His servant spoke to him as he dismounted.  I saw his features soften and brighten in an instant; in five seconds he was in the room, and the light was on his face still—­I like to think of it—­the light of a frank, cordial welcome, as he griped my hand.

He was changed, certainly, but for the better.  The features, which in early youth had been too rugged and strongly marked, harmonized perfectly with the vast proportions of a frame now fully developed, though still lean in the flanks as a wolf-hound.  The stern expression about his mouth was more decided and unvarying than ever—­an effect which was increased by the heavy mustache that, dense as a Cuirassier’s of the Old Guard, fell over his lip in a black cascade.  It was the face of one of those stone Crusaders who look up at us from their couches in the Round Church of the Temple.

Before our first sentences were concluded, Forrester had nerved himself to the effort of rising, and turned to go.

“You must have fifty things to say to each other,” he said.  “You’ll find me in the mess-room.  But, Guy, don’t be long; I’ve no appetite myself this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;” and so faded away gradually through the door.

“How do you like him?” Livingstone called out from the inner room, where he was donning the “mufti.”  “He’s not so conceited as he might be, considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very fair officer, and goes across country like a bird.  Did I ever tell you what first made him famous?”

“No; I should like to hear.”

“Well, it was at a picnic at Cliefden.  Charley was hardly nineteen then, and had just joined the ——­th Lancers at Hounslow; he wandered away, and got lost with Kate Harcourt, a self-possessed beauty in high condition for flirting, for she had had three seasons of hard training.  When they had been away from their party about two hours, she felt, or pretended to feel, the awkwardness of the situation, and asked her cavalier, in a charmingly helpless and confiding way, what they were to do.  ‘Well, I hardly know,’ Forrester answered, languidly; ’but I don’t mind proposing to you, if that will do you any good.’  A fair performance for an untried colt, was it not?  Miss Harcourt thought so, and said so, and Charley woke next morning with an established renown.  Shall we go and find him?”

After breakfast we went with Guy to his room, to do the regulation cigar.

“I know you’ve made no plans, Frank,” Livingstone said, “so I have settled every thing for you already.  You are coming down to Kerton with us.  We have just got our long leave, and our horses went down three days ago.”