I turned from her with something of sublime contempt, and yet, odd to say, I felt a nervous twinge, as if in the arm that was now no longer in my sleeve, when her voice reached me; but after all that had come and gone, that voice could find no echo now in my heart. Sweetly modulated it was still, but seemed to me only "low and clear as the song of a snake-charmer."
"It will be the ball of the season--you will be there, of course?" she asked.
"Only if you go, Lady Aberconway--not unless," replied the trooper, in a low tone; "what or who else should take me there?"
"So they have made your uncle a K.C.B."
"Yes--and somebody is going to marry him on Tuesday at eleven in Hanover-square."
"And your brother is coming up for his little exam. I have heard also."
"Yes--at Woolwich. The idea of any fellow fancying the Artillery!"
"Is he handsome--is he anything like you?" Then, without waiting for a reply to these important queries, she suddenly said, "Gracious, mamma, there is another poor creature without an arm!"
"Poor deyvil--so there is," drawled her male friend, and then I knew by these flattering remarks that their august regards were turned on me; but my bushy Crimean beard, my empty sleeve, and, as yet, rather pale cheek, and moreover my face being half averted, prevented Estelle from recognising me; or it might be, that I dwelt but little in her memory.
"What is that officer's regiment?" she asked, adding doubtfully, "he is an officer, isn't he--but his uniform is deplorable!"