“I’ll see him,” said Jock, “or may be I can do the business myself, for, strange to say, the creature doesn’t avoid me, but rather runs after me.”

“You meet her in society?”

“Yes, I’ve not come to the end of my white kids yet, you see.  And mother, I came to tell you of something that has turned up.  You know the Evelyns are all dead against my selling out.  I dined with Sir James on Tuesday, and found next day it was for the sake of walking me out before Sir Philip Cameron, the Cutteejung man, you know.  He is sure to be sent out again in the autumn, and he has promised Sir James that if I can get exchanged into some corps out there, he will put me on his staff at once.  Mother!”

He stopped short, astounded at the change of countenance, that for a moment she could neither control nor conceal, as she exclaimed “India!” but rallying at once she went on “Sir Philip Cameron!  My dear boy, that’s a great compliment.  How delighted your uncle will be!”

“But you, mother!”

“Oh yes, my dear, I shall, I will, like it.  Of course I am glad and proud for my Jock!  How very kind of Sir James!”

“Isn’t it?  He talked it over with me as if I had been Cecil, and said I was quite right not to stay in the Guards; and that in India, if a man has any brains at all and reasonable luck, he can’t help getting on.  So I shall be quite and clean off your hands, and in the way of working forward, and perhaps of doing something worth hearing of.  Mother, you will be pleased then?”

“Shall I not, my dear, dear Jockey!  I don’t think you could have a better chief.  I have always heard that Sir Philip was such a good man.”

“So Mrs. Evelyn said.  She was sure you would be satisfied.  You can’t think how kind they were, making the affair quite their own,” said Jock, with a little colour in his face.  “They absolutely think it would be wrong to give up the service.”

“Yes; Mrs. Evelyn wrote to me that you ought not to be thrown away.  It was very kind and dear, but with a little of the aristocratic notion that the army is the only profession in the world.  I can’t help it; I can’t think your father’s profession unworthy of his son.”

“She didn’t say so!”

“No, but I understood it.  Perhaps I am touchy; I don’t think I am ungrateful.  They have always made you like one of themselves.”

“Yes, so much that I don’t like to run counter to their wishes when they have taken such pains.  Besides, there are things that can be thought of, even by a poor man, as a soldier, which can’t in the other line.”

This speech, made with bent head, rising colour, and hand playing with his mother’s fan, gave her, all unwittingly on his part, a keen sense that her Jock was indeed passing from her, but she said nothing to damp his spirits, and threw herself heartily into his plans, announcing them to his uncle with genuine exultation.  To this the Colonel fully responded, telling Jock that he would have given the world thirty years ago for such a chance, and commending him for thus getting off his mother’s hands.