"He isn't," Sir George broke in, "he's an exceedingly nice boy, they all are. Their mother has seen to that."
"Boys are so difficult to talk to," Miss Bax lamented; "their range is so limited, and my enthusiasm for football is so lukewarm."
"Try him on his profession," Lady Campion suggested.
"That would be worse. Cadets do nothing but tell you how hard they are worked, and what a fearful block there is in the special branch of the army they are going in for. Is young Ffolliot going to be a Sapper by any chance? for they're the worst of all—considering themselves, as they do, the brains of the army."
"I don't think so," said Sir George; "he's not clever enough. He's only got moderate ability and an uncommonly pretty seat on a horse. He'll get Field all right. But why are you so sure, my dear, that he'll be your fate? Why not Gallup here? and you could try and convert him to your views on the Suffrage question? He'd be some use, you know. He has a vote."
Again Eloquent blessed the darkness as he coloured hotly and brought his mind back to the present with a violent wrench. He knew he ought to say something, but what? He fervently hoped they would not assign him to this severe self-possessed young lady who thought cadets conceited and had political views. Heavens! she might be another Elsmaria Buttermish with no blessed transformation later on into something human and approachable.
"I'm afraid"—he heard Miss Bax talking as it were an immense way off as he floated away on the wings of his dream—"that my views would startle Mr Gallup."
The motor turned in at the drive gates, they had reached the door.
Eloquent was right in the middle of his dream.
He followed Lady Campion and Miss Bax across the hall and down a corridor to a room he had never been in when he was a child.