CHAPTER XIII – THE NEW LIFE
Perched on the make-shift saddle of a baggage-camel at an apparently break-neck height above the ground, Muriel still had the feeling that she was playing an elaborate game as she jogged along beside Daniel’s taller and more magnificent beast, with its gaily coloured tassels and trappings, and its rich white sheepskin upon which its rider was seated. Behind them rode a black-bearded son of the desert, with a white bernous over his head, silver-mounted pistols stuck into his sash, and a rifle slung over his shoulders. Daniel was holding her guiding-rope, and her two hands were therefore free, as she bounced up and down, to cling on to the sides of the saddle – a circumstance for which she was grateful, although it caused her to feel like a captive being led into slavery.
At the gate of the hotel her companion’s camel knelt at a word from him, and he dismounted; but in her own case her less accustomed mount was not so easily induced to go down on its knees, and startled by its antics, she recklessly slid from the saddle and hung for a moment at its side, her legs kicking about in the air. A moment later she tumbled into Daniel’s arms, and presently found herself deposited, like a piece of baggage, upon the doorstep, in front of Mrs. Bindane, who happened to be standing in the entrance bullying the hall porter.
“Hullo,” said Kate, casually, “the washing’s come home.”
Muriel felt herself all over carefully, as though to make sure that her anatomy was still reasonably complete, and then, linking her arm in that of her friend, described to her the day’s strenuous events; while Daniel, feeling that his presence was not required during these confidences, went over to his attendant to give him his instructions.
“My dear,” said Muriel enthusiastically, “we’ve made a lovely camp out there. It’s like a story out of the Arabian Nights.”
Kate Bindane looked at her suspiciously. “Well, you be careful of those stories,” she said. “They generally need a lot of expurgation before they’re fit for family reading. Isn’t this the man you told me kept a harîm in the desert?”
“So they say,” she answered. “Anyway he’s evidently given it up.”
“He’ll soon collect another,” her friend replied. “I expect that’s the Grand Chief Eunuch he’s talking to now.”
“Did you get my note?” asked Muriel, anxious to change the subject.
“Yes,” she smiled, “and your esteemed orders received the prompt attention of our Mr. Bindane, who ’phoned your papa, and ordered the car, and made himself quite useful.”
After the tragic death of Rupert Helsingham, four weeks ago, Kate Bindane had taken a gloomy aversion to their steamer, and had persuaded her husband to get rid of it, and to come out to this hotel on the edge of the desert. Muriel had, on more than one occasion, spent the night here with them in their comfortable suite of rooms; and now as she said “good-bye,” she made arrangements for future meetings and visits, while Daniel, in a spasm of hospitality, suggested that they should make use of his camp as an occasional halting-place.
“During the day, while I’m at work in Cairo,” he said, “you can make use of my tents. I’ll tell my servant to look after you.”
Kate Bindane laughed. “O, come now,” she answered, “that’s driving your birds right over my gun. It makes shooting too easy.”
Daniel was perplexed. “What d’you mean?” he asked, as he seated himself beside Muriel in the car.
“Well,” said Mrs. Bindane, “you’ve got the reputation of being a bit short with your fellow men; but to say you’ll be glad to entertain us provided that you yourself are not there is the limit.”
Muriel turned to Daniel. “She’s only joking,” she assured him; “that’s her way.”
Kate uttered an exclamation. “Oh, you little swine!” she said to Muriel. “You’re on his side now!”
“No, I’m not,” Muriel protested, hastily, and the colour came into her face.
Daniel looked from one to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m all at sea.”
The car moved away, and Muriel sat back in her corner luxuriously. She was very tired, and her feet ached. She was happy to find that she no longer felt awkward in this man’s presence, and that her feminine intuition had not deserted her, for she seemed to have learned the trick of managing him. It was only necessary to make herself useful to him, to roll her sleeves up and show a little muscle, and his antagonism evaporated. He was prehistoric – that was all; and yet she could not associate the idea of brutality with him. No, she had not quite classified him; but at any rate she realized that she had probably been wrong in regarding him as being contemptuous of her sex. He was only contemptuous of uselessness.
She glanced at him as he sat in silence by her side, and she noticed that his expression had become grave, and even sad.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look unhappy.”
He aroused himself, and smiled; but his eyes were troubled.
“Yes, I feel a bit blue,” he said. “I suppose it’s the thought of my new job.”
“I’m rather surprised,” she commented, “that you have taken it on. Why did you?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I thought it was my duty,” he said. “You see I happen to speak Arabic as fluently as I speak English, and I’ve made a study of the native mind. I understand these fellows and they understand me; and Egypt just now is craving for understanding.”
