"But it was a great go, though, Duncan,--infection and all that, eh?" asked Captain Hetherington, who had joined the talkers. "There's no such thing as getting Poole's people to make you a coat; the whole resources of the establishment are concentrated on building a new rig-out for Towcester, who has sacrificed his entire get-up, and had his hair cut close, and taken no end of Turkish baths, for fear of being refused admittance at places where he was going to stay."
"All I can say is, then--is, that it's a capital thing for Towcester's man, or whoever gets his wardrobe," said Forbes; "Charley Jefferson might have made a good thing by buying his tunics, only there's a slight difference in their size--he wouldn't have feared the infection."
"No, not in that way perhaps," said Hetherington. "Charley's like the Yankee in Dickens's book, 'fever-proof and likewise ague;' but he can be got at, we all know. How about the widow? She bolted too, didn't she?"
"She did--more shame for her. No! the fact was, that at Kilsyth----"
"Cave canem!" said Tommy Toshington, holding up a monitory finger--"Cave canem, as we used to say at school. Here's Ronald Kilsyth just come into the room and making towards us!"
You can get a good view of Ronald Kilsyth now as he advances up the room. Rather under than over the middle height, with very broad shoulders betokening great muscular strength, and square limbs. His head is large, and his thick brown hair is brushed off his broad forehead, and hangs almost to his coat-collar. He has a well-moulded but rather a stern face, with bushy eyebrows, piercing gray eyes, and close thin lips. He is dressed plainly but in good taste, and his whole appearance is perfectly gentlemanlike. It would have been as hard to have mistaken Ronald for a snob as to have passed him by without notice; and there was something about him that infallibly attracted attention, and made those who saw him for the first time wonder who he was. It would have been quite impossible to divine his profession from his appearance; neither in look or bearing was there the smallest trace of the plunger. He might have been taken for a deep-thinking Chancery barrister, had it not been for his moustache; or, more likely still, a shrewd long-headed engineer, a man of facts and figures and calculation; but never a dragoon. He had been the innocent cause of extreme disappointment to many young ladies in various parts of the country where he had stayed--quiet unsophisticated girls, whose visits to London had been very rare, and who knew nothing of its society, and who hearing that a Life-Guards' officer was coming to dinner, expected to see a gigantic creature, all cuirass and jack-boots, an enlarged and ornamental edition of the sentries in front of the Horse-Guards. Ronald Kilsyth in his plain evening dress was a great blow to them; in byegone days his moustache would have been some consolation; but now the young farmers in the neighbourhood, the sporting surgeon, and all the volunteers wore moustaches; and though in subsequent conversation they found Ronald very pleasant, he neither drawled, nor lisped, nor made love to them; all of which proceedings they had believed to be necessary attributes of his branch of the military profession.
And many persons who were not young ladies in the country were disappointed in Ronald Kilsyth, more especially old friends of his father, who expected to find his son resembling him. Ronald inherited his father's love of honour, truth, and candour, his keen sense of right and wrong, his manliness and his courage; but there the likeness between the men ceased. Kilsyth's warmth of heart, warmth of temper, and largeness of soul were not reflected by Ronald, who never lost his self-control, who never gave anybody credit for more than they deserved, and who--save perhaps for his sister Madeleine, and his love for her was of a very stern and Spartan character--had never entertained any particularly warm feelings for any human being.
Ronald Kilsyth is not popular at Barnes's, being decidedly an unclubbable man. The members, if ever they speak of him at all, want to know what he joined for. He belonged to the Rag, didn't he, and some other club, where he could sit mumchance over his mutton, or stare at the lads from Aldershott drinking five-guinea Heidzeck champagne. What did he want among this sociable set? He always looked straight down his nose when Guffoon came up with a sad story, and he never cared about any scandal that was foreign. But he was not disliked, at least openly. It was considered that he was a doosid clever fellow, with a doosid sharp tongue of his own; and at Barnes's, as at other clubs, they are generally polite to fellows with doosid sharp tongues. And his father was a very good fellow, and gave very good dinners during the season, and Kilsyth was a very pleasant house to stop at in the autumn; so that, for these various reasons, Ronald Kilsyth, albeit in himself unpopular at Barnes's, was never suffered to hear of his unpopularity.
Not that if he had, it would have troubled him one jot. No man in the world was more careless of what people thought of him, so long as he had the approval of his own conscience; and by dint of a long course of self-schooling and the presence of a certain amount of self-satisfaction, he could generally count upon that. He could not tell himself why he had joined Barnes's Club, unless it was that Duncan Forbes was a member, and had asked him to join; and he liked Duncan Forbes in his way, and wanted some place where he could be pretty certain of finding him when in town. There were few points of resemblance between Ronald Kilsyth and Duncan Forbes; but perhaps their very dissimilarity was the bond of the union, such as it was, that existed between them. Ronald knew Duncan to be weak, but believed him, and rightly, to be thorough. Duncan Forbes would assume a languid haw-hawism, an almost idiotic rapidity, a freezing hauteur to any one he did not know and did not care for, for the merest caprice; but he would stand or fall by a friend, and not Charley Jefferson himself would be firmer and truer under trial. Ronald knew this; and knowing it, was not disposed to be hard on his friend's less stable qualities--was rather amused indeed "by Duncan's nonsense," as he phrased it, and showed more inclination for his society than that of any other of his acquaintance.
The group of talkers in the window opened as Ronald approached, and he shook hands with its various members; Tommy Toshington, who always had something pleasant to say to anybody out of whom there was any possibility of his ever getting anything, complimenting him on his appearance.