‘Still, you should not suffer her to go out alone,’ she said.

‘I place implicit confidence in her,’ said the General; and Lady Camper gave it up.

She proposed to walk down the lanes to the river-side, to meet Elizabeth returning.

The General manifested alacrity checked by reluctance.  Lady Camper had told him she objected to sit in a strange room by herself; after that, he could hardly leave her to dash upstairs to change his clothes; yet how, attired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;—­and he knew the habit of the second rank to criticise the front—­how consent to face the outer world in such style side by side with the lady he admired?

‘Come,’ said she; and he shot forward a step, looking as if he had missed fire.

‘Are you not coming, General?’

He advanced mechanically.

Not a soul met them down the lanes, except a little one, to whom Lady
Camper gave a small silver-piece, because she was a picture.

The act of charity sank into the General’s heart, as any pretty performance will do upon a warm waxen bed.

Lady Camper surprised him by answering his thoughts.  ’No; it’s for my own pleasure.’

Presently she said, ‘Here they are.’

General Ople beheld his daughter by the river-side at the end of the lane, under escort of Mr. Reginald Rolles.

It was another picture, and a pleasing one.  The young lady and the young gentleman wore boating hats, and were both dressed in white, and standing by or just turning from the outrigger and light skiff they were about to leave in charge of a waterman.  Elizabeth stretched a finger at arm’s-length, issuing directions, which Mr. Rolles took up and worded further to the man, for the sake of emphasis; and he, rather than Elizabeth, was guilty of the half-start at sight of the persons who were approaching.

‘My nephew, you should know, is intended for a working soldier,’ said Lady Camper; ‘I like that sort of soldier best.’

General Ople drooped his shoulders at the personal compliment.

She resumed.  ’His pay is a matter of importance to him.  You are aware of the smallness of a subaltern’s pay.

‘I,’ said the General, ’I say I feel my poor half-pay, having always been a working soldier myself, very important, I was saying, very important to me!’

‘Why did you retire?’

Her interest in him seemed promising.  He replied conscientiously, ’Beyond the duties of General of Brigade, I could not, I say I could not, dare to aspire; I can accept and execute orders; I shrink from responsibility!’

‘It is a pity,’ said she, ’that you were not, like my nephew Reginald, entirely dependent on your profession.’

She laid such stress on her remark, that the General, who had just expressed a very modest estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject the flattery of her assuming him to be a man of some fortune.  He coughed, and said, ‘Very little.’  The thought came to him that he might have to make a statement to her in time, and he emphasized, ’Very little indeed.  Sufficient,’ he assured her, ‘for a gentlemanly appearance.’