"Bah, my profession."
"Well, why not, surely it's a good enough one for any man? And I believe, Hector, I really do, that you could be as good a soldier as any of them if you worked, perhaps even be adjutant after Mr. Ferrers, and in time command the regiment. Oh, I should love you to command the regiment."
"And after that, Lucy?"
"Oh well, that's as high as I go. I think I should then like you to retire, and perhaps go into Parliament."
"Colonel Graeme, M.P., Lord, what dizzy heights, Lucy."
"Don't sneer, Hector, I mean it, but you'll have to work. I'll take you in hand myself when we return to Riwala. Till then you may play as much as you like. And now I've got some news for you. How would you like to shoot a bear?"
"Bear, where is he?"
"About twelve miles from here, I believe. A native's just come in to tell Sir Reginald, I don't think he much believes in the story, though; he says these Kashmiris are such liars it would be only waste of time going. Still, I think we might persuade him if you'd care for it."
"Rather, of course I would," said Hector, and perchance at the sudden return to mundane interests the great mountains and forests laughed, quietly derisive, for well they knew the resistless force of which they, like him, were but the phenomena, and how—make what plans and resolutions he may—man must dance when the master-hand chooses to pull the strings and call the tune, though till then he is seemingly free to act as he pleases. And so Hector was allowed to become his own confident self once more, and, feeling rather ashamed of his recent lapse from common sense, hurried off with Lucy to the coercion of his unwilling host.
"Oh, Sir Reginald," he said, entering the drawing-room, "my wife tells me there are bears about. Why not have a go at them to-morrow?"