"And this is Quentin?" said he, surveying him through his eyeglass, with a deepening knit in his dark brows, and a smile on his haughty lips; "what a great hulking fellow he has become! Begad, he is tall enough for a rear-rank grenadier; and why is he not set to do something, instead of idling about here, and no doubt playing the devil with the preserves?"
There was some sense in the question, but coming from such a quarter, and the tone in which, it was spoken, cut Quentin to the quick.
"He is barely done with his studies," urged Lord Rohallion, coming to his favourite's rescue.
"Before I was his age, I had mounted my first guard at St. James's Palace."
"And I mine on the banks of the Weser," said his father.
Quentin looked steadily at the cold, keen face of the Master, who was not yet six-and-thirty—but his Guards' life made him look much older; thus, to a lad of Quentin's years, those of the Master seemed quite patriarchal; a time came, however, when he thought otherwise, and removed the patriarchal period of life a few years further off.
"Well, Cosmo, talking of age," said Lord Rohallion, slapping his tall son on the back, "to be lieutenant-colonel of a line regiment at six-and-thirty, with the Cross of the Bath, for doubtless you will get it——"
"Of course, father, of course—one thing follows the other—well?"
"Is being decidedly lucky," said Lady Winifred, closing his lordship's sentence, and glancing at Flora, to see what she thought of it.
"With the prospect of a long war before him, too."