"The lady told me that I should marry a soldier."
Alfred looked perturbed, but his shrewd sense sustained him.
"Did she? Likely as not she'd seen you walking out with one."
"I have never walked out with a soldier."
Alfred looked unhappy. He thought of the well-set-up Highlander. He beheld Fancy hanging on his arm, gazing upward into a bronzed, devil-may-care face, listening to strange tales of the Orient. Jealousy ravaged him. His dejection deepened when he discovered that his tongue had lost the trick of speech. He yearned to speak lightly and facetiously about soldiers. But he could think of nothing better than this:
"Soldiers are soldiers."
Fancy read him easily. Her father distrusted soldiers, who loved and ran away. He had warned her against their beguilements. But Fancy had read English history, more intelligently than most girls of similar upbringing. She knew what soldiers had done for England. Also, she had eye for a bit of colour. Soldiers appealed to her imagination. She put sailors first, the jolly tars. Tommy came next, with his swagger cane, his jaunty walk, and his cap cocked on one side, shewing a "quiff" beneath.
"Why do men, like you, Mr. Yellam, despise soldiers?"
Alfred wriggled, impaled upon this barbed hook. He had wit enough to realise that serious issues impended. He might easily offend Fancy. And no answer rose pat to his tongue. Why did he despise soldiers? He was too honest to deny the indictment. Yes; he did despise soldiers. He answered stolidly:
"There are soldiers and soldiers. 'Tis sober truth, miss, that the best men in these parts don't enlist. The pay is bad, and the work hard. The wrong 'uns take the shilling only when they're driven to it. It may be different in Salisbury."