"But all generals are not like that, Mr. Graeme."
"All I've met. It's a natural consequence too, I suppose. When a man's young and in full possession of his faculties he's only a humble captain or major, but as he approaches imbecility he rises in rank, till in the height of senile decay he becomes a general."
"Mr. Graeme, you forget, I think, that my uncle's a——"
"He, of course, is one of the exceptions you just mentioned," said Hector with a rather nasty chuckle.
"Mr. Graeme, you're horrid; I don't wonder people dislike you."
"More do I, though perhaps if you'd been brought up as I have you'd be horrid too."
"What do you mean?"
Graeme hesitated for a moment, frowning, and then burst out, with a ring of passion in his voice:
"You've had a happy life. Miss Caldwell, parents who have been parents, I've not. My father, for some reason, would never look at me, while my mother alternately petted and neglected me. She was a queer being, my mother, mad on spiritualism and such like, and what's more used to drag me into her experiments. She said I was clairvoyant."
"Good heavens, Mr. Graeme, what an awful thing for a woman to do. I beg your pardon; I forget it's your mother I'm speaking of."