"Pass or no pass, I go this night," I said, sullenly.
"Hush!" he said; "don't talk here."
He led me through the card-rooms, where a score of old bucks and purple-necked officers sat, all playing picquet in owlish silence, then through a partition, where a fountain sprayed beds of tall ferns, out into a lamp-illumined circular alcove, hung with China silks, and bowered deep in flowers and tiny, blossoming trees no higher than one's knee-buckle.
"The Chinese alcove," he observed. "Nobody will disturb us here, I fancy. You have heard of the Chinese alcove, Cardigan? There is the door to the famous golden gallery."
I glanced at the gilded door in the corner, half-hidden by Chinese drapery. I had heard that the Governor's sweetheart dwelt here.
Bevan reached up and pulled a velvet cord. Presently a servant brought us a silver bowl of steaming punch made with tea and fruit in the Regent's fashion.
"I drink no tea," I said, shortly.
"I suppose not," observed Bevan, laughing, and commanded the servant to fetch me a bowl without tea.
"Your courtesy to a rebel is extraordinary," I said, after an interval.
"Oh, I'm half rebel myself," he laughed. "I'd be in my shirt-sleeves out Middlesex way, drilling yokels—Minute Men, I believe—were it not that—that—oh, well, I'll wear the red jacket as long as I live and let the future weed out the goats from the sheep."