“And bemoaning the fact that you are not there to see her,” she said. “But you know I could not have stayed. Not with you here, Dom. Why did you not sell out when you came home from Spain, as I begged you to do? I think you enjoy all the killing and all the danger to your own life.”

“If you really think that, you must be stupid,” he said. “No one willingly puts himself into a position to stare death in the face. There is such a thing as loyalty to one’s country and belief in certain principles.”

“I just think you have done enough,” Madeline said. “It should be someone else’s turn now, Dom. And you don’t have to bring talk of war into the house, anyway.”

“I have come from Charlie Simpson’s house,” he said. “Mrs. Simpson has just come back from England with Charlie’s young daughter. You should be more like her, Mad. Charlie and I sometimes sit and talk for hours about military matters, and I have never heard one word of complaint from her or one hint that perhaps her husband should sell out. And he has been in for longer than twenty years.”

“Then she must be a very foolish woman,” Madeline said. “Perhaps she does not care for him a great deal.”

“Don’t argue in front of the children,” Lord Amberley said in the quiet tones that had always quelled the twins’ frequent differences of opinion.

The countess spoke almost simultaneously. “Captain Simpson must be very glad to have his daughter safely here,” she said. “And how reassuring it must have been for the girl to have an older woman with whom to travel.”

Lord Eden laughed. “I don’t think Mrs. Simpson is any older than Mad and I, Alexandra,” he said. “She must have been little more than a girl when Charlie married her five years ago. I am glad to see her home again. I will be taking tea there tomorrow, by the way. And I have told her that I want to present her to you and Mad. I hope you will not mind.”