diantly, as if apologising in a gallant
sort of fashion for his existence in the sphere of Betty's affection.
As I had known him but casually and desired to make his closer
acquaintance, I had asked no one to meet them, save Betty's aunt, whom
a providential cold had prevented from facing the night air. So, in the
comfortable little oak-panelled dining-room, hung round with my beloved
collection of Delft, I had the pair all to myself, one on each side;
and in this way I was able to read exchanges of glances whence I might
form sage conclusions. Bella, spruce parlour-maid, waited deftly.
Sergeant Marigold, when not occupied in the mild labour of filling
glasses, stood like a guardian ramrod behind my chair--a self-assigned
post to which he stuck grimly like a sentinel. As I always sat with my
back to the fire there must have been times when, the blaze roaring
more fiercely than usual up the chimney, he must have suffered
martyrdom in his hinder parts.

As I talked--for the first time on such intimate footing--with young
Connor, I revised my opinion of him and mentally took back much that I
had said in his disparagement. He was by no means the dull dog that I
had labelled him. By diligent and sympathetic enquiry I learned that he
had been a Natural Science scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he had taken a first-class degree--specialising in geology; that by
profession (his father's) he was a mining-engineer, and, in pursuit of
his vocation, had travelled in Galicia, Mexico and Japan; furthermore,
that he had been one of the ardent little band who of recent years had
made the Cambridge Officers Training Corps an effective school.
Hitherto, when I had met him he had sat so agreeably smiling and
modestly mumchance that I had accepted him at his face value.

I was amused to see how Betty, in order to bring confusion on me, led
him to proclaim himself. And I loved the manner in which he did so. To
hear him, one would have thought that he owed everything in the world
to Betty--from his entrance scholarship at the University to the word
of special commendation which his company had received from the General
of his Division at last week's inspection. Yes, he was the modest,
clean-bred, simple English gentleman who, without self-consciousness or
self-seeking, does his daily task as well as it can be done, just
because it is the thing that is set before him to do. And he was over
head and ears in love with Betty.

I to