The colonel looked mildly compassionate and inquisitive. He anticipated the possible pleasure her Ladyship might feel in a personal narrative, and he was an accomplished listener. This time, however, he was wrong. Lady Onslow either did not think the occasion or the audience worth the trouble of the exertion, and merely said, “We had a break-down somewhere with an odious name. Sir Stafford would travel by that road through the Hohlen Thai, where somebody made his famous march. Who was it?”
“Massena, I think,” said the colonel, at a haphazard, thinking that at least the name was ben trovato, just as Sunday-school children father everything remarkable on John the Baptist.
“Oh dear, no; it was Moreau. We stopped to breakfast at the little inn where he held his headquarters, and in the garden of which he amused himself in pistol-shooting, strange, was it not? Are you a good shot, Colonel?”
“Good among bad ones,” said the colonel, modestly.
“Then we must have a match. I am so fond of it! You have pistols, of course?”
“I am fortunate enough to have a case of Schlessinger's best, and at your Ladyship's disposal.”
“Well, that is agreed upon. You 'll be kind enough to select a suitable spot in the garden, and if to-morrow be fine By the way what is to-morrow not Sunday I hope?”
The colonel relieved her anxieties by the assurance that the next day would be Monday, consequently that the present one was Sunday.
“How strange! One does make sad confusion in these things abroad,” said she, sighing. “I think we are better in England in that respect, don't you?”
The question was not a very clear one, but the colonel never hesitated to give in his adhesion.