"Ah, let him prove it!" the girl exclaimed, turning away.
Spencer Coyle let her go; there was something in her tone that annoyed and even a little shocked him. There had evidently been a violent passage between these young people, and the reflection that such a matter was after all none of his business only made him more sore. It was indeed a military house, and she was at any rate a person who placed her ideal of manhood (young persons doubtless always had their ideals of manhood) in the type of the belted warrior. It was a taste like another; but, even a quarter of an hour later, finding himself near young Lechmere, in whom this type was embodied, Spencer Coyle was still so ruffled that he addressed the innocent lad with a certain magisterial dryness. "You're not to sit up late, you know. That's not what I brought you down for." The dinner-guests were taking leave and the bedroom candles twinkled in a monitory row. Young Lechmere however was too agreeably agitated to be accessible to a snub: he had a happy preoccupation which almost engendered a grin.
"I'm only too eager for bedtime. Do you know there's an awfully jolly room?"
"Surely they haven't put you there?"
"No indeed: no one has passed a night in it for ages. But that's exactly what I want to do—it would be tremendous fun."
"And have you been trying to get Miss Julian's permission?"
"Oh, she can't give leave, she says. But she believes in it, and she maintains that no man dare."
"No man shall! A man in your critical position in particular must have a quiet night," said Spencer Coyle.
Young Lechmere gave a disappointed but reasonable sigh.
"Oh, all right. But mayn't I sit up for a little go at Wingrave? I haven't had any yet."