Opening the drawing-room door, he pushed Doggie inside. A tall, lean figure in uniform, which had remained in the background by the fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand.
“Hello, old chap!”
Doggie took the hand in an honest grip.
“Hello, Oliver!”
“How goes it?” asked Oliver.
“Splendid,” said Doggie. “Are you all right?”
“Tip-top,” answered Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. “My hat! you do look fit.”
He turned to the Dean. “Uncle Edward, isn’t he a hundred times the man he was?”
In a little while tea came. It appeared to Doggie, handing round the three-tiered cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten existence. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail for the material usages of life, and he feared lest he break it, for Doggie was accustomed to the rough dishes of the private.
The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself and ran on the war. Both men had been at Ypres and at Arras, where the British and German trenches lay only five yards apart.