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agree with you that it’s the sort of thing that some one ought to get into hot water about. And somebody will, you may be sure, though I suspect he won’t deserve it.”
    “Well, sir,” responded Barnard, “I certainly do admire the way you manage to see both sides of the question. It’s the right spirit to have, no doubt, even when you’re being taken for a ride.”
    Americans, Conway reflected, had the knack of being able to say patronizing things without being offensive. He smiled tolerantly, but did not continue the conversation. His tiredness was of a kind that no amount of possible peril could stave off. Towards late afternoon, when Barnard and Mallinson, who had been arguing, appealed to him on some point, it appeared that he had fallen asleep.
    “Dead beat,” Mallinson commented. “And I don’t wonder at it, after these last few weeks.”
    “You’re his friend?” queried Barnard.
    “I’ve worked with him at the Consulate. I happen to know that he hasn’t been in bed for the last four nights. As a matter of fact, we’re damned lucky in having him with us in a tight corner like this. Apart from knowing the languages, he’s got a sort of way with him in dealing with people. If any one can get us out of the mess, he’ll do it. He’s pretty cool about most things.”
    “Well, let him have his sleep, then,” agreed Barnard.
    Miss Brinklow made one of her rare remarks. “I think he looks like a very brave man,” she said.
    CONWAY WAS FAR LESS certain that he was a very brave man. He had closed his eyes in sheer physical fatigue, but without actually sleeping. He could hear and feel every movement of the plane, and he heard also, with mixed feelings, Mallinson’s eulogy of himself. It was then that he had his doubts, recognizing a tight sensation in his stomach which was his own bodily reaction to a disquieting mental survey. He was not, as he knew well from experience, one of those persons who love danger for its own sake. There was an aspect of it which he sometimes enjoyed, an excitement, a purgative effect upon sluggish emotions, but he was far from fond of risking his life. Twelve years earlier he had grown to hate the perils of trench warfare in France, and had several times avoided death by declining to attempt valorous impossibilities. Even his D.S.O. had been won, not so much by physical courage, as by a certain hardly developed technique of endurance. And since the War, whenever there had been danger ahead, he had faced it with increasing lack of relish unless it promised extravagant dividends in thrills.
    He still kept his eyes closed. He was touched, and a little dismayed, by what he had heard Mallinson say. It was his fate in life to have his equanimity always mistaken for pluck, whereas it was actually something much more dispassionate and much less virile. They were all in a damnably awkward situation, it seemed to him, and so far from being full of bravery about it, he felt chiefly an enormous distaste for whatever trouble might be in store. There was Miss Brinklow, for instance. He foresaw that in certain circumstances he would have to act on the supposition that because she was a woman she mattered far more than the rest of them put together, and he shrank from a situation in which such disproportionate behavior might be unavoidable.
    Nevertheless, when he showed signs of wakefulness, it was to Miss Brinklow that he spoke first. He realized that she was neither young nor pretty—negative virtues, but immensely helpful ones in such difficulties as those in which they might soon find themselves. He was also rather sorry for her, because he suspected that neither Mallinson nor the American liked missionaries, especially female ones. He himself was unprejudiced, but he was afraid she would find his open mind a less familiar and therefore an even more disconcerting phenomenon. “We seem to be in a queer fix,” he said, leaning forward to her ear, “but I’m glad you’re taking it