"If you please," said Colonel Middleton. "Where is the dressing-room?"
"It is here, sir," said the servant, turning up a corner of the tapestry, and opening a small door, which displayed a little room into which the sun was streaming warm and bright.
It is strange what trains of thought very insignificant circumstances will produce. The sight of that small but cheerful chamber, compared with the large and gloomy one in which he stood, struck the young officer much; and he said to himself--
"Thus it is often with human fate. The narrow and confined sphere of humble life is often gay and happy, while the wider and loftier one of wealth and station is cold, gloomy, and cheerless." The next moment he heard the voice of Charles Marston calling him; and, going down-stairs, they set out upon their walk.
Mr. Winkworth managed admirably. One would almost have supposed him a daughter-marrying dowager, so admirably did he keep Lady Fleetwood in play, while the younger party roamed on before. He walked slowly, too, which is a great faculty in such circumstances; and as Lady Fleetwood herself was not generally disposed to walk fast, it suited her very well.
"Colonel Middleton is an old friend of yours, I find, Mr. Winkworth," said Lady Fleetwood as they went on. "Have you known him many years?"
"Not many, according to the almanac, my dear madam," replied the old gentleman, "but a great many according to the computation of the mind. I look upon it, my dear Lady Fleetwood," he continued, in a moralising tone, "that thoughts, words, and actions are the real measures of time; and that the sun's rising or setting, the mere whirling round of the great peg-top on which we creep about, has nothing in the world to do with it. According, therefore, to my way of computing, I have known Colonel Middleton a great many years, and ten times as long as I have known some men with whom I was hand-in-glove before he was born. You understand me?"
She did not in the least; but she replied, "Oh, yes: you mean that you have known him many years, but that you have lost sight of him."
"Not so," replied Mr. Winkworth. "It is not many months since I first made his acquaintance; but I have seen a good deal of him in that time, have heard much of him from friends of longer standing; and a more honourable, high-spirited, gentlemanly man does not exist."
"Oh, dear! I am glad to hear you say so."