“New?”
She nodded. “Dad said it was too much of a Vanity Fair of a vanity for war-time. You don’t think so, do you?”
“It’s charming,” said Doggie. “A treat for tired eyes.”
“That’s just what I told dad. What’s the good of women dressing in sacks tied round the middle with a bit of string? When men come home from the Front they want to see their womenfolk looking pretty and dainty. That’s what they’ve come over for. It’s part of the cure. It’s the first time you’ve been a real dear, Marmaduke. ‘A treat for tired eyes.’ I’ll rub it into dad hard.”
Oliver came in—in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him.
“Look here, Peggy. It’s the guard-room for me.”
Oliver laughed. “Where the dinner kit I bought when I came home is now, God only can tell.” He turned to Peggy. “I did change, you know.”
“That’s the pull of being a beastly Major,” said Doggie. “They have heaps of suits. On the march, there are motor-lorries full of them. It’s the scandal of the army. The wretched Tommy has but one suit to his name. That’s why, sir, I’ve taken the liberty of appearing before you in outgrown mufti.”
“All right, my man,” said Oliver. “We’ll hush it up and say no more about it.”
Then the Dean and Mrs. Conover entered and soon they went in to dinner. It was for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had the superbly healthy man’s whole-hearted or whole-stomached appreciation of unaccustomed good food and drink: so much so, that when the Dean, after agonies of thwarted mastication, said gently to his wife: “My dear, don’t you think you might speak a word in season to Peck”—Peck being the butcher—“and forbid him, under the Defence of the Realm Act, if you like, to deliver to us in the evening as lamb that which was in the morning a lusty sheep?” he stared at the good old man as though he were Vitellius in person. Tough? It was like milk-fatted baby. He was already devouring, like Oliver, his second helping. Then the Dean, pledging him and Oliver in champagne, apologized: “I’m sorry, my dear boys, the 1904 has run out and there’s no more to be got. But the 1906, though not having the quality, is quite drinkable.”