He had had no desire to marry since the days of his more susceptible youth—he was now thirty-four—and, although rich girls had made no stronger appeal to him than poor girls, he was well aware that the dowerless beauty was not for him. He was too good a soldier and too much of a man to be luxurious in taste or habit, and, although a guardsman, he was born into the out-of-door generation that has nothing in common with the scented lap-dogs made famous by the novelists of the mid-Victorian era. But when not at the front he indulged himself in liberty, many hours at cricket and golf, the companionship of congenial spirits, a reasonable amount of dining out, and an absolute freedom from the petty details of life. Travelling third class amused him, the English aristocrat being the truest democrat in the world and wholly without snobbery. Single, his debts worried him no more than bad weather in London; but married, he must at once set up an establishment suited to his position.
He had distinguished himself in South Africa, and his county, rich and poor, had, upon his return, at the very end of the war, met him at the station and pulled his carriage over the miles to his father’s house, some two thousand men and women cheering all the way. There had been so many in London to lionize since that war, to which pampered men had gone in their heydey and returned gray and crippled, that when he went up for the season he was merely one of a galaxy eagerly sought and fêted; but life had never slipped along so easily and pleasantly, and after three years of hardship and many months of painful illness, it had made a double appeal to a battered soldier, still half an invalid. He had dismissed the serious things of life as he landed in England, and devoutly hoped for a five years’ peace. Therefore was he the less inclined to fall in love, valuing peace of mind no less than surcease for the body. Catalina was by no means penniless, and certainly would make a heroic soldier’s wife; but they had not a tradition in common, and he saw clearly that if he loved her at all he should love her far more than had suited his indolent habit when not soldiering. Hence he welcomed the return of the Moultons, and even meditated a retreat.
“A moon in the Alhambra would finish me,” he thought, glancing up at the waxing orb fighting its way through a stormy mass of black and silver.
A bell rang, a whistle—the only energetic thing about a Spanish train—shrieked and blustered above the slowing headlight of an engine approaching from the north.
“You stand here by the Thirds and I’ll go up to where the Firsts will stop,” began Catalina, but Over held her arm firmly within his.
“No,” he said, peremptorily, “you must not be by yourself a moment in this crowd. You would be spoken to, probably jostled, at once, and no doubt a rough lot will get out. We will both stand here by the restaurant door.”
“I am not afraid,” said Catalina, haughtily.
“That is not the point.”
“I was near coming to Spain by myself.”
“What has that to do with me?”