"But," remonstrated Mrs. Galland, "I'm an old-fashioned woman; and, Marta, your father was an officer, as your grandfather was, too. I am sure he would not approve of your school, and I could do nothing against his wishes."
She looked up with moistening eyes to a portrait on the opposite wall over the seat which her husband had occupied at table. Lanstron saw there a florid, jaunty gentleman in riding-habit, gloves on knee, crop in hand. The spirit of the first Galland or of the stern grandfather on the side wall—with Blücher tufts in front of his ears sturdy defiance of that parvenu Bonaparte and of his own younger brother who had fallen fighting for Bonaparte—would have frowned on the descendant who had filled the house with many guests and paid the bills with mortgages in the ebbing tide of the family fortunes. But Mrs. Galland saw only a hero. She shared his prejudices against the manufacturers of the town; she saw the sale of land to be cut up into dwelling sites, which had saved the Gallands from bankruptcy, as the working of the adverse fate of modern tendencies. Even as she had left all details of business to her husband, so she had of late left them to Marta's managing.
"Edward and I were just engaged before the outbreak of the war," she proceeded. "How handsome he was in his Hussars' uniform! How frightened I was and hew proud of his fine bravado when I heard him and a number of fellow officers drinking here in this room to quick death and speedy promotion! Do they still have that toast, Colonel?"
"Yes, in some regiments," Lanstron answered. He would not say that what was good form in the days of the beau sabreur was considered a little theatrical in the days of the automatic gun-recoil.
"And when he came—oh, when you came home," breathed Mrs. Galland to the portrait, "with the scar on your cheek, how tanned and strong your hands were and how white mine as you held them so fast! And then"—she smiled in peaceful content—"then I did faint. I am not ashamed of it—I did!"
"Without any danger of falling far!" said Lanstron happily.
"Or with much of a jar!" added Marta.
"You prattling children!" gasped Mrs. Galland, her cheeks flushing. "Do you think that I fainted purposely? I would have been ashamed to my dying day if I had feigned it!"
"And you did not faint in the presence of the dead and dying!" said Marta thoughtfully, wonderingly, leaning nearer to her mother, her eyes athirst and drinking.
"But I believe it is only a wispy-waspy sort of girl that faints at all these days. They're all so businesslike," said Mrs. Galland—"so businesslike that they are ceasing to marry."