“No, thank God!” said the Colonel, heartily.

Ensued a silence during which he chipped at his egg-shell in an absent-minded fashion.

“That fellow Kennaston said anything to you yet?” he presently queried.

“I—­I don’t understand,” she protested—­oh, perfectly unconvincingly.  The tea-making, too, engrossed her at this point to an utterly improbable extent.

Thus it shortly befell that the Colonel, still regarding her under intent brows, cleared his throat and made bold to question her generosity in the matter of sugar; five lumps being, as he suggested, a rather unusual allowance for one cup.

Then, “Mr. Kennaston and I are very good friends,” said she, with dignity.  And having spoiled the first cup in the making, she began on another.

“Glad to hear it,” growled the old gentleman.  “I hope you value his friendship sufficiently not to marry him.  The man’s a fraud—­a flimsy, sickening fraud, like his poetry, begad, and that’s made up of botany and wide margins and indecency in about equal proportions.  It ain’t fit for a woman to read—­in fact, a woman ought not to read anything; a comprehension of the Decalogue and the cookery-book is enough learning for the best of ’em.  Your mother never—­never—­”

Colonel Hugonin paused and stared at the open window for a little.  He seemed to be interested in something a great way off.

“We used to read Ouida’s books together,” he said, somewhat wistfully.  “Lord, Lord, how she revelled in Chandos and Bertie Cecil and those dashing Life Guardsmen!  And she used to toss that little head of hers and say I was a finer figure of a man than any of ’em—­thirty years ago, good Lord!  And I was then, but I ain’t now.  I’m only a broken-down, cantankerous old fool,” declared the Colonel, blowing his nose violently, “and that’s why I’m quarrelling with the dearest, foolishest daughter man ever had.  Ah, my dear, don’t mind me—­run your menagerie as you like, and I’ll stand it.”

Margaret adopted her usual tactics; she perched herself on the arm of his chair and began to stroke his cheek very gently.  She often wondered as to what dear sort of a woman that tender-eyed, pink-cheeked mother of the old miniature had been—­the mother who had died when she was two years old.  She loved the idea of her, vague as it was.  And, just now, somehow, the notion of two grown people reading Ouida did not strike her as being especially ridiculous.

“Was she very beautiful?” she asked, softly.

“My dear,” said her father, “you are the picture of her.”

“You dangerous old man!” said she, laughing and rubbing her cheek against his in a manner that must have been highly agreeable.  “Dear, do you know that is the nicest little compliment I’ve had for a long time?”

Thereupon the Colonel chuckled.  “Pay me for it, then,” said he, “by driving the dog-cart over to meet Billy’s train to-day.  Eh?”