"I had all my work cut out then to keep the men off the fellow. But finally a car came for him he was the Grand Duke of Something or other—and he was driven back to the base. He had resumed his golden helmet, and he sat, in spite of his bloody face, scornfully glancing at the hostile group about the car, like a conquering pagan emperor. Then the car moved off out of the heap of rubbish, once a village, amid which the incident had taken place. At the same moment, a brick, accurately thrown, sent the golden helmet spinning into the road!
"Search was made for it, but the helmet was never found. I don't know who threw the brick, Paul (Duveen was under arrest at the time), but that is the helmet above his widow's mantelpiece! The men who have witnessed incidents of this kind will no longer continue to believe in the veneer of modern life, for they will know that the true savage lies hidden somewhere underneath."
They were come to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer. Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming in the sunlight. The remote strains of a military band were audible.
"The Roman road," mused Don, "constructed in the misty unimaginable past, for war, and used by us to-day—for war. Oh, lud! in a week I shall be in the thick of it again. Babylon Hall? Who resides at that imposing mansion, Paul?"
They stood before the open gates of a fine Georgian building, lying far back from the road amid neatly striped lawns and well-kept gardens.
"The celebrated Jules Thessaly, I believe," replied Paul; "but I have never met him."
"Jules Thessaly! Really? I met him only three months ago near Bethune (a neighbourhood which I always associate with Milady and the headsman in The Three Musketeers)."
"What was he doing in Bethune?"
"What does he do anywhere? He was visiting the French and British fronts, accompanied by an imposing array of 'Staffs.' He has tremendous influence of some kind—financial probably."
"An interesting character. I hope we may meet. By the way, do you manage to do much work nowadays? I rarely see your name."