“I was too busy talking my best and my last to my Portuguese friends,” said Lady Mabel.  “But when and where did you dine?”

“Dine?” said L’Isle, hesitating, then recollecting his luncheon; “about two o’clock, in Badajoz.”

“A Spanish dinner, I’ll warrant, at a Spaniard’s house!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

“You must be faint with hunger.  Why,” she added, taking up a light, and holding it close to him, “you do look pale and famished; as if you had dined like a Portuguese beggar’s brat,—­on a crust, rubbed over with a sardinha, to give it a flavor.  I cannot let you go away in this condition.  If you starve yourself so, you will degenerate from a beef-eating red-coat, into a rationless Spanish soldier.”

“There is no danger of that,” L’Isle answered.  “But how do you happen to have a supper ready at this hour?”

“It shows what a slave of habit Moodie is.  Because he has a supper got for papa and his friends every night, he could not omit it; though papa is far away, and he knows that I never touch it.  But here he comes to announce it.  For once it is well timed, and you must do it justice, unless you would make both Moodie and myself your enemies for life.”

“Supper is ready, my lady,” said Moodie.  Then grumbled aside to her, “If you wait awhile longer it will serve for breakfast.”

“Pray send Jenny to me; and then, Moodie, I will not keep you up longer,” said Lady Mabel, for she was anxious to get rid of the old marplot.

They went into the next room to supper, and she seated L’Isle sociably beside her.  It was truly a tempting little supper party, without one too many at table.  Lady Mabel had now been long enough in the army to feel at home there.  Why should she not, like any of her comrades, bring home a friend to sup with her?  Especially when that friend is the pleasantest fellow in the brigade?  Having or affecting an appetite, she set the example to L’Isle, and urged him to make up for the meagre fare of the day.  The table looked as if Lord Strathern and three or four of his friends had been expected to take their seats at it; and when she bid the footman hand wine to Colonel L’Isle, he promptly placed three decanters on the table.

“William mistakes me for Colonel Bradshawe,” said L’Isle smiling, as he glanced at them.

“That is Moodie’s doing,” said she.  “He provides liberally, one bottle for you, and two for himself, I suppose.”

Jenny Aiken now came into the room, very neatly dressed, and, evidently not at all surprised at her mistress’s summons.  Upon this Lady Mabel bid William go, as he would not be wanted.

“I have not a doubt, Colonel L’Isle, that you prefer a Hebe to a Ganymede.”

“Infinitely,” said L’Isle; “and I only wonder how great Jove himself could differ with me.”

“Then let Jenny refill your glass, that you may drink the health of the Portuguese ladies, to whom you said so many witty and pleasant things this evening.”