The Green Mummy - Page 50/191

Sir Frank Random was an amiable young gentleman with--as the saying

goes--all his goods in the shop window. Fair-haired and tall, with a

well-knit, athletic figure, a polished manner, and a man-of-the-world

air, he strictly resembled the romantic officer of Bow Bells, Family

Herald, Young Ladies' Journal fiction. But the romance was all in his

well-groomed looks, as he was as commonplace a Saxon as could be

met with in a day's march. Fond of sport, attentive to his duties as

artillery captain, and devoted to what is romantically known as the fair

sex, he sauntered easily through life, very well contented with himself

and with his agreeable surroundings. He read fiction when he did read,

and those weekly papers devoted to sport; troubled his head very

little about politics, save when they had to do with a possible

German invasion, and was always ready to do any one a good turn. His

brother-officers declared that he was not half a bad sort, which was

high praise from the usually reticent service man. His capacity may be

accurately gauged by the fact that he did not possess a single enemy,

and that every one spoke well of him. A mortal who possesses no quality

likely to be envied by those around him is certain to belong to the rank

and file of humanity. But these unconsidered units of mankind can always

console themselves with the undoubted fact that mediocrity is invariably

happy.

Such a man as Random would never set the Thames on fire, and certainly

he had no ambition to perform that astounding feat. He was fond of his

profession and intended to remain in the army as long as he could. He

desired to marry and beget a family, and retire, when set free from

soldiering, to his country seat, and there perform blamelessly the

congenial role of a village squire, until called upon to join the

respectable corpses in the Random vault. Not that he was a saint or

ever could be one. Neither black nor white, he was simply gray, being an

ordinary mixture of good and bad. As theology has provided no hereafter

for gray people, it is hard to imagine where the bulk of humanity will

go. But doubts on this point never troubled Random. He went to church,

kept his mouth shut and his pores open and vaguely believed that it

would be all right somehow. A very comfortable if superficial philosophy

indeed.

It can easily be guessed that Random's somewhat colorless personality

would never attract Lucy Kendal, since the hues of her own character

were deeper. For this reason she was drawn to Hope, who possessed that

aggressive artistic temperament, where good and bad, are in violent

contrast. Random took opinions from books, or from other people, and

his mind, like a looking-glass, reflected whatever came along; but Hope

possessed opinions of his own, both right and wrong, and held to these

in the face of all verbal opposition. He could argue and did argue, when

Random simply agreed. Lucy had similar idiosyncrasies, inherited from

a clever father, so it was just as well that she preferred Archie

to Frank. Had the latter young gentleman married her, he would have

dwindled to Lady Random's husband, and would have found too late that he

had domesticated a kind of imitation George Eliot. When he congratulated

Archie on his engagement somewhat ruefully, he little thought what an

escape he had had.