“You’ve got a lot to live up to,” she told him. “My father thinks you are going to be the saving of the country. I’m always hearing your praises sung.”
He looked gravely at her. “You call to my mind,” he said, “the prayer of Abu-Bakr, the first Khalif. When he heard that people were praising him, he used to say something like this: ‘O God, Thou knowest me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than other people know me. Make me, I pray Thee, better than they suppose, and forgive me what they know not.’”
Therewith he relapsed into silence once more; and Muriel, feeling that there was a sort of momentousness in this hour of his entrance into the political arena, held her peace. There was in her mind a sense of pride at the part she was playing in a great event. She felt that she was, as it were, a sharer in a diplomatic secret; it was almost as though she, too, were serving a great cause. Suddenly the things which made up her social life seemed to become insignificant, and her existence took on a larger aspect.
As they drove up to the door of the Residency, she turned to him as though he were an old friend. “I’m awfully glad my father is going to have you with him,” she said. “I feel a sort of personal interest in it all.”
Daniel’s reply was interrupted by Lord Blair’s appearance on the steps. He had heard the car drive up to the door, and had hastened out to greet the newcomer.
“Welcome, my dear Daniel,” he exclaimed, holding out his arms as though he were going to embrace his friend. “This is splendid, capital!”
The two men shook hands, and as they did so, Lord Blair winced as though his fingers had been crunched in a man-trap. For some minutes thereafter he held his right hand loosely in his left, bending the joints carefully to and fro, under the pretence of fiddling with his rings. Even after they had entered the drawing-room and Muriel was dispensing the tea, he was still clenching and unclenching his fist, and bending and straightening his first finger as though surreptitiously beckoning to somebody.
Muriel told her father of her morning’s work, and described with enthusiasm the camp in the desert.
“I’m very sorry,” he answered, turning to Daniel, “very sorry indeed, that you are not going to live here in the house, but I bow to your wishes. You must consider yourself entirely free; and indeed I know we shall lose you if you are not your own master.”
“Oh no,” Daniel replied, “I’m quite prepared to follow a routine. I’ll work here all the morning, talking to your native callers, and I’ll do the correspondence at the camp in the evenings.”
“That will be admirable,” said Lord Blair; and presently, when tea was over, he led Daniel away to his study.
“And now,” he said, when they were seated, “let us discuss the question of your salary…”
Daniel interrupted him. “Oh, don’t bother about that. I’ll take whatever the position carries – I don’t suppose it’s much, as it’s a Foreign Office job. I’ve got a small income of my own, you know; and my tastes are simple. Get me as much as you reasonably can, of course; but don’t worry about it.”
Presently Lord Blair spoke of the question of Knighthood, and attempted to persuade him to reconsider his decision; but Daniel was obdurate, and very reluctantly his chief abandoned the project.
“Let me follow my own instincts,” said Daniel. “From the native point of view your adviser on Oriental matters does not need that sort of thing.”
“Don’t you think he does?” asked Lord Blair, rather doubtfully.
“Certainly not. If you’ll let me, I shall turn out all the fine English office furniture from my official room: the desk, and the red leather chairs, and the pictures. They’re all right for a governor, but not for the – what shall I say? – the court philosopher, as I intend to be. I want plain bare walls, bare floors with just a rug or two, and a few chairs. No books, or papers, or maps, or calendars, or clocks.”
“As you wish, my dear Daniel: I rely on you,” said Lord Blair.
“You see,” he continued, “what English pro-consuls in the East so often lack is the go-between, the man who tries to get at the native soul, so to speak. You, as governor, must represent the might and the justice of England; but I must be the voice saying ‘Don’t be afraid: we shall not outrage your religion or your philosophies or your traditions.’ Now I can’t be that if I’m sitting at an American desk, with an eyeglass in my eye, and a stenographer tapping away beside me, and a large office clock ticking on the wall. I should be so unconvincing. Do you see what I mean?”
“Quite, quite,” Lord Blair answered. “I dare say you are right.”
His face, however, belied anything of conviction that he attempted to put into the words. He did not want Daniel to orientalize himself to any marked extent: he wished him to take his place in the English and Continental society of the Residency. He had great ambitions for him, and the idea of training him ultimately to occupy his own exalted position was developing rapidly in his mind. He dreaded anything in the nature of eccentricity: he had the characteristic British dislike of the crank. Yet he could not imagine Daniel as ever becoming unbalanced, for a kind of equilibrium and stability were apparent in all his actions.
On the other hand, the idea of the new Oriental Secretary adopting the rôle of philosopher appealed to him; he saw the force of it; for his experiences in the East had made him realize that if a white man is to gain the confidence of a brown race he must be, in both senses of the words, capable of a brown study.
