“Odd?” Her voice sounded so strange to her that she tried again.  “Why do you think him odd?”

“Well, he is.  For one thing, he will have nothing to do with others of his mess or troop or squadron, except a ruffianly trooper named Burgess; consequently he isn’t very popular.  He could be.  Besides, he rides better than anybody except the drill-master at White Plains; he rides like a gentleman—–­and looks like one, with that infernally cool way of his.  No, Ormond isn’t very popular.”

“Because he—­looks like a gentleman?”

“Because he has the bad breeding of one.  Nobody can find out anything about him.”

“Isn’t it bad breeding to try?”

Hallam laughed.  “Technically.  But a regiment that elects its officers is a democracy; and if a man is too good to answer questions he’s let alone.”

“Perhaps,” said Ailsa, “that is what he wants.”

“He has what he wants, then.  Nobody except the trooper Burgess ventures to intrude on his sullen privacy.  Even his own bunky has little use for him. . . .  Not that Ormond isn’t plucky.  That’s all that keeps the boys from hating him.”

“Is he plucky?”

Hallam said; “We were on picket duty for three days last week.  The Colonel had become sick of their popping at us, and asked for twelve carbines to the troop.  On the way to the outposts the ammunition waggon was rushed by the Johnnies, and, as our escort had only their lances, they started to scatter—­would have scattered, I understand, in spite of the sergeant if that man Ormond hadn’t ridden bang into them, cursing and swearing and waving his pistol in his left hand.

“‘By God!’ he said, ’it’s the first chance you’ve had to use these damned lances!  Are you going to run away?’

“And the sergeant and the trooper Burgess and this fellow Ormond got ’em into line and started ’em down the road at a gallop; and the rebs legged it.”

Ailsa’s heart beat hard.

“I call that pluck,” said Hallam, “a dozen lancers without a carbine among them running at a company of infantry.  I call that a plucky thing, don’t you?”

She nodded.

Hallam shrugged.  “He behaved badly to the sergeant, who said warmly:  ‘’Tis a brave thing ye did, Private Ormond.’  And ‘Is it?’ said Ormond with a sneer.  ’I thought we were paid for doing such things.’  ‘Och, ye sour-faced Sassenach!’ said Sergeant Mulqueen, disgusted; and told me about the whole affair.”

Ailsa had clasped her hands in her lap.  The fingers were tightening till the delicate nails whitened.

But it was too late to speak of Berkley to Hallam now, too late to ask indulgence on the score of her friendship for a man who had mutilated it.  Yet, she could scarcely endure the strain, the overmastering desire to say something in Berkley’s behalf—­to make him better understood—­to explain to Hallam, and have Hallam explain to his troop that Berkley was his own most reckless enemy, that there was good in him, kindness, a capacity for better things——­