The Place of Honeymoons - Page 54/123

"Yes."

"Well, I win. Saw him bang across the street this morning."

Abbott muttered something.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Sounded like 'dem it' to me."

"Maybe it did."

"Heard about him in Paris?"

"No."

"The old boy had transferred his regiment to a lonesome post in the North

to cool his blood. The youngster took the next train to Paris. He was

there incognito for two weeks before they found him and bundled him back.

Of course, every one knows that he is but a crazy lad who's had too much

freedom." The colonel emptied his glass. "I feel dem sorry for Nora. She's

the right sort. But a woman can't take a man by the scruff of his neck and

chuck him."

"But I can," declared Abbott savagely.

"Tut, tut! He'd eat you alive. Besides, you will find him too clever to

give you an opening. But he'll bear watching. He's capable of putting her

on a train and running away with her. Between you and me, I don't blame

him. What's the matter with sicking the Barone on him? He's the best man

in Southern Italy with foils and broadswords. Sic 'em, Towser; sic 'em!"

The old fire-eater chuckled.

The subject was extremely distasteful to the artist. The colonel, a rough

soldier, whose diplomacy had never risen above the heights of clubbing a

recalcitrant Hill man into submission, baldly inferred that he understood

the artist's interest in the rose of the Harrigan family. He would have

liked to talk more in regard to the interloper, but it would have been

sheer folly. The colonel, in his blundering way, would have brought up the

subject again at tea-time and put everybody on edge. He had, unfortunately

for his friends, a reputation other than that of a soldier: he posed as a

peacemaker. He saw trouble where none existed, and the way he patched up

imaginary quarrels would have strained the patience of Job. Still, every

one loved him, though they lived in mortal fear of him. So Abbott came

about quickly and sailed against the wind.

"By the way," he said, "I wish you would let me sketch that servant of

yours. He's got a profile like a medallion. Where did you pick him up?"

"In the Hills. He's a Sikh, and a first-class fighting man. Didn't know

that you went for faces."

"Not as a usual thing. Just want it for my own use. How does he keep his

beard combed that way?"

"I've never bothered myself about the curl of his whiskers. Are my clothes

laid out? Luggage attended to? Guns shipshape? That's enough for me. Some

day you have got to go out there with me."

"Never shot a gun in all my life. I don't know which end to hold at my

shoulder."