‘Perhaps you recognize him?’ my companion said to me, as he caught me watching this pair across the table. ‘He is one of the Elliots. His father had a place once in this neighbourhood. I am sure you must recollect his face.’
‘No, indeed,’ said I, denying by instinct. ‘That gentleman opposite—is his name Elliot? I was looking at the young lady by him. She is a little friend of mine, and I am petrified to find her here. I did not think she was out.’
‘That is why she likes it so well, I suppose,’ said the Major with a little sigh.
‘I am afraid you don’t enjoy it much,’ said I. ‘Pray forgive me for being so very stupid. I should like to know which of these gentlemen is Colonel Brentford. I have heard his name—I should like to know which is he.’
‘He is sitting beside Lady Denzil,’ said my companion shortly; and he said no more. His brevity startled me. I think Colonel Brentford from that moment began to lose in my opinion. I grew more and more frightened by the thought of what I had undertaken to do. I began to think it was a great pity Lady Isabella, a sensible woman, should waste a thought upon this soldier—and all for no reason in the world but that my Major announced curtly, ‘He is sitting beside Lady Denzil,’ without adding a word to say, ‘I like him,’ or ‘He is a very nice fellow,’ or anything agreeable. I concluded he must be a bear or a brute, or something utterly frivolous and uninteresting. It never occurred to me that it might be my Major and not the unknown Colonel who was to blame. And I had pledged myself to ask such a man as this to tea!
We had gone back to the drawing-room before I got what I could call a good look at him; and then I was even more disappointed to find that he was as far from looking a brute or a bear as he was from looking a hero. There was nothing remarkable about him; he was neither handsome nor ugly; he was neither young nor old. He stood and talked a long time to Lady Denzil, and his voice was pleasant, but the talk was about nothing—it was neither stupid nor clever. He was a man of negatives it seemed. I was dreadfully disappointed for Lady Isabella’s sake. I could not help figuring to myself what her feelings would be. No doubt he had been young when they had known each other, and youth has often a deceiving glitter about it, which never comes to anything. Chance threw my Major in my way again at that advanced period of the evening. He said to me, ‘We have a long drive and the night is chilly, and I wish I could get my young fellows into motion. These proceedings don’t always agree with the taste of a man at my time of life; and my wife is always fidgety when I am out late—it is her way.’
‘Mrs. Bellinger is not here to-night?’ I said.
‘No, we are quite new to the place, and Lady Denzil has not had time to call yet: my wife, I am sure, would be delighted if you would go and see her. She is rather delicate, and far from her friends. Colonel Brentford is the only one——’ And here he stopped short with an abruptness that made me hate Colonel Brentford and repent my temerity more and more.
‘I am so sorry you don’t seem to have a favourable opinion of him,’ I said; ‘not that I know him, but I have heard some friends of mine—— Oh, I am sure you did not mean to say a word against him——’
‘Against him!’ said the Major, stammering; ‘why, he is my best friend! He is the kindest fellow I know! He goes and sits with my wife when nobody else thinks of her. I don’t want to find fault with any one; but Brentford—he is the man I am most grateful to in all the world!’