If I'd sprung this too soon, the wrong thing might have
happened to me."
"What wrong thing, Martlow?" asked Sir William with some indignation.
If the fellow meant anything, it was that he would have been spirited
away by Sir William.
"Oh, anything," replied Martlow. "Anything would be wrong that made me
miss this pleasure. You and me conversing affable here. Not a bit like
it was in the old days before I rose to being the chief glory of
Calderside. Conversation was one-sided then, and all on your side
instead of mine. 'Here again, Martlow,' you'd say, and then they'd
gabble the evidence, and you'd say 'fourteen days' or 'twenty-one
days,' if you'd got up peevish and that's all there was to our friendly
intercourse. This time, I make no doubt you'll be asking me to stay at
the Towers to-night. And," he went on blandly, enjoying every wince
that twisted Sir William's face in spite of his efforts to appear
unmoved, "I don't know that I'll refuse. It's a levelling thing, war.
I've read that war makes us all conscious we're members of one
brotherhood, and I know it's true now.
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