If he had added that he was one of the greatest gamblers on the turf, he would have spoken truthfully.
"Horse racing," said Miss Darrell—"that is the favorite occupation of English gentlemen, is it not?"
"I should imagine so. Then I am considered—you must pardon my boasting—one of the best billiard players in London."
"That is not much of a boast," she remarked, with such quiet contempt that the captain could only look at her in sheer wonder.
"There are balls, operas, parties, suppers—I cannot tell what; and the ladies engross a great deal of our time. We soldiers never forget our devotion and chivalry to the fair sex, Miss Darrell."
"The fair sex should be grateful that they share your attention with horses and billiards," she returned. "But what else do you do, Captain Langton? I was not thinking of such trifles as these."
"Trifles!" he repeated. "I do not call horse racing a trifle. I was within an inch of winning the Derby—I mean to say a horse of mine was. If you call that a trifle, Miss Darrell, you go near to upsetting English society altogether."
"But what great things do you do?" she repeated, her dark eyes opening wider. "You cannot mean seriously that this is all. Do you never write, paint—have you no ambition at all?"
"I do not know what you call ambition," he replied, sullenly; "as for writing and painting, in England we pay people to do that kind of thing for us. You do not think that I would paint a picture, even if I could?"
"I should think you clever if you did that," she returned; "at present I cannot see that you do anything requiring mind or intellect."