In the ordinary workaday life of the peacetime individual, a week seems a distinct interval of time: but to the men and women of the recent War, who snatched their respite from long months of anxiety in a few brief hours of happiness, the allotted seven days used to pass like a quickly-flashing dream.

Still, for her one week, Patricia was happy; and much of that happiness came from the knowledge that this man whom War had sent back to her, was no longer the same creature whom she had given to War. He had left her a civilian in khaki; he came back a member of the British Expeditionary Force.

She found the change in him difficult of analysis. The old absorbed Peter still lived—a reticent animal; unwilling to tell her of his life “out there”; though eager enough to explain the changes in his Brigade: how Major Lethbridge had been promoted Lieutenant Colonel, and Conway given “C” Battery in his stead: how Torrington’s successor, Captain Sandiland, was inclined to take unto himself too much credit for the work done by his subalterns: how Little Willie still flourished. But of Loos, of trench-warfare, of Reninghelst and Dickebusch, and the three weeks’ rest at Acquin which the Fourth Southdown Brigade had been enjoying when he left—he told her little or nothing. “It was really not so bad,” seemed the limit of his descriptive powers.

But, grafted onto the old Peter, there existed a new Peter, irresistibly young, who amazed his wife. He seemed to have acquired a capacity for enjoyment, a carelessness about money-matters, a delight in petty personal comforts, utterly out of keeping with his civilian self.

Formerly, the theatre had not appealed to him; now, he wanted to go every night. He disliked eating at home; seemed happiest in some gaudy restaurant, some rag-time night-club. He took taxis everywhere; bought expensive presents for her, for the children, for himself. When she attempted to expostulate, he laughed at her—and taxi’d to Cox’s Bank to draw another cheque.

Then too, he had become quaintly tolerant. On Boxing-Day Heron Baynet gave a family dinner-party. Rawlings and Violet came in their new car: Violet overdressed and overbearing; her husband, who had been promised a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list, full of it and of himself. Peter, in evening-dress, new enamel buttons in his white waistcoat, welcomed the pair like long lost friends; congratulated Hubert; flattered Violet. “Hubert,” said Peter to his face, “was a devilish clever fellow. Perhaps when Hubert got his Knighthood, he could find him, Peter, some soft job at home....”

“But I thought you didn’t like Hubert,” Pat said to him when they were alone in their bed-room.

“Oh, he’s not a bad chap,” laughed Peter, “not our class of course—I mean, one can’t have any respect for him—still, I daresay he’s all right.”

When she pressed him further on the subject, he said—after a little hesitation: “It’s a question of caste, I think, Pat. One looks upon those sort of people—you know, politicians and the Whitehall gang—as one used to look on the lower orders. One doesn’t dislike them: one’s just sorry for them.”

Arthur Jameson, a taller blonder edition of his brother, came to town on two days’ leave; and she let them make one night of it together. From their boyhood, Arthur and Peter had quarrelled; but now they seemed to see eye to eye on a hundred subjects. As the flying-man—he had passed for his “wings” and was next on the roster for active service—confided to Patricia: “That husband of yours always wanted a good shaking up; and this War seems to have done it for him.”

The swift days fled. They visited Francis; took the delighted children to the Pantomime. She drove him to the City; sat in the office while he talked away half-an-hour with Simpson; whirled him westwards again.... “And will you ever go back to Lime Street?” she asked as they sat down to lunch. “I suppose so,” he answered, “if this War ever gets itself over. What shall we do this afternoon, old thing?” ...

“Was he in love with her?” Patricia asked herself that question more than once during those breathless days: but found no answer to it. Obviously, her companionship, the physical joy of her, moved him as never before. They were pals again, better pals than ever. She told herself to be content with that.

And yet, reason was not content. Reason said: “This is excitement, pleasure at being back with the accustomed luxuries. After what he has gone through—almost any woman of his own class could give him what you are giving him.”

She hated that thought. Moreover something sounder than reason, the instinct of matehood, told her that she misjudged him. In so far as the average man can love the woman he has been married to for nine years, Peter did love her. There had been no other woman in his life. Only, only, she wanted more from him than the average husband gave to the average wife!

And so once again, they came to the last twenty-four hours.