“We must be a little more formal, dear, and do this business in accordance with military etiquette. You see, these official people are very exacting as to formalities.”
Then he wrote upon the official letter which had accompanied the commission a respectful indorsement declining the commission, after which he directed his secretary-nurse to address it formally to Captain Marshall Pollard, who, he explained, would indorse it and forward it through the regular channels, as required by military usage.
“But why not accept the commission?” asked Evelyn, simply. She did not at all realise—and Kilgariff had taken pains that she should not realise—the enormity of her blunder or the ludicrousness of it. “Isn’t it better to be a captain than a sergeant-major?”
“For most men, yes,” answered Kilgariff; “but not for me.”
But he did not explain.
VIII
SOME REVELATIONS OF EVELYN
IN the meanwhile Arthur Brent had acted upon Dorothy’s suggestion. He had prepared a careful statement of Kilgariff’s case, withholding his name of course, and had submitted it to General Stuart, with the request that that typical exemplar of all that was best in chivalry should himself choose such officers as he deemed best, to constitute the court.