“Papa,” called Ruth, looking back, “does your hip trouble you today, or are you only lazy?”
“Trot along, little girl; I’ll be there before you are,” said the colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up and down the road. No one was in sight. He sat down on the bank with his hand on his hip. His face changed from a frown to an expression of sharp pain. In five minutes he had grown from a fresh elderly man into an old man, his face drawn and gray, but he only muttered “the devil!” and sat still. A big bronze-winged beetle whizzed past him, z—z—ip! “like a bullet,” he thought, and pressed both hands now on his hip. “Twenty-five years ago—pshaw! I’m not so old as that!” But it was twenty-five years ago when the blue-capped troopers, bursting in to the rescue, found the dandy “—-th,” scorched and rent and blackened, still reeling beneath a rag crowned with a gilt eagle. The exquisite befeathered and gold laced “—-th.” But the shells have rained for hours among the “Dandies”—and some are dead, and some are wishing for death, like that youngster lying there with the shattered hip.
Colonel Dene rose up presently and relighted his cigar; then he flicked some dust from the new tweeds, picked a stem of wild hyacinth, and began to whistle. “Pshaw! I’m not so old as all that!” he murmured, sauntering along the pleasant wood-road. Before long he came in sight of Ruth and Gethryn, who were waiting. But he only waved them on, laughing.
“Papa always says that old wound of his does not hurt him, but it does. I know it does,” said Ruth.
Rex noted what tones of tenderness there were in her cool, clear voice. He did not answer, for he could only agree with her, and what could be the use of that?
They strolled on in silence, up the fragrant forest road. Great glittering dragonflies drifted along the river bank, or hung quivering above pools. Clouds of lazy sulphur butterflies swarmed and floated, eddying up from the road in front of them and settling down again in their wake like golden dust. A fox stole across the path, but Gethryn did not see him. The mesh of his landing net was caught just then in a little gold clasp that he wore on his breast.
“How quaint!” cried Ruth; “let me help you; there! One would think you were a French legitimist, with your fleur-de-lis.”
“Thank you”—was all he answered, and turned away, as he felt the blood burn his face. But Ruth was walking lightly on and had not noticed. The fleur-de-lis, however, reminded her of something she had to say, and she began again, presently—
“You left Paris rather suddenly, did you not, Rex?”
This time he colored furiously, and Ruth, turning to him, saw it. She flushed too, fearing to have made she knew not what blunder, but she went on seriously, not pausing for his answer: