He had cold, speedwell blue eyes, that seemed all the brighter for his curly dark hair, a fine skin, rather pale, and an always growing reputation for hard efficiency.
"Matthew Arnold!" he said. "And who might Mr. Matthew Arnold be?"
He said it a thought aggressively. It was clear that not only had he never heard of Matthew Arnold, but that he would have considered it bad form to have done so.
"I believe he was a poet who seldom went to church," said the Major in the chi-chi voice which he could imitate to the life.
"Indeed," said Mr. Royal. "A poet!—Ah, I'm too busy for that sort of thing myself." He said it with a crushing air of finality.
When he had gone, Mrs. Lewknor looked at her husband with deprecatory eyes.
"My Jock," she said with a little sigh, "tell me!—Is it the system?—is it the man?—What is it?"
The Major sat upright on a little hard chair.
His eyes twinkled maliciously in his somewhat bony head. He looked like a gaunt satyr.
"My dear," he said, "in the British Army you must do as the British Army does. And there is one thing which the British Army Will Not tolerate, and that is—a cultivated mind."