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'My un...'

Levin said:

'If you say another word you go under medical care the moment it's said. I've the order in my pocket. Now, fall out. At the double!'

McKechnie wavered on the way to the door. Levin added:

'You can take your choice of going up the line to-night. Or a court of inquiry for obtaining divorce leave and then not getting a divorce. Or the other thing. And you can thank Captain Tietjens for the clemency the general has shown you!'

The hut now reeling a little, Tietjens put the opened smelling bottle to his nostrils. At the sharp pang of the odour the hut came to attention. He said:

'We can't keep the general waiting.'

'He told me,' Levin said, 'to give you ten minutes. He's sitting in your hut. He's tired. This affair has worried him dreadfully. O'Hara is the first C.O. he ever served under. A useful man, too, at his job.'

Tietjens leaned against his dressing-table of meat-cases. 'You told that fellow McKechnie off, all right,' he said. 'I did not know you had it in you...

'Oh,' Levin said, 'it's just being with him...I get his manner and it does all right...Of course I don't often hear him have to strafe anybody in that manner. There's nobody really to stand up to him. Naturally...But just this morning I was in his cabinet doing private secretary, and he was talking to Pe...Talking while he shaved. And he said exactly that: You can take your choice of going up the line to-night or a court martial...So naturally I said as near the same as I could to your little friend...'

Tietjens said:

'We'd better go now.'

In the winter sunlight Levin tucked his arm under Tietjens', leaning towards him gaily and not hurrying. The display was insufferable to Tietjens, but he recognized that it was indispensable. The bright day seemed full of things with hard edges--a rather cruel definiteness...Liver!...

The little depot adjutant passed them going very fast, as if before a wind. Levin just waved his hand in acknowledgment of his salute and went on, being enraptured in Tietjens' conversation. He said:

'You and...and Mrs Tietjens are dining at the general's to-night. To meet the G.O.C.I.C. Western Division. And General O'Hara...We understand that you have definitely separated from Mrs Tietjens...Tietjens forced his left arm to violence to restrain it from tearing itself from the colonel's grasp.

His mind had become a coffin-headed, leather-jawed charger, like Schomburg. Sitting on his mind was like sitting on Schomburg at a dull water-jump. His lips said: 'Bub-bub-bub-bub!' He could not feel his hands. He said:

'I recognize the necessity. If the general sees it in that way. I saw it in another way myself.' His voice was intensely weary. 'No doubt,' he said, 'the general knows best!'

Levin's face exhibited real enthusiasm. He said:

'You decent fellow! You awfully decent fellow! We're all in the same boat...Now, will you tell me? For him. Was O'Hara drunk last night or wasn't he?'

Tietjens said:

'I think he was not drunk when he burst into the room with Major Perowne...I've been thinking about it! I think he became drunk...When I first requested and then ordered him to leave the room he leant against the doorpost...He was certainly then--in disorder! I then told him that I should order him under arrest, if he didn't go...'

Levin said:

'Mm! Mm! Mm!'

Tietjens said:

'It was my obvious duty...I assure you that I was perfectly collected...I beg to assure you that I was perfectly collected...'

Levin said: 'I am not questioning the correctness...But...we are all one family...I admit the atrocious...the unbearable nature...But you understand that O'Hara had the right to enter your room...As P.M.!...'

Tietjens said:

'I am not questioning that it was his right. I was assuring you that I was perfectly collected because the general had honoured me by asking my opinion on the condition of General O'Hara...

They had by now walked far beyond the line leading to Tietjens' office and, close together, were looking down upon the great tapestry of the French landscape.

'He,' Levin said, 'is anxious for