They walked straight out of the hotel into the arms of a voluble stout little civilian, with eyebrows like the horns of a stag-beetle, a blue silk muffler round his throat and a bowler hat, not quite clean, crammed down over his big head.

“And how are you, Mr. Jameson? Very glad to see you, I’m sure. My cousin Sam told me I might run into you down here.”

Peter introduced Marcus Bramson, owner of Bramson’s Pullman Virginia’s (“the cigarette you must try”) to a slightly standoffish Patricia.

“A fine fellow, your husband, Mrs. Jameson. Everybody in the trade is proud of the way he enlisted. Right at the start, too. I was telling my cousin Sam, only the other night, how grateful he ought to be to work for such a man.”

They couldn’t get rid of Marcus! He stood there, looking like a strapped mummy in his tight overcoat, pouring out compliments and trade-gossip alternately.

“Poor young Schornstein. He’s been killed, you know. Sam Elkins gave his car to the Red Cross. I’m an old man, worse luck. Still, I’m trying to do my bit. And Mrs. Bramson, she’s running a canteen.

“Well, I mustn’t be keeping you like this,” he said at last. “We’re spending Christmas at this hotel. So if you’re passing again, drop in and take a drink with us. I’d like to have a little private talk with you, Mr. Jameson,” he added, as he wrenched off his hat and passed in through the glass doors.

“Quaint old bird, Marcus,” announced Peter, still smarting under the compliments. “Did you see what he was driving at?”

“No.” Patricia swung down the crowded parade. “I only thought of his clothes. How can he afford to stay at the ‘Royal York?’”

“Marcus must be worth at least a quarter of a million. He’s one of those chaps who simply can’t help making money. And he spends nothing. They live in an eighty-pound villa at Maida Vale, keep two servants, and take a holiday like this three times a year.”

They threaded their way out of the crowd; made towards Hove. It was a mild, misty afternoon: sun hanging low and scarlet over a dun sea.

“And what was he driving at?” she asked.

“Nirvana.”

“But you’re not going to sell it, Peter?” She looked round at him; but his eyes avoided her.

“I’m afraid so, dear.”

They walked on.

“Failure again!” he commented bitterly.

Now, she was loving him madly, reasonlessly. And she couldn’t help him. He had gone back beyond her reach, into the old world: the world of denied accomplishment.

“Failure,” he repeated.

“It isn’t.” Her eyes lit. “It isn’t. It’s splendid. To give up something you really loved for the sake of your country—that can’t be failure.”

“Oh, the country....” The word was almost a sneer. This man’s patriotism lay deep down in his nature, a thing of whispers and suggestions, a thing to die for but not to discuss.

“The country!” he went on. “‘We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go’.... And once you have gone, we’ll take devilish good care to snaffle anything you’ve left behind you.”

“You don’t mean a word you’re saying.” The hostility in her tone caught his ear. In eight years, they had never quarrelled. This Patricia was as new to her husband as to herself. He walked on in silence.

“You could resign your commission, I suppose?” She said it purposely, meaning to provoke him.

“Resign! Damn it, woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was the first time he had ever sworn at her. Inwardly she laughed.

“I’m sorry, old thing,” he said a minute later.

She stalked on haughtily. She was flirting, deliberately flirting, with her own husband. And she felt a fool. Rather a delicious fool, though. Suddenly, he became aware of her; acutely, physically almost.... Then the custom of years overwhelmed both.

“The trout,” remarked Patricia, “took the May-fly with a rush....”

He caught her meaning at once. “But you shouldn’t rag about that sort of thing, Pat.”

“You deserved it. And besides, you lost your temper with me. That means a forfeit—fizz for dinner.”

They had drifted back—neither quite realizing—to the early days of their marriage.

“There’ll be plenty of bubbly tonight, without my standing any.” He began to talk about Alice’s husband. She countered with a relation of Violet’s sudden prosperity. Peter had not told about his quarrel with Herbert Rawlings: Pat objected to criticism of her relatives—even when she knew the criticism justified. His little mood of bitterness passed; leaving only a caustic humour in its wake.

“Great man, that brother-in-law of yours,” he laughed. “I saw his picture in one of the illustrateds last week. They called him ‘a patriotic war-worker.’ I think. Something of the sort....”