"He wasn't at all a good friend for Hugo, you know."
"Perhaps not; but that's so long ago. Hugo improved too, afterwards."
Norman acquiesced perfunctorily. He knew that Hugo had not at all improved, afterwards, but also that Pamela didn't. "Well, I'll try to forget what he used to be like," he said. "But don't let's talk about him any more. Let's talk about Margaret."
[CHAPTER V]
THE FAMILY
Colonel Eldridge rode into his stable-yard and delivered up his horse to Timbs, who came hobbling out to receive it with a cheerful morning air and a general appearance of satisfaction with himself and his circumstances. Yet there were those who would have said that Timbs had no particular reason to be pleased with the way things had gone for him.
He had come to Hayslope Hall as groom ten years before, and had succeeded the old coachman four years later. He might have considered himself lucky then, for he was only twenty-six years of age. He had half a dozen horses in his stables and two grooms under him. There was also a chauffeur for the big car and the little runabout. Timbs had a young wife and a new baby, and comfortable quarters in which to keep them. In fact there seemed nothing left for him to desire, unless it was another baby of a sex complementary to the first one.
Then the war came. Timbs joined up among the first, and was turned into a good soldier, always cheerful and reliable, and diligent in writing home to the young wife who was being taken care of at Hayslope. Colonel Eldridge, who had gone back to soldiering himself, had exercised pressure, where it was required, as it was not in the case of Timbs, upon the able-bodied men on his estate to join the army, but had done his utmost to ensure their leaving their homes free of anxiety to those dependent upon them. So Mrs. Timbs and the baby prospered, while Timbs fought for his country; but Mrs. Timbs always wished that the war would end and Timbs would come home again, in which she differed from many wives in similar circumstances.