"'Ere, steady now, young feller," cautioned Bindle as he hesitatingly extended his hand. "No pinchin'!"

Charlie Dixon laughed. The heartiness of his grip was notorious among his friends.

"I'm far too glad to see you to want to hurt you, Uncle Joe," he said.

"Uncle Joe!" exclaimed Bindle in surprise, "Uncle Joe!"

"I told him to, Uncle Joe," explained Millie. "You see," she added with a wise air of possession, "you belong to us both now."

"Wot-o!" remarked Bindle. "Goin'-goin' gone, an' cheap at 'alf the price. 'Ere, no you don't!" By a dexterous dive he antic.i.p.ated Charlie Dixon's move towards the ticket-window. A moment later he returned with three white tickets.

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" cried Millie in awe, "you've booked first-cla.s.s."

"We're a first-cla.s.s party to-night, ain't we, Charlie?" was Bindle's only comment.

As the two lovers walked up the stairs leading to the up-platform, Bindle found it difficult to recognise in Sergeant Charles Dixon the youth Millie had introduced to him two years previously at the cinema.

"Wonder wot 'Earty thinks of 'im now?" muttered Bindle. "Filled out, 'e 'as. Wonderful wot the army can do for a feller," he continued, regretfully thinking of the "various veins" that had debarred him from the life of a soldier.

"Well, Millikins!" he cried, as they stood waiting for the train, "an'

wot d'you think of 'is Nibs?"

"I think he's lovely, Uncle Joe!" said Millie, blushing and nestling closer to her lover.

"Not much chance for your ole uncle now, eh?" There was a note of simulated regret in Bindle's voice.

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" she cried, releasing Charlie Dixon's arm to clasp with both hands that of Bindle. "Oh, Uncle Joe!" There was entreaty in her look and distress in her voice. "You don't think that, do you, _reeeeeally_!"

Bindle's rea.s.surances were interrupted by the arrival of the train.

Millie became very silent, as if awed by the unaccustomed splendour of travelling in a first-cla.s.s compartment with a first-cla.s.s ticket. She had with her the two heroes of her Valhalla and, woman-like, she was content to worship in silence. As Bindle and Charlie Dixon discussed the war, she glanced from one to the other, then with a slight contraction of her eyes, she sighed her happiness.

To Millie Hearty the world that evening had become transformed into a place of roses and of honey. If life held a thorn, she was not conscious of it. For her there was no yesterday, and there would be no to-morrow.

"My! ain't we a little mouse!" cried Bindle as they pa.s.sed down the moving-stairway at Earl's Court.

"Oh, Uncle Joe, I'm so happy!" she cried, giving his arm that affectionate squeeze with both her hands that never failed to thrill him. "Please go on talking to Charlie; I love to hear you--and think."

"Now I wonder wot she's thinkin' about?" Bindle muttered. "Right-o, Millikins!" he said aloud. "You got two young men to-night, an' you needn't be afraid of 'em sc.r.a.ppin'."

As they entered the Universal Cafe, with its brilliant lights and gaily chattering groups of diners Millie caught her breath. To her it seemed a Nirvana. Brought up in the narrow circle of Mr. Hearty's theological limitations, she saw in the long dining-room a gilded-palace of sin against which Mr. Hearty p.r.o.nounced his anathemas. As they stood waiting for a vacant table, she gazed about her eagerly. How wonderful it would be to eat whilst a band was playing--and playing such music! It made her want to dance.

Many glances of admiration were cast at the young girl who, with flushed cheeks and parted lips, was drinking in a scene which, to them, was as familiar as their own finger-nails.

When at last a table was obtained, due to the zeal of a susceptible young superintendent, and she heard Charlie Dixon order the three-and-sixpenny dinner for all, she seemed to have reached the pinnacle of wonder; but when Charlie Dixon demanded the wine-list and ordered a bottle of "Number 68," the pinnacle broke into a thousand scintillating flashes of light.

She was ignorant of the fact that Charlie was as blissfully unaware as she of what "Number 68" was, and that he was praying fervently that it would prove to be something drinkable. Some wines were abominably sour.

"I've ordered the dinner; I suppose that'll do," he remarked with a man-of-the-world air.

Millie smiled her acquiescence. Bindle, not to be outdone in savoir-faire, picked up the menu and regarded it with wrinkled brow.

"Well, Charlie," he remarked at length, "it's beyond me. I s'pose it's all right; but it might be the German for cat an' dog for all I know.

I 'opes," he added anxiously, "there ain't none o' them long white sticks with green tops, wot's always tryin' to kiss their tails. Them things does me."

"Asparagus," cried Millie, proud of her knowledge, "I love it."

"I ain't nothink against it," said Bindle, recalling his experience at Oxford, "if they didn't expect you to suck it like a sugar stick. You wants a mouth as big as a dustbin, if you're a-goin' to catch the end."

When the wine arrived Charlie Dixon breathed a sigh of relief, as he recognised in its foam and amber an old friend with which he had become acquainted in France.

"Oh! what is it?" cried Millie, clasping her hands in excitement.

"Champagne!" said Charlie Dixon.

"Oh, Charlie!" cried Millie, gazing at her lover in proud wonder.

"Isn't it--isn't it most awfully expensive?"

Charlie Dixon laughed. Bindle looked at him quizzically.

"Ain't 'e a knockout?" he cried. "Might be a dook a-orderin' champagne as if it was lemonade, or a 'aporth an' a pen'orth."

"But ought I to drink it, Uncle Joe?" questioned Millie doubtfully, looking at the bubbles rising through the amber liquid.

"If you wants to be temperance you didn't ought to----"

"I don't, Uncle Joe," interrupted Millie eagerly; "but father----"

"That ain't nothink to do with it," replied Bindle. "You're grown up now, Millikins, an' you got to decide things for yourself."

And Millie Hearty drank champagne for the first time.

When coffee arrived, Charlie Dixon, who had been singularly quiet during the meal, exploded his mine. It came about as the result of Bindle's enquiry as to how long his leave would last.

"Ten days," he replied, "and--and I want----" He paused hesitatingly.

"Out with it, young feller," demanded Bindle. "Wot is it that you wants?"

"I want Millie to marry me before I go back." The words came out with a rush.

Millie looked at Charlie Dixon, wide-eyed with astonishment; then, as she realised what it really was he asked, the blood flamed to her cheeks and she cast down her eyes.

"Oh! but I couldn't, Charlie. Father wouldn't let me, and--and----"

Bindle looked at Charlie Dixon.

"Millie, you will, won't you, dear?" said Charlie Dixon. "I've got to go back in ten days, and--and----"

"Oh, Charlie, I--I----" began Millie, then her voice broke.