“Like anything!” answered Bob, in his unaffected speech.

“Until they knocked me out,” I felt bound to add, “and that, unfortunately, was before very long.”

“You must have been dreadfully wounded!” said Mrs. Lascelles, raising her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some intentness; but at her expression I could only guess.

“Bowled over on Spion Kop,” said Bob, “and fairly riddled as he lay.”

“But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles,” I explained; “and you see I didn’t lose either, so I’ve no cause to complain.  I had hardly a graze higher up.”

“Were you up there the whole of that awful day?” asked Mrs. Lascelles, on a low but thrilling note.

“I’d got to be,” said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh.  But Bob’s tone was little better.

“So he went staggering about among his men,” he must needs chime in, with other superfluities, “for I remember reading all about it in the papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but feeling simply sick with envy all the time.  I say, you’ll be a tremendous hero up here, you know!  I’m awfully glad you’ve come.  It’s quite funny, all the same.  I suppose you came to get bucked up?  He couldn’t have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?”

“Indeed he could not.  I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill every bed with our poor wounded!”

I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised.  I had made unto myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with my conception.  Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe that this was not the type at all.  I ought to have known life better.  The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices.  That manner and that enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation.  I wished to be honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her.  I took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead.

Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined.

“Don’t you smoke?” I asked blandly.

“Sometimes.”

“Ah! then I wasn’t mistaken.  I thought I saw two cigarettes just now.”

Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette smouldering on the ground.  Bob was smoking his still.  The chances were that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other had been thrown away unfinished at my approach.  And that was one more variation from the type of my confident preconceptions.