The Colonel took no notice. He was puffing away at his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study.
"Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, "this is no time to be giving you lessons in the way the great world wags that neither knows nor cares of outs and ins and party shufflings, but is busy with rents and crops, and incomings and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is going to win, I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as is the Colonel who is going to do his best to help his Prince to win. I am one, and, I thank God, not the least, of that great race of men who are destined to mould a mightier England than the sword could ever carve--the merchant of London whose nod is his bond."
He spoke with simple dignity and his word was established. I had trusted him on sight. "His nod was his bond." You saw it in the man's clear, steady eyes and knew it by the set of his firm, square chin. After a warning glance at the silent Colonel, he leaned forward, and Margaret bent to meet him.
"If Charles loses," he murmured, "many heads will be smitten from their shoulders."
The colour left her cheeks instantly and tears welled forth from her eyes.
"But not the Colonel's," he whispered.
I was watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile dawned on the white face, the sad eyes began to lose their gloom, and my fool of a heart began to flutter.
Yet once more he whispered, "And not Oliver's."
She leaned farther forward still and kissed him.
And it was just at that moment that the door opened smartly and Cherry-Cheeks put her sweet head round it and swiftly and peremptorily beckoned me outside.