There were three orders: one British, and quite important, a large silver star for the breast: one Italian, smaller, and silver and gold; and one from the State of Ruritania, in silver and red-and-green enamel, smaller than the others.

"Come now, William," said Lady Franks, "you must try them all on. You must try them all on together, and let us see how you look."

The little, frail old man, with his strange old man's blue eyes and his old man's perpetual laugh, swelled out his chest and said:

"What, am I to appear in all my vanities?" And he laughed shortly.

"Of course you are. We want to see you," said the white girl.

"Indeed we do! We shouldn't mind all appearing in such vanities--what, Lady Franks!" boomed the Colonel.

"I should think not," replied his hostess. "When a man has honours conferred on him, it shows a poor spirit if he isn't proud of them."

"Of course I am proud of them!" said Sir William. "Well then, come and have them pinned on. I think it's wonderful to have got so much in one life-time--wonderful," said Lady Franks.

"Oh, Sir William is a wonderful man," said the Colonel. "Well--we won't say so before him. But let us look at him in his orders."

Arthur, always ready on these occasions, had taken the large and shining British star from its box, and drew near to Sir William, who stood swelling his chest, pleased, proud, and a little wistful.

"This one first, Sir," said Arthur.

Sir William stood very still, half tremulous, like a man undergoing an operation.

"And it goes just here--the level of the heart. This is where it goes."

And carefully he pinned the large, radiating ornament on the black velvet dinner-jacket of the old man.

"That is the first--and very becoming," said Lady Franks.

"Oh, very becoming! Very becoming!" said the tall wife of the Major--she was a handsome young woman of the tall, frail type.

"Do you think so, my dear?" said the old man, with his eternal smile: the curious smile of old people when they are dead.

"Not only becoming, Sir," said the Major, bending his tall, slim figure forwards. "But a reassuring sign that a nation knows how to distinguish her valuable men."

"Quite!" said Lady Franks. "I think it is a very great honour to have got it. The king was most gracious, too-- Now the other. That goes beside it--the Italian--"

Sir William stood there undergoing the operation of the pinning-on. The Italian star being somewhat smaller than the British, there was a slight question as to where exactly it should be placed. However, Arthur decided it: and the old man stood before the company with his two stars on his breast.

"And now the Ruritanian," said Lady Franks eagerly.

"That doesn't go on the same level with the others, Lady Franks," said Arthur. "That goes much lower down--about here."

"Are you sure?" said Lady Franks. "Doesn't it go more here?"

"No no, no no, not at all. Here! Isn't it so, Sybil?"

"Yes, I think so," said Sybil.

Old Sir William stood quite silent, his breast prepared, peering over the facings of his coat to see where the star was going. The Colonel was called in, and though he knew nothing about it, he agreed with Arthur, who apparently did know something. So the star was pinned quite low down. Sir William, peeping down, exclaimed:

"Well, that is most curious now! I wear an order over the pit of my stomach! I think that is very curious: a curious place to wear an order."

"Stand up! Stand up and let us look!" said Lady Franks. "There now, isn't it handsome? And isn't it a great deal of honour for one man?

Could he have expected so much, in one life-time? I call it wonderful.

Come and look at yourself, dear"--and she led him to a mirror.

"What's more, all thoroughly deserved," said Arthur.

"I should think so," said the Colonel, fidgetting.

"Ah, yes, nobody has deserved them better," cooed Sybil.

"Nor on more humane and generous grounds," said the Major, _sotto voce._

"The effort to save life, indeed," returned the Major's young wife: "splendid!"

Sir William stood naively before the mirror and looked at his three stars on his black velvet dinner-jacket.

"Almost directly over the pit of my stomach," he said. "I hope that is not a decoration for my greedy APPETITE." And he laughed at the young women.

"I assure you it is in position, Sir," said Arthur. "Absolutely correct.

I will read it out to you later."

"Aren't you satisfied? Aren't you a proud man! Isn't it wonderful?" said Lady Franks. "Why, what more could a man want from life? He could never EXPECT so much."

"Yes, my dear. I AM a proud man. Three countries have honoured me--"

There was a little, breathless pause.

"And not more than they ought to have done," said Sybil.

"Well! Well! I shall have my head turned. Let me return to my own humble self. I am too much in the stars at the moment."

Sir William turned to Arthur to have his decorations removed. Aaron, standing in the background, felt the whole scene strange, childish, a little touching. And Lady Franks was so obviously trying to _console_ her husband: to console the frail, excitable old man with his honours.

But why console him? Did he need consolation? And did she? It was evident that only the hard-money woman in her put any price on the decorations.

Aaron came forward and examined the orders, one after the other. Just metal playthings of curious shiny silver and gilt and enamel. Heavy the British one--but only like some heavy buckle, a piece of metal merely when one turned it over. Somebody dropped the Italian cross, and there was a moment of horror. But the lump of metal took no hurt. Queer to see the things stowed in their boxes again. Aaron had always imagined these mysterious decorations as shining by nature on the breasts of heroes.

Pinned-on pieces of metal were a considerable come-down.

The orders were put away, the party sat round the fire in the comfortable library, the men sipping more _creme de menthe_, since nothing else offered, and the couple of hours in front promising the tedium of small-talk of tedious people who had really nothing to say and no particular originality in saying it.

Aaron, however, had reckoned without his host. Sir William sat upright in his chair, with all the determination of a frail old man who insists on being level with the young. The new guest sat in a lower chair, smoking, that curious glimmer on his face which made him so attractive, and which only meant that he was looking on the whole scene from the outside, as it were, from beyond a fence. Sir William came almost directly to the attack.

"And so, Mr. Sisson, you have no definite purpose in coming to Italy?"

"No, none," said Aaron. "I wanted to join Lilly."

"But when you had joined him--?"

"Oh, nothing--stay here a time, in this country, if I could earn my keep."