flippantly. Then, seeing Graham glowering at him across the table,
he dropped his affectation of frivolity. "What's the use of our
going in now?" he argued. "This Somme push is the biggest thing
yet. They're going through the Germans like a hay cutter through
a field. German losses half a million already."

"And what about the Allies? Have they lost nothing?" This was
Clayton's attorney, an Irishman named Denis Nolan. There had been
two n's in the Denis, originally, but although he had disposed of
a part of his birthright, he was still belligerently Irish. "What
about Rumania? What about the Russians at Lemberg? What about
Saloniki?"

"You Irish!" said the rector, genially. "Always fighting the world
and each other. Tell me, Nolan, why is it that you always have
individual humor and collective ill-humor?"

He felt that that was rather neat. But Nolan was regarding him
acrimoniously, and Clayton apparently had not heard at all.

The dispute went on, Chris Valentine alternately flippant and
earnest, the rector conciliatory, Graham glowering and silent.
Nolan had started on the Irish question, and Rodney baited him with
the prospect of conscription there. Nolan's voice, full and mellow
and strangely sweet, dominated the room.

But Clayton was not listening. He had heard Nolan air his views
before. He was a trifle acid, was Nolan. He needed mellowing, a
woman in his life. But Nolan had loved once, and the girl had died.
With the curious constancy of the Irish, he had remained determinedly