‘O, I can do without you. David is best,’ she returned, as the old man approached and removed the obnoxious shoes in a trice.
Anne was amazed at this sudden change from devotion to crass indifference. On entering her room she flew to the glass, almost expecting to learn that some extraordinary change had come over her pretty countenance, rendering her intolerable for evermore. But it was, if anything, fresher than usual, on account of the exercise. ‘Well!’ she said retrospectively. For the first time since their acqaintance she had this week encouraged him; and for the first time he had shown that encouragement was useless. ‘But perhaps he does not clearly understand,’ she added serenely.
When he next came it was, to her surprise, to bring her newspapers, now for some time discontinued. As soon as she saw them she said, ‘I do not care for newspapers.’
‘The shipping news is very full and long to-day, though the print is rather small.’
‘I take no further interest in the shipping news,’ she replied with cold dignity.
She was sitting by the window, inside the table, and hence when, in spite of her negations, he deliberately unfolded the paper and began to read about the Royal Navy she could hardly rise and go away. With a stoical mien he read on to the end of the report, bringing out the name of Bob’s ship with tremendous force.
‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I’ll hear no more! Let me read to you.’
The trumpet-major sat down. Anne turned to the military news, delivering every detail with much apparent enthusiasm. ‘That’s the subject I like!’ she said fervently.
‘But—but Bob is in the navy now, and will most likely rise to be an officer. And then—’
‘What is there like the army?’ she interrupted. ‘There is no smartness about sailors. They waddle like ducks, and they only fight stupid battles that no one can form any idea of. There is no science nor stratagem in sea-fights—nothing more than what you see when two rams run their heads together in a field to knock each other down. But in military battles there is such art, and such splendour, and the men are so smart, particularly the horse-soldiers. O, I shall never forget what gallant men you all seemed when you came and pitched your tents on the downs! I like the cavalry better than anything I know; and the dragoons the best of the cavalry—and the trumpeters the best of the dragoons!’