"It isn't mine," Millicent explained quickly. "It's a favorite theme of a philosopher I'm fond of, and he insists upon it when he speaks about great men. Perhaps I'm talking too freely, but I feel that Captain Challoner's being able to paint well shouldn't prevent his making a good officer."
"Great men are scarce. I'm content that my son has so far done his duty quietly and well; all I could wish for is that if any exceptional call should be made on him he should rise to the occasion. That is the supreme test; men from whom one expects much sometimes fail to meet it."
Millicent guessed that he was thinking of a man who had been dear to him, and who apparently had broken down beneath sudden stress.
"It must be hard to judge them unless one knows all the circumstances," she said stoutly.
"Not when a man has entered his country's service. He must carry out his orders; what he is sent to do must be done. No excuse can justify disobedience and failure. But we are getting too serious, and I am boring you. There is another picture I think you would like to see."
They walked down the long gallery, chatting lightly. The Colonel drew her attention to a few of his favorite landscapes, and then they stood before a large painting of a scene unmistakably in British Columbia. The Indian canoe on the rippled surface of the lake, the tall, stiff, yet beautiful, trees that crept down to the water's edge, the furrowed snow peaks in the background, stirred the girl's pulse as she thought of one who even then perhaps was wandering about in that wild country. She expressed her admiration of the painting, and then rather hesitatingly mentioned the Colonel's nephew.
"Have you heard anything from Mr. Blake since he left Montreal?"
"Nothing," said Challoner with a trace of grimness. "He does not correspond with me."
"Then I suppose you don't know where he is?"
"I heard that he had left a small settlement on the Western prairie and started for the North." He gave her a sharp glance. "Are you interested in my nephew?"