“Tell the Colonel that Mr. Fortescue will stay to dinner, and hopes his riding clothes will be excused.”
There was just time for Betty to skip upstairs and jump into a little gown of a pale and jocund yellow, with an open neck, around which she hung the Colonel’s Christmas gift, the little locket. The elbow sleeves showed her dimpled arms, and with deliberate coquetry she put in her shining hair one of the white roses Fortescue had brought her, and another over her innocent and affectionate little heart. When she entered the sitting-room, which served also as a dining-room, Betty was justly triumphant. She knew that she was looking her best.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SHADOW OF THE PAST
There was not much money at Holly Lodge, but Christmas dinners were ridiculously cheap, and some of earth’s choicest products lay almost at the door of the little house. Fortescue thought he had never seen so noble a turkey or such captivating oysters, and when the plum pudding was brought in with a sprig of holly stuck in it and surrounded by a sea of fire, he hypocritically pretended he had never before seen anything like it.
He settled the question of his absence from Rosehill and his guests, by saying debonairly:
“Those fellows at Rosehill will get along all right. With a soldier, one must catch pleasure on the wing. And every one of the fellows would stay, just as I do, if they had half a chance.”
“That was the way the youngsters talked in my time,” said the Colonel, laughing. “War and the ladies, eh?”
The Colonel grew reminiscent of past Christmas days.