"By Jove!" said I.
Leonard laughed, threw one gaitered leg over the other and held up his hands at her.
"Oh, you feminine person!" He smiled at me. "I told my dear old mother as a dead and solemn secret."
"But it will be gazetted in a few days, dear."
"One can never be absolutely sure of these things until they're in black and white. A pretty ass I'd look if there was a hitch—say through some fool of a copying clerk—and I didn't get it after all. It's only dear, silly understanding things like mothers that would understand. Other people wouldn't. Don't you think I'm right, Meredyth?"
Of course he was. I have known, in my time, of many disappointments. It is not every recommendation for honours that becomes effective. I congratulated him, however, and swore to secrecy.
"It's all luck," said he. "Just because a man happens to be spotted. If my regiment got its deserts, every Jack man would walk about in a suit of armour made of Victoria Crosses. Give me some more tea, mother."
"The thing I shall never understand, dear," she said, artlessly, looking up at him, while she handed him his cup, "is when you see a lot of murderous Germans rushing at you with guns and shells and bayonets, how you are not afraid."
He threw back his head and laughed in his debonair fashion; but I watched him narrowly and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for the infinitesimal fraction of a second.
"Oh, sometimes we're in an awful funk, I assure you," he replied gaily. "Ask Meredyth."