“Peg, dear, dear Peg,” he murmured. “Is it true? Can it be true that you love me?”
She stooped low over him. “Yes, Paul, dear Paul, with all my heart I love you,” she said, lifting him to his feet, her voice low, sweet, but reaching to every ear in the room.
The little Colonel was the first to recover speech. “My God!” he cried, in a voice shaking with amazement and anger. “What does this mean? What—what can I say, Guy?”
Pale to the lips, but with the cool steadiness with which men of his race have been wont to meet shattering disaster, the Englishman made answer.
“What is there to say, sir? The last word is with Peg, and she appears to have said all that is necessary.” Then walking slowly toward the girl he offered his hand. “May I wish you all the joy in life?” he said, bowing low over her hand. A moment he hesitated, then offered his hand to Paul. “You have already the best of luck, the sweetest girl in the world. And I believe you will be good to her.”
Tall and very straight Paul stood, with one arm around the girl at his side, his head held high, his face grave, his blue-grey eyes steady upon the little Colonel. His voice came firm and clear in a quaint mingling of dignity and boyish candour.
“I love Peg. I can’t help loving her, Uncle Colonel. I have always loved her, I think. I never knew till tonight how much. And, before God Who hears me now, I pledge myself to love her and serve her all my life.”
The Colonel was dazed, like a man struck by a cyclone. He stood, as it were, among the ruins of that imaginative structure which, in collaboration with his life-long friend and comrade in arms, Sir Stephen Laughton, he had erected with fond and elaborate care for his child. He found himself defeated, humiliated, and worse, for, as he thought, his honour was involved. As he recovered his mental poise his indignation rose. His wrathful eyes wandered from face to face, seeking sympathy and help, and finding none, searching out a point of attack. As most vulnerable he lit upon the young Englishman who, looking wretched and embarrassed, had edged somewhat behind the Reverend Donald Fraser, standing uncompromisingly fronting the wrathful man.
“Guy, I deeply regret this—eh—most—eh—unhappy, most disgraceful—eh—occurrence. Will you explain to your respected father my deep disappointment and regret. Tell him—but what is there to say? What can a man do in such a case as this?” He waved his hand vaguely toward the two young people pilloried as culprits before him. “What can a man do, I ask you?”
“If I may venture a suggestion, sir,” replied Guy, with the air of a man offering perfectly disinterested advice, “I should say congratulations all around were in order.”