"There, now!" said Mrs. Tweedy. "Why, I'm just delighted! And we'll have such times!"
Mrs. Tweedy, true to her word, immediately launched him out like a debutante among the villagers and summer visitors, who asked him to all their picnics, dances, and parties. At the first of these affairs, he met Frances. Catching the amused recognition in her eyes, he forestalled Mrs. Tweedy's formal introduction:
"Oh, yes—Miss Edginton. I've already had the honour——"
Mrs. Tweedy melted away.
"You see, Lynette," he added, "I told you the Police always find out!"
"O, marvellous young knight!" she answered.
Thenceforward he constantly sought her company.
In due course he met the Major, who was all and more than all that Mrs. Tweedy had said. He reminded Hector, to a certain extent, of his own father. A middle-sized, very soldierly man, with keen eyes, snow-white hair and drooping white moustache, he conformed to a distinct type of which Colonel Adair has been a taller and finer edition. Toward Hector he adopted an attitude of distant politeness, which seemed to say at every turn, 'Thus far and no farther.' 'He knows I'm a gentleman,' Hector decided, 'and consequently feels that he must be at least courteous, though it hurts him terribly—because I'm an N.C.O.' But, knowing the Army officer of the Old School, he neither heeded nor resented Major Edginton.
Mrs. Edginton he fell in love with at once. She was small, dainty and faded, very sweet and gracious. From Mrs. Edginton Frances had stolen her pansy eyes, clean-cut features and extraordinary hair. Hector decided that Mrs. Edginton had long played second fiddle to the Major. But he also saw that Frances was all the world to her. 'If anything ever happens,' Hector thought, 'she'll find herself torn between her duty to her husband and her love for her daughter; though, everything considered, I think a man might count her an ally.'
On the whole, she reminded him of his mother, just as the Major recalled his father.