--Stop, please," she insisted, as he showed signs of interrupting.
"I know quite well that it was through my persuasions you retired
so early, but in those days there was no thought of war, and I
always had it in my mind that if trouble came you would find your
way back to where you belonged."
"But, my dear child, that is all very well," Sir Henry protested,
"but it's not so easy to get back again. You know very well that
I went up to the Admiralty and offered my services, directly the
war started."
"Yes, and what happened?" Philippa demanded. "You were, in a
measure, shelved. You were put on a list and told that you would
hear from them--a sort of Micawber-like situation with which you
were perfectly satisfied. Then you took that moor up in Scotland
and disappeared for nearly six months."
"I was supplying the starving population with food," he reminded her
genially. "We sent about four hundred brace of grouse to market,
not to speak of the salmon. We had some very fair golf, too, some
of the time."
"Oh, I have not troubled to keep any exact account of your
diversions!" Philippa said scornfully. "Sometimes," she continued,
"I wonder whether you are quite responsible, Henry. How you can
even talk of these things when every man of your age and strength
is fighting one way or another for his country, seems marvellous to
me.
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