“Bless their nurse-maidenly hearts,” murmured Trooper Bear. “One made honourable proposals of marriage to me, quite recently, in return for my catching the runaway hat of her young charge…. Come on.” And in due course the four derelicts set forth with a uniformity of step and action that corresponded with their uniformity of dress.
“Let’s take the Lower Road,” said Dam, as they reached the western limit of the front at Folkestone. “I fear we rather contaminate the pure social air of the Upper Road and the fashionable promenade.”
“Where every prospect pleases and only man, in the Queen’s uniform, is vile,” observed Trooper Bear.
Dam remembered afterwards that it was he who sought the quiet Lower Road—and he had good reason to remember it. For suddenly, a fashionably dressed and beautiful young girl, sitting alone in a passing private victoria, stood up, called “Stop! Stop!” to the coachman, and ere the carriage well came to a standstill, sprang out, rushed up to the double file of soldiers, and flung her arms around the neck of the outside one of the front rank.
With a cry of “Oh, Dam! Oh, Dammy!”—a cry that mightily scandalized a serious-minded policeman who stood monumentally at the corner—she kissed him again and again!
Troopers Bear, Goate, and Little, halting not in their stride, glancing not unto the right hand nor unto the left hand, speaking no word, and giving no sign of surprise, marched on in perfect silence, until Trooper Bear observed to the world in general “The lady was not swearing. His name must be Dam—short for Damon or Pythias or Iphigenia or something which we may proceed to forget…. Poor old chappie—no wonder he’s taking to secret drinking. I should drink, myself. Poor chap!” and Trooper Goate, heaving a sympathetic sigh, murmured also “Poor chap!”
But Trooper Little, once the Hon. Bertie Le Grand, thought “Poor lady!”
The heart of Damocles de Warrenne bounded within him, stood still, and then seemed like to burst.
“Oh, Lucille! Oh, darling!” he groaned, as he kissed her fiercely and then endeavoured to thrust her from him. “Jump into your carriage quickly. Lucille—Don’t … Here …! Not here…. People are looking … You …! A common soldier…. Let me go. Quick…. Your carriage…. Some one may—”