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Then we’ll see what we can salvage from this fiasco.”
    “Yes, of course, my lord. I quite understand,” the man of business said as both men rose. “But it need not be tomorrow. Take a few days to let the news sink in. Shall we say Monday?”
    The day agreed on, Mr. Jennings led the viscount to the door, where they paused and shook hands. “Try not to fall into the dismals, my lord,” the older man counselled. “Other men, many more than you dream, have managed to survive such blows as this.”
    Lord Kittridge emerged from Jennings’ offices, his head in a whirl. It was hard for him to comprehend fully the extent of the disaster his father had left behind. But one thing was devastatingly clear: The future he’d imagined for himself was shattered. He knew that he was not the only soldier to return from the wars to find things at home devastatingly changed, but the knowledge that others had been struck with similar blows was not particularly comforting. No matter how often one hears that misery loves company, there are some miseries that can’t be eased by the mere awareness that others have suffered a similar catastrophe.
    He began to walk down the street, the cold wind buffeting his face. He couldn’t help noticing that, although it was early afternoon, the day was as dark as twilight. The sky was a stormy grey, and the air had a bite that promised snow. He raised the collar of his greatcoat, thinking that the grim weather was deucedly appropriate to his mood. He didn’t quite know where he was going. He knew only that he didn’t want to go home. Facing his family would require more strength than he could now summon up. He turned up one street and down another until more than an hour had passed, but he still was not able to calm his inner perturbation.
    But the wind nipped at his ears and his fingers tingled with the cold, so at last he hailed a hack and gave the address of the Fenton Hotel, where his friend Sandy was putting up. Sir Philip Sanford—Sandy to his friends—had been his comrade-in-arms through all his years of military service. Lord Kittridge had never had a better friend. Sandy was too short of stature and too moon-faced to be taken seriously as a military hero, but Kittridge knew that a braver, kinder, more loyal soldier never lived. There was hardly a time that Sandy would not show a cheerful face. No matter how grave the battle situation might seem, Sandy always had an optimistic outlook. He was the most warm-hearted fellow in the world, and his broad-cheeked face was the only one Lord Kittridge wanted to see in this dark hour.
    Besides, a visit with Sandy would bring back the feeling of being in military service. War was certainly as “grim-visaged” as Shakespeare said it was, but being a soldier had much to recommend it. Civilian life was messy and confusing. What Kittridge missed most at this moment was the clean, brave, unencumbered feeling he’d had as Robert Rossiter, cavalry officer. And that was something only Sandy would understand.
    When Sandy’s man admitted him to the sitting room of the rented suite on the Fenton’s third floor, he found his friend lounging in a wing chair near the fire, his stockinged feet propped up on the hearth. Sandy looked up from the newspaper he’d been reading, peered at his friend for one long, silent moment and jumped to his feet. “Good God, man, what’s amiss? You look as if you’ve lost your best friend, but that can’t be, for here I am, quite alive and hale.”
    Rossiter acknowledged the quip with a mirthless imitation of a smile. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said, throwing his greatcoat over a chair. “On top of the news I learned today, losing my best friend would be more than I could bear.”
    “Then what is it?” Sandy asked, his usually cheerful face clouding with the realization that his friend had suffered a severe blow. “Whatever it is, Robbie, old fellow, it can’t be as bad as the look on your face.”
    Lord