can you?

But I must have something that wags. Besides, Algy is supposed to match my fur. He loves it so much he eats it. I suppose you have n't got chocolate biscuits; those are the kind he likes the best. Your rooms are rather nice, not like a doctor's a bit. Those old prints are so jolly, and I suppose you have flower-boxes in the spring -like an actress. But what a frightful lot of books! Do you make Tony read them? Poor old Tony? Do tell me about him. I suppose he's awfully clever, is n't he, like the strong, silent men in the detective stories who find out everything in the end, if they don't turn out to be the murderer themselves? I should n't think you were a silent man, are you, Mr. Laurence? Though

I'm sure you 're a strong one. Tony says I'm to call you 'Mister,' because surgeons are smarter than doctors, and the smarter you are the less there is to show for it. Is that the idea?"

Hilton agreed that it was, only, if you got smarter still, he explained, they make you a knight, which rather landed you.

The Pekinese being satisfied with sweet biscuits, took the rug in front of the fire.

The sun came out and played upon the gilt bindings of the medical books and made patches of gold upon the thick, soft carpet. Kitty eyed it appreciatively. She loved the sun and thick, soft carpets and all the ease and brightness of the world. She leaned back in her chair and surveyed the two men before her with confidence. She knew that she could handle the occasion with the ease which was natural to her in all situations which contained men. Men can put up with disagreeable occasions, but they do not like to feel that any woman they admire finds an occasion disagreeable, and Kitty invariably let them off this realization.

"Kitty," said Anthony, quietly, "I think you'd better come over here and let us have a look at you. You'll have to take your things off, and lie down on this little sofa."

The two men turned to each other while Kitty strolled across the room. She stood in the patch of sunlight, and slipped off the security of her furs.

She was silent now, but there was a tranquillity in her silence, compared with which the perfunctory conversation of the two surgeons together was nothing but a nervous flurry. They had to say something, but Kitty had n't. She looked out of the window, lay down on the sofa, and turned her eyes in the direction of Algy, who yawned.

"Now we 'll just have a look at you," said Hilton Laurence with a renewed and impersonal cheerfulness.

Anthony said nothing. He stood on the other side of Kitty with his eyes fixed intently on his colleague. He was trying to see Kitty not with his own eyes, but with Hilton Laurence's eyes. He was determined to know and feel about her exactly what Hilton Laurence knew and felt, so that he would not be deceived by the sharpness of his own personal hopes and fears. He ceased to think of Kitty herself in his anxiety to read the other man's mind.

Hilton Laurence was not thinking of Kitty's personality either. She had become a case, an extraordinarily interesting, madly neglected case. She was not a human being any longer; she was a little, undressed figure on a sofa, a pitifully broken figure lying there to be, if possible, mended.

She was forgotten, but she herself did not forget; her mind wandered with amused serenity over the men before her. They could n't be only doctors to Kitty; they were men, and it was the first time she had ever seen men intensely at work.

All the rest of her life had been connected with men at play.

Kitty had been their play. Games, dances, and entertainments had filled in the hours, and she had shared them all with an admirable mastery; but she knew that she herself was the aim of all the other pleasure. The men she knew had been intent, but they were intent on pleasing her, and these two men, who had forgotten her altogether, were just as intent without there being any question of pleasure.

She wondered curiously what it would have been like for her if she had had something to do, something besides men to interest her. Her whole life might have been different; less amusing, per

haps, but more worth while. She might have been just as attractive, but with something else to fall back on-something with more permanence and dignity. But perhaps she could n't have managed both. Being attractive took a great deal of time. Her father had once told her: "People who rely on their natural charm wear it out or have to become unselfish. It's a subject to which you must devote your whole attention in order to succeed." And apparently the interest of work took time, too. After all, you could n't have everything.

Kitty was glad that she had seen Anthony at work. Work would be good for him; it would be good for him whatever happened.

The Pekinese stopped yawning, drew his way slowly through the lamb's-woo! mat, and sniffed suspiciously at the two doctors' legs.

