"You must stay and lunch with me," she murmurs persuasively. "Carol will be so angry if I don't keep you, and the days are so long without him."
"I can't think how it was we did not meet if he rode our way," declares Major Short, when lunch is over, and Eleanor has begged them to smoke.
"Nor I; but he must be home early."
"Is that your guitar?" asks Major Short.
"Yes, but unfortunately I cannot play it. Carol has taught me a few chords, but I have no music."
"Short is the man to sing," Captain Stevenson vouchsafes.
Eleanor seizes the instrument, and holds it out to him with a winning smile.
"Do give us one little song!" she pleads.
He takes the guitar with a kind look from his exquisite brown eyes, and strokes the strings, it seems so gently, that they whisper like the wind in the trees.
"What will you have?"