He laughed again and, after eyeing her incredulously for an instant, turned and strode down the declivity to where the patient horses still waited. The girl gazed wistfully for a moment or two after his retreating form, with its slim waist and square, splendidly-drilled shoulders; then, with a little weary sigh, she arose and, mechanically putting on her hat and dusting her dress, followed him.
Catching up Johnny, who nickered at her approach and picked up his forefoot for sugar, she mounted with the lithe agility of the expert horsewoman. Ellis swung up on Billy, and in silence they set out at a brisk lope for home.
CHAPTER XIX
For, immune from scoff of bachelor chum,
Into his kingdom he had come;
A rose-strewn path he would henceforth tread
Through the generous will of the kindly dead.
—The Legatee
“Go on! you’re only fooling! Is that straight now, Hop? What pipe-dream’s all this?”
Dr. Musgrave’s incredulous remarks were addressed to Provost-Sergeant Hopgood, the non-com. in charge of the guardroom, who, reclining in an easy chair in the former’s combined study and consulting-room on this September evening, was regarding his host somewhat lugubriously through a blue haze of cigar smoke.
“No pipe-dream at all ... kind of wish it was,” he answered, with a slight trace of bitterness in his tones. “’Twas Churchill wised me up. He was in from Sabbano today. Appears Ben’s been rushing this girl—or woman, I should say—she’s near thirty, I understand—for quite a time, now.”
Musgrave’s air of surprise was slowly succeeded by one of unwilling conviction.
“Well, I’ll be——!” he muttered. “I might have tumbled, too!”
“Why, what’s up?” said Hopgood eagerly, staring at him now with wide-eyed wonder. “You knew about it all the time, eh? Did Ben tell you? Have you seen her? What’s she like?”