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'I expect so, poor dear girl. For she takes a more serious view than I do of our future.'

'Women are born pessimists,' Percy told him.

René nodded his head. 'They are the eternal Greek Chorus.' Then quickly placing his hand upon that of his host, which lay, hairy and sprawling, on the table, and administering a slight pressure, he exclaimed fruitily, 'I am your debtor for life, old man. I do not mean I shall not repay you this sum. I mean that when I do, I shall still be your debtor.'

'Nonsense!'

At this second 'nonsense' René shot up his head even more quickly, and examined closely the bird's-nest hair, the blankly shining eye-glasses. Had he read his suspicions? Has this old bourgeois second-sight?

But Percy resumed the dinner-table conversation, which had apparently given him an appetite for political and other discussion; or there had been something René had said which had stirred him into unaccustomed speculation.

'In my lifetime,' he began, 'the attitude to violent death has completely changed.'