not herded with other men.”
He leant forward earnestly. “Lord Blair,” he said, and his voice was grave, “hasn’t the thought ever come to you that we civilized people, with our rules and regulations, our etiquette and our conventions, have built up a structure which screens us from the face of the sun?”
“Ah, yes, indeed, my dear Daniel,” he replied. “Back to the land: the simple life: Fresh Air Fund – a capital sentiment. But, you know, I am very anxious, most anxious, not to offend this particular minister – most anxious.”
His visitor relapsed into silence, and the volume of smoke which issued from his mouth was some indication that he had much to say which he preferred to leave unsaid.
At length he took the pipe from between his teeth. “You had better fix your frontiers first,” he declared. “There’ll be a fine old row if Egyptian patrols blunder into foreign territory. There’s your chance for procrastination. Send out a commission to settle the desert frontiers definitely. That’ll keep you all wrangling comfortably for five years.”
“Ah! – that is an idea, a very good idea,” replied Lord Blair, bringing the tips of the fingers of one hand against those of the other sharply and repeatedly.
“Write to the minister,” Daniel went on, “and tell him you don’t altogether agree with him, but that you will consent to the preliminary step of fixing the frontiers. Before that’s accomplished you may both be dead.”
“I trust not, I trust not,” murmured Lord Blair.
“Or retired,” said his friend; and his Lordship nodded his thanks for the correction.
It was not long before Daniel rose to take his departure. “Oh, by the way,” he said, with a broad smile, “I have one little favor to ask you…”
“Certainly, certainly,” responded Lord Blair warmly. “Anything I can do, I’m sure – anything. You have put me under a great obligation by coming so promptly to my aid in this matter.”
“Well, will you be so good as to walk as far as your front gate with me? There’s something I want to show you.”
Lord Blair, somewhat mystified, accompanied him on to the veranda; and here they chanced upon Lady Muriel again taking the air with Rupert Helsingham who was once more her partner. The couple were strolling towards them as they came out of the house.
Daniel made for the steps. “What I want you to see is over here,” he said, pointing to the gateway.
“One moment,” Lord Blair interjected, taking hold of his arm. “I want to introduce you to my daughter.”
He called Muriel to him, who replied somewhat coldly that she had already met Mr. Lane.
“Really?” exclaimed his Lordship. “Splendid, capital!”
“Yes,” said Daniel, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “when she was quite a kid; but I’m blest if I know where it was.”
He was standing again almost with his back to Muriel, his pipe between his teeth, and once more a sense of annoyance entered her mind. She would have liked to pinch him, but for all she knew he might turn round and fling her into the middle of the drive. She racked her brains for something to say, something which would show him that she was not to be ignored in this fashion.
“Ah,” she exclaimed suddenly, “now I remember. It was in the Highlands that we met. You came over to tea with us: I was staying with my cousin the Duchess of Strathness.”
Daniel scratched his head. “I’m so bad at names,” he said. “What’s she like?”
Lord Blair uttered a sudden guffaw, but Muriel did not treat the matter so lightly. A man with gentlemanly instincts, she thought to herself, would at any rate pretend he remembered.
“Oh, why bother to think it out?” she answered, her foot ominously tapping the floor. “It’s of no consequence.”
“None,” Daniel replied, looking at her with his steady laughing eyes. “You’re still you, and I’m still I… But I did like your pigtails.”
Muriel turned to her partner, who stood anxiously fiddling with his eyeglass. “Come along,” she said; “let’s go back. The music’s begun again.”
She nodded with decided coolness to Daniel, and turned away. He gazed after her in silence for a moment; then he put his hand on her father’s arm, and gently propelled him towards the gates.
As they walked down the drive in the moonlight, the sentry peered at them through the iron bars, and, recognizing Lord Blair, suddenly presented arms, becoming thereat a very passable imitation of a waxwork figure.
Lord Blair put his arm in Daniel’s. “What is it you wanted to show me?” he asked, as they passed through the gate and stood upon the pavement outside.
“A good soldier,” said Daniel, indicating the sentry, whose face assumed an expression of mingled anxiety and astonishment. “I wanted to call your attention to this lad. Do you think you could put in a word for him to his colonel? I was very much struck this evening with the way in which he dealt with a ruffianly tramp who apparently wanted to get into the grounds. He showed great self-restraint combined with determination and devotion to duty.” There was not the trace of a smile upon his face.
Lord Blair turned to the rigid Scotchman, whose mouth had fallen open. “What’s your name, my man?” he asked.
“John Macdonald, me Lord,” he answered unsteadily.
“Now, will you make a note of it?” said Daniel. “And if you get a chance, recommend him for his soldierly conduct. Or, better still, send him a little present as a mark of your regard.”
“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lord Blair, still somewhat puzzled.
“Thanks, that’s all,” said Daniel. “Good-night.”
“Will you come to luncheon tomorrow?” Lord Blair asked, as they shook hands. “I will then show you the draft of my reply to the Minister of War.”
“Thank you,” Daniel answered, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I’ll be delighted, if it isn’t a party. I haven’t got any respectable clothes with me.”
“Tut, tut!” murmured his Lordship. “Come in anything you like.” And with that he patted his friend on the arm, and hastened with little tripping steps back to the house.
Daniel put his hands in his pockets and faced the sentry, who was once more standing at ease. “John Macdonald,” he said, “is the account square?”
The Scotchman looked at him with a twinkle in his eye. “Ye mus’ na’ speak tae th’ sentry on duty,” he answered.
Daniel uttered a chuckle, and walked off across the square.
CHAPTER III – THE WORLD AND THE FLESH
When a man, in the heyday of his manhood, voluntarily lives the life of a monk or hermit, his friends suppose him to be either religious, defective, or possessed of a secret mistress. Now, nobody supposed Daniel Lane to be religious, for he seldom put his foot inside a church: and people seem to be agreed that religion is, as it were, black kid gloves, handed out with the hymnbooks and, like them,
