Captain Brace laughed unpleasantly, and I grew hotter.
“Why, you are quite the hero of the day, Vincent,” he said grimly.
“It’s horrid!” I cried pettishly. “I declare I wouldn’t have done it if I had known what they meant to do. Such nonsense!”
“Ah, you are talking nonsense, boy. Bah! take no notice. They’ll forget it all in a few hours. People soon get over these hysterical displays.”
I sat down sulkily on one of my cases, while he went on coolly arranging his shaving tackle, night things, and the boots and shoes.
“I like him less and less,” I said to myself, as I sat and watched him, while, as I fancied, he treated me in the most cavalier of ways, only speaking now and then; but when he did speak it was to ask me some question about myself, and each time he made me think how young and inexperienced I was, for he appeared to be getting to know everything, while he was still quite a stranger to me.
“Yes,” he said at last, “I have heard of Colonel Vincent—a brother-officer of mine once met him at dinner somewhere up the country. I was in quite a different part.”
“Then you have been out in India before?” I cried eagerly.
“I?” he said, with a faint smile. “Oh yes. I was out there seven years—quite an apprenticeship. I was just such a griffin as you when I went out first, but a couple of years older.”
“Griffin!” I thought; and I felt I disliked him more and more; just, too, as I was warming up to him a little, and thinking he was improving.