Thomson murmured, as he turned
away from the hotel.

CHAPTER VII

"I wonder why you don't like Captain Granet?" Geraldine asked her
fiance, as they stood in the drawing-room waiting for dinner.

"Not like him?" Thomson repeated. "Have I really given you that
impression, Geraldine?"

The girl nodded.

"Perhaps I ought not to say that, though," she confessed. "You are never
particularly enthusiastic about people, are you?"

One of his rare smiles transfigured his face. He leaned a little towards
her.

"Not about many people, Geraldine," he whispered.

She made a charming little grimace but a moment afterwards she was
serious again.

"But really," she continued, "to me Captain Granet seems just the type
of young Englishman who is going to save the country. He is a keen
soldier, clever, modest, and a wonderful sportsman. I can't think what
there is about him for any one to dislike."

Major Thomson glanced across the room. In a way, he and the man whom he
felt instinctively was in some sense of the word his rival, even though
an undeclared one, were of exactly opposite types. Granet was the
centre of a little group of people who all seemed to be hanging upon his
conversation. He was full of high spirits and humour, debonair, with all
the obvious claims to popularity. Thomson, on the other hand, although
good-looking, even distinguished in his way, was almost too slim and
pale. His face was more the face of a scholar than of one interested
in or anxious to shine in the social side of life. His manners and his
speech were alike reserved, his air of breeding was apparent, but he had
not the natural ease or charm which was making Granet, even in those few
minutes, persona grata with Geraldine's mother and a little circle of
newly-arrived guests.

"At least I appreciate your point of view," Major Thomson admitted, with
a faint sigh.

"Don't be such a dear old stick," Geraldine laughed. "I want you to like
him because I find him so interesting. You see, as he gets to know one a
little better he doesn't seem to mind talking about the war. You others
will scarcely say a word of what you have seen or of what is being done
out there. I like to be told things by people who have actually seen
them. He happened to be ten minutes early this evening and he gave me a
most fascinating description of some skirmishing near La Bassee."

"You must remember," Thomson told her, "that personally I do not, in an
ordinary way, s