"Silly old thing!" murmured Kitty. "They are n't doing me any harm. They think they 're doing me good, that's their idea, anyhow."

Hilton Laurence was recalled by her voice. He spoke with his habitual reassurance, but without looking at her.

"Thanks," he said; "I think we 've seen enough. If you don't mind, Miss Costrelle, there are just one or two points we'd better discuss while you 're dressing up again. I'm afraid we 've tired you, rather. Shall I send you in a glass of wine and a biscuit?"

Kitty shook her head. She thought it rather funny of the two men to go away and leave her, but it made it convenient to powder her nose. Laurence had a sensible looking-glass.

When they came back they found the same conquering princess as before. Kitty's head rested against a black cushion, and the Pekinese was rolled up on her lap.

Kitty had a habit of complete muscular control, so that she made very few useless movements. She could sit perfectly still for hours without stiffness or restlessness. She sat quite still now, smiling across the room at the two men as they came back to her.

Anthony had himself well in hand. His face expressed nothing; he even gave Kitty a slight answering smile,

which did not touch the controlled gravity of his eyes. But Hilton Laurence came in with a reluctance he could not quite hide; he hated to pass sentence on this radiant young life before him. The thought of it made him look tired and old. He could stand his friend's iron self-control, but it was harder to meet the friendly gaiety of Kitty.

He drew a chair opposite her and said quickly:

"I'm not going to beat about the bush, Miss Costrelle. That lump of yours is a nuisance; we 've got to get rid of it. Arden and I are both of one mind; we think surgical treatment is needed."

"Surgical treatment means an operation, Kitty," said Anthony, with a little twisted smile; "it 's our pretty way of putting it."

"No, I don't want to be pretty,” corrected Hilton Laurence, frowning; “I 'm going to be perfectly straight with you. This operation, which is for bad glands, is a tedious, difficult, and serious business, and you 're not in the very best condition to have it. But you're a brave girl, and I think you 'll stand it."

"Is it only glands?" asked Kitty, playing with one of Algy's long, soft

ears.

"Are n't very bad glands enough for you?" asked Hilton Laurence, quickly. Perhaps he asked his counter-question a shade too quickly. Kitty's eyes rested on him thoughtfully, then they turned to Anthony.

"Is it only glands, Tony?" she repeated.

"We 're not perfectly sure ourselves," said Anthony, gently; "but in any case, we think it'll help the pain, Kitty."

"You'll undoubtedly be the gainer by it," interposed Hilton Laurence. "You don't stand to lose anything by the operation, Miss Costrelle."

"No," she said quietly; "only, of course, I'll be ill, sha'n't I-I mean it 's just lying in bed and having nurses and being an invalid? It 's rather sickening, is n't it?"

"Life is a sickening business, Miss Costrelle," said Hilton Laurence,

gravely.

None of them said anything for a

time. The fire crackled busily on the hearth, the winter sunshine filled the quiet room. There was nothing to be said against the impalpable and awkward fact that would turn a gay princess into a stricken, hopeless invalid. The two men facing Kitty could perhaps ease her downfall, but they could not prevent it.

It was impossible to say what Kitty knew. She was grave; then she picked up Algy and shook him.

"He likes to sleep," she explained, "in the middle of the morning, though he's quite young, really. I think it's the cream he takes for breakfast, and it goes to his head. It 's in the Bible, is n't it, how shocking it is to be drunk at the third hour of the day? I don't know if it was meant to include Pekes."

She rose with her careless grace and glanced over her shoulder at Anthony.

"Let's go to Kew in a taxi and have lunch at Richmond, Tony?" she suggested. "It 's such a heavenly day."

Hilton Laurence gave a sigh of relief. She did n't understand, then; he smiled paternally upon her.

"You could n't have a better program," he exclaimed; "the air will do you all the good in the world."

"All the good in the world?" repeated Kitty, teasingly. "And how much do you suppose that is?"

Of course she knew that nothing would do her any good. A dazed look had come over Anthony's face; he stood quite still by the door, holding it open for her.

Hilton Laurence transferred his swift, clear-cut attention to Anthony.

