Such stately civility appeared to promise well for the adaptability of the cornet’s sentiments. Jeffray felt by instinct that it would be expedient for him to trust the man, pretend to make a friend of him, and thus get Bess safely out of Pevensel.
“I suspect that we can understand each other, sir,” he said, with a boyish laugh, “and I hold myself fortunate in having been thrown in contact with a gentleman. If you will walk aside with me—I can explain.”
The cornet stood aside from the gate, and confessed himself at Jeffray’s service. He was one of those men who never quarrel by inclination, and was indeed the very creature Jeffray needed, lazy, good-tempered, eager for popularity, a man tinged with a sentimental devotion towards women, a devotion that bowed down before a dimpled chin, and capitulated smilingly to a pair of mischievous eyes.
“I am at your service, sir,” he said, bowing.
Jeffray took the soldier at his word, and, with an air of unpremeditated abstraction, marched him straight for Dan Grimshaw’s body. The exquisite son of Mars started at the sight of the contorted face shining a dead white from the grass. He touched the body a little contemptuously with his foot, sniffed, and shrugged his padded shoulders.
“Another poor devil shot,” he said.
Jeffray bent over the body as though it were new and strange to him.
“Hit in the chest,” he said, reflectively. “Your men were firing pretty briskly into the mob.”
“They fired on us first, sir,” quoth the cornet, as though moved to justify his orders.
“I don’t doubt it. Some of your shots came into the cottage where I was cornered with the girl whose life I was trying to save.”