"I shall be rather in the blues here when you are gone," said Wilton, as they sat together the evening before the Major was to leave. "You have not been the liveliest companion in the world of late, still I shall miss you, old boy."
The Major gave an inarticulate grunt, without removing his cigar from his lips.
"So," continued Wilton, "as Lord D—— asks me over to dine and stay a few days while General Loftus and another Crimean man are there, I shall go; and perhaps I may look up the 15th afterwards; they are quartered at C——."
"Do!" said the Major, emphatically, and with unusual animation. "There's nothing more mischievous than moping along and getting into the blue devils!—nothing more likely to drive a man to suicide or matrimony, or some infernal entanglement even worse! Go over to D—— Castle by all means—go and have a jolly week or two with the 15th; and, if you will take my advice, do not return here."
"My dear Moncrief," interrupted Wilton coolly, for he was a little nettled at the rapid disposal of his time, "why should I not return here? What mischief do you fear for me? Don't turn enigmatical at this time of day."
"What mischief do I fear? The worst of all—a fair piece of mischief! Not so pretty, perhaps, but 'devilish atthractive,' as poor O'Connor used to say."
Wilton was silent a moment, to keep his temper quiet. He felt unspeakably annoyed. Anything less direct he could have laughed off or put aside, but to touch upon such a subject in earnest galled him to the quick. To be suspected of any serious feeling toward Ella necessitated either appearing an idiot in the eyes of a man like Moncrief—an idiot capable of throwing away his future for the sake of a freak of passion—or as entertaining designs more suited to worldly wisdom, yet which it maddened him to think any man dared to associate with a creature that somehow or other had managed to establish herself upon a pedestal, such as no other woman had ever occupied, in his imagination.
"I think," said he at last—and Moncrief was struck by the stern resentment in his tone—"I think that too much shooting has made you mad! What, in the name of Heaven, are you talking of? Do you think I am the same unlicked cub you took in hand twelve or fourteen years ago? If you and I are to be friends, let me find my own road through the jungle of life."
"All right," said the Major, philosophically. "Go your own way. I wash my hands of you."
"It is your best plan," returned Wilton, dryly; and the evening passed rather heavily.