The Colonel of the Red Huzzars Part 12

"I shall keep both."

"Always?" she mocked.

"At least until I leave you."

"Thank Heaven, cousin, for once in my life I have had an honest answer!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand.

I took it. I did not kiss it, though that may seem strange.

Sometimes, I do have the proper sense of the fitness of things.

"It's the privilege of cousins to be frank," I quoted.

"Have you always been frank with me?" she asked.

"Rather too much so, I fear."

She gave me a sharp look. "Do you know a Captain Smith of your Army?"

"Smith is a very common name in America. I know at least a dozen who are officers."

"John Smith is his name. He was a Captain, six years ago."

I appeared to think a moment. "I know two such--one in the Cavalry, the other in the Engineers."

"Describe them, please."

I showed surprise. "Does Your Royal Highness----?"

She cut in. "That is just what she is trying to find out."

"Yes?"

"Whether either of them is the Captain Smith I have in mind."

"Both would be much honored."

"I am not so sure as to the one I mean. He was a very conceited fellow."

I gritted back a smile. "It must have been the Engineer," I said.

"He's a good deal of a prig."

She bent over the roses. "Oh, I wouldn't call him just that."

"It's no more than I've heard him call himself," I said.

"You must know him rather intimately."

"On the contrary, I know him very slightly, though I've been thrown with him considerably."

"Are you not friendly?" she asked.

"We have had differences."

Again the roses did duty. "I fear you are prejudiced," she said, and I thought I caught a smothered laugh.

"Not at all," I insisted. "I am disposed in his favor."

"So I should judge."

I could not decide which way she meant it. "Oh, he is not all bad," I condescended. "In many ways he is a good sort of chap."

"Now, that's better." she rejoined; "to say for him what he could not, of course, say for himself."

I forced back another laugh. "Oh, I don't know why he should not have said that to a friend," said I.

"It would depend much on the friend."

I did not know if she had given the opening, deliberately, but I took it.

"Of course, he would say that only to one he felt could understand him."

"You are painting him rather better than you did at first," she observed.

"I'm warming up to the subject."

"Then suppose you tell me what he looks like."

"That," said I, "is to tell his greatest fault."

"I do not understand."

"He looks like me," I explained.

"How horrible," she laughed.

"He has never ceased to deplore it," I said humbly.

"Surely, he never told you."

"To my face, many times."

"You had good cause for differences, then."

"Thank you, cousin," I said.

"And, may I ask," she went on, "what you did to him at such times?"

I shook my head. "It would not tell well."