'Not at all—but pass the wine,' replied Catanagh, laughing and reddening a little; 'besides, we speak of flirtation with an unmarried female—one's cousin, for instance—but with a widow, it assumes a—a—'
'A deeper character,' suggested the colonel.
'Yes—we then call it a liaison,' said Clavering, who had retired to an open window and lighted a cigar.
'Clavering is in high spirits—'gad, the fellow's like champagne!' said Catanagh.
'For the best of reasons,' whispered the colonel, whose voice went through me like a galvanic shock; 'he is about to be married.'
'Indeed,' I rejoined, a desperate air of coolness struggling with the painful interest this communication excited within me; 'to whom may I ask?'
'A charming young girl—Miss Everingham—daughter and heiress of Sir Horace Everingham, the Conservative M.P., who bought an estate in the Highlands lately.'
The poor colonel smiled pleasantly and confidentially as he said this, all unconscious that he was planting a dagger in his listener's heart.
'By Jove, he will have something handsome with her,' said Ewan Mac Pherson, the captain of our Light Company; 'Elton Hall is a magnificent place, and then the Highland property—but when does the little affair come off?'
'When he returns from the Crimea,' said Belton.