"They sent me down to Newhaven last night—embarkation. I'm off in two minutes." He jerked his head towards a racing car standing outside the garage, white with dust. "Got to catch the 7 o'clock at Lewes, and be back at the War Office at 9 p.m. An all-night sitting, I expect." That austere gaze of his returned to the playing-fields. "Little they know what they're in for," he said, as though to himself.
For the first time the Colonel found something admirable, almost comforting, in the hardness of his old adjutant. He followed the other's gaze and then said quietly, almost tenderly, as one breathing a secret in the ear of a dying man.
"That's the child, Royal—that one in the white frock and black legs running over by the elms. And that's her mother in the brown dress—the one waving. And there's her husband under the trees—that shabby feller."
Royal arched his fine eyebrows in faint surprise.
"Is she married?" he asked coolly.
"Yes," replied the Colonel. "The feller who seduced her wouldn't do the straight thing by her."
Again the eyebrows spoke, this time with an added touch of sarcasm, almost of insolence.
"How d'you know?"
The Colonel was roused.
"Well, did you?" he asked, with rare brutality.