The solemn-faced officer relaxed into a smile.
“Well, he might have been killed outright in battle, don’t you know; accidents will happen now and then; it is just luck, you see, and Owen always is such an unlucky beggar.”
Bessie refuted this with some vivacity. She explained that though it might be a man’s duty to die for his country, it was quite another thing to imperil a valuable life on a mere game; but she could make no impression on the solemn-faced captain.
“But it is an uncommonly good game, don’t you know,” he persisted; and Bessie gave up the point, for Captain Broughton’s mind seemed as wooden as his face.
“It was no good talking to such a man,” she observed to Edna, as they drove home; “he said ‘Don’t you know’ at the end of every sentence, and seemed so stupid.”
“Are you talking about Captain Broughton?” asked Edna calmly. “My dear Daisy, it is not always wise to judge by appearances. Captain Broughton is not specially amusing in conversation, but he is a brave fellow. Do you know, he wears the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in saving a wounded soldier; only a private too. Yes; though he was wounded himself, he carried him off the field. He was a village lad—one of his own tenants—who had followed him out to India, and when another ball struck him he just staggered on.”
“Oh, dear,” groaned Bessie; “this is a punishment to me for judging too quickly. To think I had the opportunity for the first time in my life of talking to a hero, and that I called him stupid! This is a case of entertaining angels unawares. But if one could only know they were angels.”
Edna only laughed at this; but Bessie found food for uncomfortable reflection all the way home. The rain had ceased at last, but not before Edna had grown secretly conscious of the lateness of the hour. It was nearly seven before the weather allowed them to start, and for the last half hour she had stood at the window quite oblivious of Captain Grant’s entreaties that she would make herself comfortable, and evidently deaf to his unmeaning compliments for she answered absently, and with a manner that showed that she was ill at ease.
The moment the rain ceased, she asked him peremptorily to order her pony-chaise round.
“Mamma will be getting anxious at this long delay,” she said, so gravely that Captain Grant dare not disobey her.