“‘What?’ she demanded.
“‘Wait a bit till I’ve had time to think it out,’ said I. ‘Gettysburg wasn’t fought in five minutes.’
“‘Gettysburg was a big thing,’ she answered.
“‘So’s my idea,’ I told her.
In the meantime my Major was explaining to Miss Fairley that the government had sent him to New London to inspect the ordnance at Forts Trumbull and Griswold, and that he found it pleasanter to stay in Norwich, and run down by train to New London for his work. That’s the way humans lie when it doesn’t deceive any one and it isn’t expected that it will. Of course Miss Fairley knew what brought him North, and why he preferred Norwich to New London! One thing he did do, though, which was pretty good. He apologised to her for having said what he did before their first ride, told her that his wound had been troubling him so that at times he scarcely knew what he was saying, and declared he’d been sorry ever since. He was humble! The Eleventh Battery of Light Artillery would never have known him.
‘There,’ sniffed Miss Gaiety; ‘if the idiot had only talked in that vein ten days ago, he might have done something. Oh, you men, you men!’
“At least he won a small favour; for when he asked leave, at parting, to be her companion the next day in a ride, she told him he might join her and Mr. Lewis, if he wished. But the permission wasn’t given with the best of grace, and she didn’t ask him to luncheon before the start.
“I thought out my idea over night, and put it in shape to tell. My Major took me to the Fairleys’ a little early, and so went in, leaving me alone. In a minute, however, a groom brought the filly and the grey round to the door, and with them came Sagitta, the Russian wolf-hound, whom, it seems, Mr. Lewis had brought from Europe, and had just presented to Miss Fairley.
“After the barest greetings, I unfolded my scheme. ‘I don’t know,’ said I, ‘what Mr. Sagitta thinks, but we three are a spike-team in agreeing that Mr. Lewis is a brute.’
“‘I bow-wow to that,’ assented the dog. ‘He kicked me twice, coming up yesterday, because I was afraid to go up the steps of the baggage-car.’