To the young military officer in whom the reverential spirit is not entirely quenched, the British general is often a very awful person indeed. A halo of professional glory surrounds the great man; strange powers—particularly as to leave—are vested in him; his frequent frown is terrific, his occasional smile fails to reassure. To the officer whose early days were spent in the ranks, and who has never seen the general behind the scenes, so to speak, as an English gentleman no better than others of his class, the formidable effect is intensified, and a great gulf seems to separate the two.

It was with a shy feeling and rather a[117] sinking heart that Herbert presented himself at Line Wall House, the residence of the major-general commanding; but he found himself among friends even on the threshold. An orderly sergeant, one of the Duke’s Own, of course, and a former comrade, took his coat and forage cap; and the servant who ushered him into the drawing-room was also an old soldier of the regiment disguised in livery, who seemed to be the herald of a triumphal procession as he threw wide the doors and with stentorian lungs announced

‘Misther Larkins!’

The friendliness was not, however, confined to the attendants. The general’s manner was most frank and kindly as he came forward and shook hands. Mrs. Prioleau, a well-meaning, but very languid washed-out personage, also greeted him[118] quite warmly, for her: while Edith received him with such bright eyes and heightened colour, conveying thanks and welcome all in one, that, for the moment, he felt quite overcome.

It was a small party of eight, carefully chosen, probably with the idea of making Herbert thoroughly at home. Another subaltern like himself, but newly married, with a pretty girlish cipher of a wife, and a staff-surgeon, who proved to be Herbert’s Ashanti friend, M‘Cosh. The general’s aide-de-camp, Captain Mountcharles, a relation of the family, made up the number.

Edith fell to Herbert on going in to dinner. On her other side at the table was the aide-de-camp, who, according to custom, took the bottom, the general being at the other end, and Mrs. Prioleau in the centre on the right.

[119]

The talk at dinner was not particularly lively at first. Mrs. Prioleau never contributed much; the general was really a little shy himself, especially with people whom he did not know intimately; Edith was rather silent, and the rest of the company seemingly abashed, all but one. The exception was Captain Mountcharles, whose duty it was, no less than his inclination, to make himself agreeable, and he acquitted himself very well of his task.

He was a very self-satisfied young gentleman, rather disposed to be overdressed and with a somewhat supercilious air. The first showed itself in the splendour of his shirt-front, with its single stud as large as a cheese-plate, in his enormous shirt cuffs, which he ‘shot out’ with a little concerted cough just before he made a new remark, in the breadth of his black satin tie, and in[120] the size of his watch chain, which had it been long enough would have made a cable for a seventy-four. The latter was to be seen in his drawling accents and his tendency to depreciate everybody and everything.

Herbert hated him almost instinctively from the first, but his dislike was deepened by his seeming familiarity with Edith, whom he called by her Christian name. She was his cousin, so it was all right enough, but it jarred on Herbert all the same.

‘Very poor sport to-day,’ said the aide-de-camp to the general, ‘you did not miss much, sir. You weren’t out, M‘Cosh? Were you, Mr. Larkins—?’ punctiliously polite to Herbert, as to an inferior; another reason for hatred. ‘How anyone can hunt here after the shires!’

[121]

‘You never hunted in the shires, Gaston, so come,’ said downright Edith.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Edith. I did, several seasons while you were still at school.’

‘Miss Prioleau never went to school, I think,’ put in Herbert, and she turned on him with a bright smile.

‘O, do you remember that day! I never was so bothered, I think. French is certainly the most difficult and detestable of tongues.’

‘So I always thought,’ Herbert said.

‘You speak French, Mr. Larkins?’ asked the aide-de-camp, rather impertinently.

‘After a fashion, that of Deadham school. Pray do you?’

‘Were you at Deadham?’ went on Captain Mountcharles, rather shirking the question,[122] and seeming to imply that a man who had been in the ranks had no right to any education at all.

‘Ye were at more schools than that, I take it, Larkins,’ said Dr. M‘Cosh; ‘I saw you in one, and a hot ’un, where you were the head and dux of the class.’

‘You were at school together, then?’ Mrs. Prioleau asked civilly, but she was evidently too apathetic to care about the reply.

‘We played together, Mrs. Prioleau, not with hoop or ball, or peg tops, but at the great game of war.’

‘Ashanti, I presume,’ the general said.

‘The idea of calling that a war, sir,’ interposed our bumptious A.D.C. ‘A picnic would be a better name.’

‘It was not a picnic under the usual[123] circumstances, at any rate,’ Herbert said quietly, as one entitled to speak.

‘No foiegras and hothouse grapes, perhaps,’ went on Mountcharles; ‘but you must admit that the whole thing was monstrously exaggerated.’

‘O, how can you say so?’ cried Edith, quite eagerly.

‘And the honours, too, look how they were overdone. Why there were more rewards than for Waterloo.’

‘Some of them were richly deserved; one in particular, which I could mention,’ replied Edith, with the air of a champion defending the right.

‘It isn’t everyone who gets the chance to deserve them,’ said Mountcharles, rather sulkily. He had never seen a shot fired himself, and bore malice in his heart to all who had had better luck.

[124]

‘Or who would make the most of it if they had,’ Edith retorted sharply, adding in a low voice, ‘Gaston, I quite hate you to-night: how disagreeable you can be.’

For the remainder of the evening she made him conscious of her high displeasure. Mountcharles and she had hitherto been the most excellent friends. An aide-de-camp may be, and Mountcharles certainly was, the very tamest of cats. He had other claims besides those of cousinship to be well received. With an only daughter, young, lively, and exceedingly attractive, both the general and Mrs. Prioleau had realised the inconvenience and possible danger of having a man continually about the house, unless he were in every way an eligible parti. Edith had plenty of time before her, no doubt, but a............