had a bit of money, or could dance well, or oiled his hair in the right way.
"They corrupted English society," said Harding, "while they smiled, and danced, and dressed in fancy clothes, and posed for their photos in the papers. It was they who corrupted Evelyn, when the poor kid was fighting up against her loneliness, and very hipped, and all that."
"Who was the man?" I asked, and Harding hesitated before he told me. It was with frightful irony that he answered.
"The usual man in most of these cases. The man who is always one's best pal. Damn him!"
Harding seemed to repent of that curse, at least his next words were strangely inconsistent.
"Mind you, I don't blame him, either. It was I who sent him to Evelyn. He was in the Dragoons with me, and when he went home on leave I said, 'Go and cheer up my little wife, old man. Take her to a theatre or two, and all that. She's devilish lonely.' Needless to say, he fell in love with her. I might have known it. As for Evelyn, she was immensely taken with young Dick. He was a bit of a humourist and made her laugh. Laughter was a devilish good thing in war-time. That was where Dick had his pull. I might have known that! I was a chuckle-headed idiot."
The end of the story was abrupt, and at the time I found it hard to find extenuating circumstances in the guilt of the girl who had smashed this boy Harding. She lied to him up to the very moment of his demobilisation—at least, she gave him no clue to her purpose until she hit him, as it were, full in the face with a mortal blow to his happiness.
He had sent her a wire with the one word "Demobilised," and then had taken the next train back, and a cab
