“H’m!” said Rosamond. “Many a merry day have I had on the top of the regimental drag; so perhaps there’s nothing of which you would not suspect me.”
“I’ll tell you what I more than suspect you of,” said Julius, “of wearing a gay bonnet to be a bait and a sanction to crowds of young girls, to whom the place was one of temptation, though not to you.”
“Oh, there would be no end to it if one thought of such things.”
“Or the young men who—”
“Well,” broke in Rosamond, “it was always said that our young officers got into much less mischief than where there was a straight-laced colonel, who didn’t go along with them to give them a tone.”
“That I quite believe. I remember, too, the intense and breathless sense of excitement in the hush and suspense of the multitude, and the sweeping by of the animals—”
“Then you’ve been!” cried his wife.
“As a boy, yes.”
“Not since you were old enough to think it over?” said Anne eagerly.
“No. It seemed to me that the amount of genuine interest in the sport and the animals was infinitesimal compared with the fictitious excitement worked up by betting.”