glass.
He read disapprobation in the eyes about him, but he had shaken the
momentary chill from his own spirits, and he stared them down. "Sink
the old Square-Toes!" he cried. "He got what he deserved! Who'll throw
a main with me?"

"Thirty guineas against your new mare, if you like?"

"No, confound you," Payton retorted angrily. "Didn't I say she wasn't
for sale?"

CHAPTER VI

THE MAITRE D'ARMES

Beyond doubt Colonel John had got himself off the scene with a certain
amount of dignity. But with all that he had done and suffered in the
lands beyond the Baltic and the Vistula, he had not yet become so
perfect a philosopher as to be indifferent to the opinion held of him
by others. He was, indeed, as he retired, as unhappy as a more ordinary
man might have been in the same case. He knew that he was no craven,
that he had given his proofs a score of times. But old deeds and a
foreign reputation availed nothing here. And it was with a deep sense
of vexation and shame that he rode out of the barrack-yard. Why, oh
why! had he been so unlucky as to enter it? He was a man, after all,
and the laughter of the mess-room, the taunts of the bully, burned his
ears.

Nor were his spirits low on his account only. The cruelty of man to
man, the abuse of strength by those who had it, and the pains of those
who had it not, the crookedness of the world in which the weak go to
the wall--thoughts of these things weighed him down. But more, and more
to the purpose, he saw that after what had happened, his chances of
success in the enterprise which had brought him to town, and which was
itself but a means to an end, were lessened. It might not be possible
to pursue that enterprise any farther. This was a mortifying thought,
and accounted for the melancholy face with which he sought the inn, and
supped; now wishing that he had not done this or that, now pondering
how he might turn the flank of a misfortune which threatened to shatter
all his plans.

For if he was anxious to recover the mare, his anxiety did not rest
there. Her recovery was but a step to other things; to that influence
at Morristown which would make him potent for good; to that
consideration which would enable him to expel foolish councils, and
silence that simmering talk of treason which might at any moment boil
up into action and ruin a countryside. But he knew that he could only
get the mare from those who held her by imposing himself upon them; and
to do t