and uninquiring.  The books she bought to read were Memoirs of her time by dead men and women once known to her.  These did fatigue duty in cloth or undress.  It was high drill with all of Lord Ormont’s books, and there was not a modern or a minor name among the regiments.  They smelt strongly of the bookseller’s lump lots by order; but if a show soldiery, they were not a sham, like a certain row of venerably-titled backs, that Lady Charlotte, without scruple, left standing to blow an ecclesiastical trumpet of empty contents; any one might have his battle of brains with them, for the twining of an absent key.

The door opened.  Weyburn bowed to his old star in human shape:  a grey head on square shoulders, filling the doorway.  He had seen at Olmer Lady Charlotte’s treasured miniature portrait of her brother; a perfect likeness, she said—­complaining the neat instant of injustice done to the fire of his look.

Fire was low down behind the eyes at present.  They were quick to scan and take summary of their object, as the young man felt while observing for himself.  Height and build of body were such as might be expected in the brother of Lady Charlotte and from the tales of his prowess.  Weyburn had a glance back at Cuper’s boys listening to the tales.

The soldier-lord’s manner was courteously military—­that of an established superior indifferent to the deferential attitude he must needs enact.  His curt nick of the head, for a response to the visitor’s formal salutation, signified the requisite acknowledgment, like a city creditor’s busy stroke of the type-stamp receipt upon payment.

The ceremony over, he pitched a bugle voice to fit the contracted area:  “I hear from Mr. Abner that you have made acquaintance with Olmer.  Good hunting country there.”

“Lady Charlotte kindly gave me a mount, my lord.”

“I knew your father by name—­Colonel Sidney Weyburn.  You lost him at Toulouse.  We were in the Peninsula; I was at Talavera with him.  Bad day for our cavalry.”

“Our officers were young at their work then.”

“They taught the Emperor’s troops to respect a charge of English horse.  It was teaching their fox to set traps for them.”

Lord Ormont indicated a chair.  He stood.

“The French had good cavalry leaders,” Weyburn said, for cover to a continued study of the face,

“Montbrun, yes:  Murat, Lassalle, Bessieres.  Under the Emperor they had.”

“You think them not at home in the saddle, my lord?”

“Frenchmen have nerves; horses are nerves.  They pile excitement too high.  When cool, they’re among the best.  None of them had head for command of all the arms.”

“One might say the same of Seidlitz and Ziethen?”