Mr. Blundell blushed with pleased surprise.

“Said you were not a hero,” explained Mr. Turnbull.  “Of course, I stuck up for you.  I said you’d got too much sense to go putting your life into danger.  I said you were a very careful man, and I told her how particular you was about damp sheets.  Your housekeeper told me.”

“It’s all nonsense,” said Blundell, with a fiery face.  “I’ll send that old fool packing if she can’t keep her tongue quiet.”

“It’s very sensible of you, John,” said Mr. Turnbull, “and a sensible girl would appreciate it.  Instead of that, she only sniffed when I told her how careful you always were to wear flannel next to your skin.  She said she liked dare-devils.”

“I suppose she thinks Daly is a dare-devil,” said the offended Mr. Blundell.  “And I wish people wouldn’t talk about me and my skin.  Why can’t they mind their own business?”

Mr. Turnbull eyed him indignantly, and then, sitting in a very upright position, slowly filled his pipe, and declining a proffered match rose and took one from the mantel-piece.

“I was doing the best I could for you,” he said, staring hard at the ingrate.  “I was trying to make Venia see what a careful husband you would make.  Miss Sippet herself is most particular about such things—­ and Venia seemed to think something of it, because she asked me whether you used a warming-pan.”

[Illustration:  “She asked me whether you used a warming-pan.”]

Mr. Blundell got up from his chair and, without going through the formality of bidding his host good-by, quitted the room and closed the door violently behind him.  He was red with rage, and he brooded darkly as he made his way home on the folly of carrying on the traditions of a devoted mother without thinking for himself.

For the next two or three days, to Venia’s secret concern, he failed to put in an appearance at the farm—­a fact which made flirtation with the sergeant a somewhat uninteresting business.  Her sole recompense was the dismay of her father, and for his benefit she dwelt upon the advantages of the Army in a manner that would have made the fortune of a recruiting-sergeant.

“She’s just crazy after the soldiers,” he said to Mr. Blundell, whom he was trying to spur on to a desperate effort.  “I’ve been watching her close, and I can see what it is now; she’s romantic.  You’re too slow and ordinary for her.  She wants somebody more dazzling.  She told Daly only yesterday afternoon that she loved heroes.  Told it to him to his face.  I sat there and heard her.  It’s a pity you ain’t a hero, John.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Blundell; “then, if I was, I expect she’d like something else.”

The other shook his head.  “If you could only do something daring,” he murmured; “half-kill some-body, or save somebody’s life, and let her see you do it.  Couldn’t you dive off the quay and save some-body’s life from drowning?”