“Oui,” assented Lucille, under her breath. “There are creatures, Madame, that cannot live in captivity.”
“Somebody over there is talking not very good sense,” murmured Denham, with a touch of reproof. Lucille stopped instantly, with a flush. The remark had been involuntary, and she had not imagined that he could hear.
Roy went the round of a good many returned acquaintances, finding out, as he went, where to go for others. He discovered Franklyn and Carey without difficulty, and in time learnt where the Curtises had bestowed themselves. From one and all he heard one tale as to Denham. Captain Ivor’s kindness and generosity towards all who were in difficulties formed a general theme. “What we should have done, but for him——” was an expression which occurred again and again. Roy no longer wondered that he had been “cleared out” to his last sou.
“Of course he was wrong,” Major Woodgate said decisively. “Only half recovered from an illness, and undertaking such a tramp as that! Insane of him! but it’s the sort of insanity that one doesn’t get too much of in this world. No, Carey wasn’t fit for the march. Might have finished him off, poor boy. But Ivor was hardly better fit. He settled the point himself, and did it out and out, as he generally does. Why couldn’t they share the horse between them? Quixotic, of course, and one likes him all the better for it. He—in fact, Ivor is a dear fellow. How is he this morning? Done for? I expected as much. Where are you off to now?”
Roy had had twelve o’clock lunch with the Woodgates, finding himself at some distance from home, with his task not accomplished. He was by this time much excited, and rather off his balance.
The Curtises came next, last on his round. He hunted out the rooms in which they had taken refuge, and again heard a good deal about Denham, besides much as to their own doings during the last few months.
“I say, I don’t think you’ve got into very nice quarters,” he said, surveying the walls.
“Best we can afford, old man. By-and-by we hope to change. I want to start painting again, and one must have a good light. Got a capital idea in my mind.”
“You won’t take the trouble to copy that, anyhow,” remarked Roy, pointing at a good-sized plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood on the mantel-piece. “I wouldn’t keep the wretched thing there, if I were you.”
“My dear boy, it’s from no sort of devotion to the original, I assure you. But what’s to be done? Our landlady is a flaring red-hot Bonapartist. Gushed about him for an hour this morning to my wife—didn’t she, dear?”