Germaine Damien was a little girl with considerable force of character. Having been told by a Socialist shoemaker that Squires were a mistake, she endeavoured to correct this error by driving a large knife into the first specimen of the race whom she met. This was Miles Burnside, a decent young man enough, and one obviously qualifying to be the hero of the story. So that when, quite early in its course, Germaine caught him asleep and apparently left him dead with a dagger in his heart, I was for a little time considerably puzzled as to how Mrs. Baillie Reynolds was going to get on with her tale. However, I need not have worried. Of course Miles was not dead; indeed the last six words of the book tell you that "His smile was good to see." And naturally he wouldn't have been smiling like that if he had not been enfolding the heroine in his strong arms. But before this happy moment we had a lot to get through. Miles on recovery had told the properly apologetic Germaine that she must never, never let anybody else know about the dagger business, and she said she wouldn't. Personally, if I had been Germaine, I should have done the same. Later in life, reflecting upon this injunction, and discovering that her grandfather had also killed a man, Germaine got it into her head that the habit was inherited, and the idea worried her quite dreadfully. This, I suppose, is why her story is called The Cost of A Promise (Hodder and Stoughton). Eventually, however, when the thing had gone on long enough and the revelation of her secret had scared away a superfluous rival, Miles informed her that her grandfather's record was (forgive me!) not germane to the matter, and that she was as sane as anybody in the story. M'yes. But Mrs. Reynolds has done better.
"It 'tain't 'arf fine ter be a General, cos 'e can call a bloke 'Pooden Fice,' an' 'ave 'im shot if 'e sorces 'im back."
WILHELM.
"No good thing comes from out of Kaiserland,"
Says Phyllis; but beside the fire I note
One Wilhehm, sleek in tawny gold of coat,
Most satin-smooth to the caresser's hand.