She proposed to walk down the lanes to the river-side, to meet Elizabeth returning.
The General manifested alacrity checked by reluctance. Lady Camper had told him she objected to sit in a strange room by herself; after that, he could hardly leave her to dash upstairs to change his clothes; yet how, attired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;—and he knew the habit of the second rank to criticise the front—how consent to face the outer world in such style side by side with the lady he admired?
‘Come,’ said she; and he shot forward a step, looking as if he had missed fire.
‘Are you not coming, General?’
He advanced mechanically.
Not a soul met them down the lanes, except a little one, to whom Lady Camper gave a small silver-piece, because she was a picture.
The act of charity sank into the General’s heart, as any pretty performance will do upon a warm waxen bed.
Lady Camper surprised him by answering his thoughts. ‘No; it’s for my own pleasure.’
Presently she said, ‘Here they are.’
General Ople beheld his daughter by the river-side at the end of the lane, under escort of Mr. Reginald Rolles.