The young lieutenant had recovered sufficiently from his fright to wing this speech with a little mischievous barb, for Lady Florencecourt was a notoriously undesirable helpmeet.
The Colonel laughed harshly.
“Support the cause of the ladies? Very like supporting the cause of the cannon-balls that come whizzing about your ears from the enemy’s camp! While you are praising their velocity, and the directness of their flight, whir-r-r comes one through the air and stops your fool’s tongue for ever.”
The dry grimness with which he spoke set the young men laughing. But Massey, encouraged by perceiving that his chief was in good humour, began again softly to sing:
“Oh, say, wilt thou weep when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resigned?”
“Not at all, my boy,” broke in the Colonel, in his file-like voice; “she will say: ‘What a fool that boy was, and how tiresome he got at the last!’ Nothing, believe me, wearies a woman so much as a grande passion. Trust me; I once watched a friend through all the phases of one.”
“Did he die, Colonel?” asked Massey, in a small voice.
“No, but he had to take a very strong remedy. Well, now, lads, I don’t want to impose a misogynist’s society on you any longer, especially as I have small hopes of making any converts under five-and-twenty. Only take an old fellow’s advice: Singe your wings at as many candles as possible, and you will run the less risk of being burnt to a cinder by any one of them. Good-night.”
They raised their hats to him, and he hailed a passing hansom and drove off, just as they turned westward into one of the streets leading into Portland Place.
“He himself was the friend, I suppose,” said Dicky, when they had commented on the Colonel’s unusual sociability.