The two men stared at her. The colonel turned to Dick. “You wouldn’t think to hear her that she’d been like a mad thing ever since we knew you were coming home.” He gave Barbara’s knee a pat. “Get along, old thing. Here’s poor Dick been kickin’ his heels since three o’clock waitin’ for a word from you.”

Barbara played with Hoover’s ears. Her voice trembled a little.

“Perhaps he hasn’t been kicking his heels. Perhaps he’s had company he prefers to mine.”

Dick was like a dog who, expecting a pat, has been given a kick.

“I say, what on earth’s getting you?”

“You know.”

“I don’t.”

Barbara sighed.

“I don’t want to be cross or anything just when you’re home, and you’ve a perfect right to go about with any girl you like; I’ve not any special claim.”

“Girl?” Then Dick’s face lightened. “Oh, did you see me with that kid? But that was nothing. She was upset and I was just doing what I could, that was all.”

Barbara raised her head.

“I always tell you everything, so I’ll tell you I heard her say you’d been marvellous to her.”

If Barbara had not looked so distant and unlike herself, Dick would have laughed.

“That kid! Oh, I was going to tell you about her . . .”

“You needn’t bother; if you like to go out with Sheila it’s your own business.”

“Look here, I was waiting for you at the tea-garden, and I saw the poor kid crying because she’s being packed off on a job. I gave her tea and a lift home. I didn’t even know the girl’s name was Sheila.”

Barbara looped Hoover’s ears in a knot at the back of his head. Usually his little skinned face, minus ears, made her laugh, but now she could not see him. Her eyes were dim with tears, one of which rolled off her nose.

“I don’t want to quarrel on your very first day home, but you see, I know Sheila Brain, she’s the sort . . .”

His voice stopped her.

“Sheila who?”

“Brain.”

“That blasted family again!”

“They’re not blasted, at least only Sheila is. Mrs. Brain’s an angel, and a great friend of Daddy’s, isn’t she, Daddy, and Janet’s grand.”

“That’s all you know. This Janet worked in my office.”

“Of course! D’you know, I heard that. At least I must have, because at the back of my mind I knew there was some connection between you and Janet, but I’d forgotten it and she never mentioned it.”

“She wouldn’t. She seems to have taken advantage of my being abroad to search out Donald’s address, and use a mythical arrangement with me to get Donald to house her beastly family for almost nix.”

“It’s a lie!”