happened to them. They had wiped it out.'
Mannering shook his head. Then with a great and evident effort he changed the conversation.
'You know Pamela's in town?'