"Oh, truce! Truce!" Alice Mellen protested."Don't talk shop, Cooee.""It's not shop; it is topics of the day," Ethel responded tranquilly."Besides, I want to hear about Mr.Carew.Is he dangerous?"Weldon laughed.
"No, for his wound; yes, for his temper.One was only a scratch; the other way, he was horribly cut up.""Did he swear?" Alice queried, while she distributed lumps of sugar among the cups.
"Alice!"
"Don't pretend to be shocked, Cooee.Even if you haven't been out but one season, you ought to know what happens when a man turns testy.Frankly, I think it is a healthy sign, if a man stops to swear when he is hit.It shows there are no morbid secretions.""You prefer superficial outbreaks, Miss Mellen?" Frazer inquired, as he handed Ethel her cup.
"Yes.They are far less likely to produce mortification later on,"she answered, laughing up into his steady eyes."What do you do, when you are hit, Captain Frazer?""They call me Lucky Frazer, you know," he replied."I've been in no end of scrimmages, and I was never hit but once."Bending over, Ethel turned back the cloth and thumped on the under side of the table.
"Unberufen and Absit omen," she said hastily."Don't tempt Providence too far, Captain Frazer.At my coming-out reception, Imet a man who boasted that he always broke everything within range, from hearts to china.Ten minutes later, he tripped over a rug and fell down on top of the plate of salad he was bringing me.And he didn't break a thing--""Except his own record," Weldon supplemented unexpectedly."Isuspect he also broke the third commandment.The keeping of that and the falling down in public are totally incompatible.""And that reminds me, you were going to tell what Mr.Carew did when he was hit," Ethel reminded him.
"I never tell tales, Miss Dent."
"But, really, how does it feel to be under fire?" she persisted.
"Ask Captain Frazer.He has had more experience than I."She barely turned her eyes towards Frazer's face.
"He is talking to my cousin and won't hear.Were you frightened?""No."
"Truly? But you wouldn't confess, if you were."He blushed at the mockery in her tone.
"Yes.Why not? I expected to be desperately afraid; but I was only desperately angry.""At what?"
"Nothing.That's the point.There was nothing in sight to be angry at.Bullets came from nowhere in a pelting shower.Most of them didn't hit anything; there was no cloud from which the shower could come.One resented it, without knowing exactly why.It was being the big fellow who can't hit back when the little one torments him.""Cooee!"
The remonstrance was long-drawn and forceful.This time, Ethel heeded.
"What is it, Alice?"
"Do you remember that, this noon, we agreed not to mention the war?
These men fight almost without ceasing.When they aren't fighting, they do sentry and stables and things.This is an afternoon off for them.We really must talk accordingly.""What are you and Captain Frazer talking about?""Cricket and seven-year locusts."
Ethel held out her empty cup.
"Very well.Then Mr.Weldon and I will discuss mosquitoes and seven-day Baptists.No sugar, please, and I'd like another of those snappy things.""Does that mean a Mauser?" Weldon asked, as he brought back her cup.
"No.I mean biscuits, not cats.But you sinned then.However, my cousin has her eye upon us, so we must be distinctly frivolous.Is there any especially peaceful subject you would like to discuss?""Yes.Please explain your name."
She looked up at him with sudden literalness.
"It is for my grandmother.For four hundred years there has been an Ethel Dent in every generation.""I meant the other."
"Oh, Cooee?" She laughed."It dates from our first coming out here, when we were children.My old Kaffir nurse--I was only five, that first trip--used to call me so, and every one took it up.We went back to England, after a few weeks, and the name was dropped; but my uncle stayed out here, and he and my cousin always kept the old word."Weldon stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"I rather like it, do you know?" he said.
"Surely, you don't think it fits me?"
His eyes moved from her shining hair to the hem of her elaborate white gown.Then he smiled and shook his head.
"Not to-day, perhaps.But the Miss Dent of the Dunottar Castle--"She interrupted him a little abruptly.
"Does that mean I am two-sided?"
"No; only complex."
She smiled in gracious response.
"You did that very well, Mr.Weldon," she said, with a slight accent of superiority which galled him.Then, before he could reply, she changed the subject, speaking with a lowered voice."And what of the Captain?"It suited his mood not to understand her.
"In what way?"
"Every way.What do you think of him?"
Then she drew back, abashed by the fervor of the answer, as he said slowly,--"That the Creator made him, and then broke the pattern."The little pause which followed caught the alert attention of the hostess, and convinced her that it was time to shift the groups to another combination.A swift gesture summoned Weldon to the table, while Frazer dropped into his vacant chair.Ethel met the Captain with only a half-concealed eagerness.This was not the first time that a consciously trivial word of hers had been crushed out of life by Weldon's serious dignity.She was never quite able to understand his mood upon such occasions.The man was no prig.At times, he was as merry as a boy.At other times, he showed an inflexible seriousness which left her with the vague feeling of being somehow or other in the wrong.The result was a mood of pique, rather than of antagonism.Up to that time, Ethel Dent had known only unreserved approval.Weldon's occasional gravity, to her mind, suggested certain reservations.By way of overcoming these reservations, she focussed her whole attention upon Captain Leo Frazer.Across the table, Weldon, in the intervals of his talk with his hostess, could hear the low murmur of their absorbed conversation.