"Hand me over your case-notes for to-day, old boy," he said quietly. "I'll take them over for you."

Anthony pulled himself together. "Thanks," he said gratefully; “but I must just telephone to the hospital."

Kitty passed out into the hall. Hilton Laurence followed her. She laid her hand on his arm with a little friendly gesture of persuasion.

"Look here," she said in a rapid undertone. "When I'm dead, make Tony stick to his work, make him think he ought to help people. He likes help ing people, you know. It 's funny; I

had no idea work mattered so much to men, but I see it does. Make him stick to it. You see, it would be such an awful pity for Tony to be smashed, would n't it? Because he really does help people, and awfully few people ever really help. They just make a fuss on the top; they don't go down into it. I 'm sure you know what I mean."

"My dear young lady-" stammered Hilton Laurence. Of course he ought to say she was n't going to be dead, but something in Kitty's eyes checked him.

They stood for a long, queer moment in the hall holding each other's eyes. Then Kitty heard Anthony's returning footsteps. She smiled at Hilton Laurence, reassuringly.

"I dare say I shall get better, and it won't matter," she murmured soothingly. "Another time," she added in her clear, high little voice, "perhaps you 'll invite me to lunch. Could he, Tony? Or is it one of your dreadful rules that doctors can't eat with patients-like prisoners with their executioners? I 'm fearfully hungry, but I dare say I shall hold out till I get to Richmond. Tell the man to drive fast."

Kitty leaned back in the taxi, and Algy, yapping with tremendous zeal, poised himself on her knees. He was prepared to feel that he himself was the engine. Every nerve in his small, erect body responded to the winding-up of the car. He stood upon Kitty's lap as an admiral stands upon his bridge ready to direct the biddable universe.

Kitty turned her head and looked back at Hilton Laurence. He did not usually stand on the steps to say farewell to his patients, but he stood there

now.

XX.

THE LAST YEARS IN THE FOOL'S PARADISE

HE five or six years preceding Armageddon seemed to show the world as an increasingly calm and

happy place. This was true despite the shock of Agadir and of the Balkan wars. Great crises had come and gone, but the Western powers had never joined battle save in the newspapers. Responsible statesmen had apparently suppressed the jingoes. Kaiser Wilhelm and Bethmann-Hollweg seemed to be treating the Pan-Germanists with contempt. As for a general European war, wide-spread opinion was that it would be so unsettling economically, as well as so inhumanely destructive, that the money kings of the world, more powerful by far than their "crowned puppets," would never suffer it. If their potent influence failed, confident predictions had it that the socialists of Europe, by some kind of general strike, would render the wicked schemes of capitalistic rulers hopeless; and this opinion was comfortably adhered to, notwithstanding the firm refusals of the German socialists to join in pledges to their non-German comrades to support a policy of extreme non-resistance, and the clear announcement by German socialist leaders that in a defensive war they and their followers would shoulder guns as bravely as the Junkers.1

But

even apart from this alleged, but certainly peculiar, alliance of the toilers and the money kings in the blessed cause of peace, there were thousands of other reasons that made supposedly wise men declare wars impossible and armies and navies increasingly useless. "I do not believe there ever will be another serious war," asserted a distinguished French lecturer touring the United States in 1912, "and I will tell you why: because we have out-grown wars; they are too silly." And vast audiences had applauded. It was a period of innumerable peace conferences, conciliation proposals, enrollment of women and school-children in peace-leagues, cutand-dried infallible schemes for substituting courts of arbitration for shrapnel, and for ending the questions of Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, the Balkans, and the desires of the Pan-Germans for a new Roman Empire, by applying a few delightfully simple principles for international conduct as worked out by selfconstituted reformers, men who knew little of the concrete problems they so jauntily attacked.

American millionaires endowed costly peace institutes with well-salaried staffs of excellent gentlemen without special diplomatic training to go up and down the world explaining how foolish it was to dream of aggressive schemes on the part of one's neighbors. This peace propaganda had of course been seized upon especially in America with the cus