THE BATTLE ON THE SANDS. 
337 
“THE mass SPUN, STAGGERED, crashed to the cloth, wallowed in a very morass of 
CREAM AND JAM AND PASTRIES.” 
IV. 
That is the end of the fight ; but in reading 
of great ring battles as good as any other part 
is to see how the combatants bore themselves 
afterwards in their dressing-rooms, Hugh 
Falkener, then, attracting now the womanish 
compassion of all save one of these poor 
picnic-defrauded girls, was by all save one 
tenderly ministered to as, wailing aloud, he 
lay in the clot, of creams and cakes. With 
spoons, with forks, with shells, the forgiving 
creatures clustered about him picking off the 
jam, the pastries, the chocolates, and the 
peaches that festooned his person. With 
pretty sighs they gave their sympathy, with 
pretty moans bade him, in their impracticable, 
girlish way, tell where he was hurt — poor 
wretch, he was bruised and torn from his flat 
nose to where the snuffling De Ponthicre 
picked cake off his left foot. 
One only stood aloof, and this was that 
Daffy England who, as Milly had said, always 
insisted upon lugging her brother everywhere 
with her, had lugged him to this, and now 
stood watching him as he stumped away in 
the distance, and presently fled swiftly after 
and overtook him. 
“ Oh, Val 1 ” she cried. “ Oh, Val ! ” 
Valentine Saxon England caught up his 
laboured breathing with an immense sniff. 
“ Oh, don’t go on about it, Daffy ! ” 
“ I’m not — I’m not ! Oh, Val, you’re 
frightfully hurt ! ” 
“ Oh, don’t make a fuss about it, Daffy/’ 
he pleaded. 
They plodded along. 
“ You oughtn’t to have dulched like that, 
though, dear,” Daffy said, presently. “At 
public schools— in ‘ Tom Drown,’ behind 
the chapel, you remember they only 
slog” 
“ Oh, I know that, Daffy. It’s all very 
well to talk. I had to fight any way 1 could. 
He called me a private-school baby. T m not. 
And 1 licked him, didn’t I ? I licked him in 
the end.” 
“ You did. You did splendidly , darling I ” 
The splendid man conveyed to his mouth 
a piece of eclair that stuck to his coat, and 
they went proudly hand in hand. 