When Daniel returned to the drawing-room to say “good-bye” to Muriel and to thank her, it was already dark outside, and the room was brilliantly illuminated by a number of somewhat inadequately shaded electric globes. There were five or six people in the room; and he paused for a moment in the doorway, wondering whether he would give offence by beating an immediate retreat. He was paying very careful regard to his behaviour, however; and when Muriel called out to him, he was obliged to enter.
“I’m going now,” he said to her, approaching the sofa where she was seated. “I just wanted to say ‘thank you.’” He looked neither to right nor left.
Lady Muriel turned to a very smartly dressed woman who was seated beside her on the sofa, and introduced Daniel. His hands were, at the moment, clasped behind his back, and he bowed to her with great gravity. She held out her hand, but, seeing that he had considered the more formal bow sufficient to the occasion, withdrew it again. He thought that perhaps he had been stiff, and at once held out his tanned and muscular paw, but finding that it was too late, thrust it into his coat pocket, at the moment when, for the second time, she offered her fingers. He snatched his hand out of his pocket, but simultaneously she withdrew hers again.
Muriel laughed nervously, but Daniel faced the situation frankly.
“I’m sure I don’t know whether I’m supposed to shake hands or not,” he said. “What do people do in society?”
“Which ever you like,” the lady murmured, with a titter of laughter.
“That’s no good,” he answered, “unless you do what the other fellow’s going to do. Anyway,” he added, bending forward and very deliberately taking hold of her irresolute hand, “how d’you do?”
He glanced about him, and observed that the others were watching him with mild amusement. Near him was Sir Frank Lestrange, the First Secretary, whom he had met before – a fair-haired, clean-shaven man of some forty years of age, whose rigid formality seemed incapable of disturbance. Daniel shook him warmly by the hand, but for all the impression he made he might have been greeting a tailor’s dummy.
Near the window he saw Lady Smith-Evered, talking to a pale young Guardsman, who appeared to be in immediate need of a tonic. He went over to her, and made his salutations with cordiality, for a year ago he had made her acquaintance at the Residency, and he had a vague recollection that she had taken offence at something or other he had said. He held out his hand, but once more his pocket became its sudden place of refuge as she bowed with all the stiffness that her undulating figure permitted, and, with no more than a glance in his direction, turned to continue her conversation with the Guardsman.
In another part of the room an elderly man with sleek, grey hair was talking to a heavy matron whose respectable cloth dress looked as though it had been made for her by a builder of club-room furniture. Daniel thought he recognized the man, and took a few steps towards him, but, deciding that he was mistaken, turned on his heel and, narrowly avoiding a collision with a small table, returned to Muriel.
The curious thing was that though these situations were embarrassing, he did not appear awkward. Muriel observed this remarkable fact, and wondered at it. He was certainly out of place in a drawing-room, she thought, but he was not therefore out of countenance; and his sang-froid seemed to deserve a more friendly treatment than it was receiving. She therefore got up as he approached her, and in a very audible voice asked him if he would let her help him to arrange his official quarters on the morrow.
He thanked her, and then, lowering his voice, asked her if she could explain Lady Smith-Evered’s very marked hostility.
“Why, don’t you know?” Muriel whispered. “She told me all about it: she said you had run down the Army once when you were talking to her last year.”
“Nonsense,” said Daniel, “I’m sure I never did.”
Muriel nodded. “Yes, you did. She said you spoke of the officers of her pet regiment as men who looked as though they’d been through the ranks.”
“But I meant that as a compliment,” he answered. “I meant they looked as though they weren’t afraid of hard work. Had she any other complaints?”
“No, I think that was her only grievance.”
Before she could stop him, he turned and walked straight across the room to Lady Smith-Evered, and came to a halt immediately in front of her.
“I was just asking Lady Muriel how I had offended you,” he said, with disconcerting directness; “and she tells me it was because you thought I had disparaged some of our soldier friends.”
The General’s lady flushed. He saw the red glow creep up from her neck to her face, under the thick powder, and her eyes gleamed menacingly; but she only inclined her head.
“I want to apologize,” he went on. “I’m most awfully sorry: my remarks were stupid, and I think I must have been trying to say something bright. Will you please forgive me?”
The flush deepened. “I’m glad you apologize,” she said, and she glanced at the Guardsman beside her, as though to bid him take notice of what she supposed to be the discomfiture of the offender.
“I’m very glad that you accept my apology,” he said, and with a bow he left her.
“What on earth did you say?” asked Muriel, when he had returned to her.
“I apologized,” he answered, quietly.
“Ate humble pie?” she queried, with a touch of disdain.
“I had hurt her feelings: I’m always sorry to annoy anybody,” he replied.
“Well,” she remarked, “I think you’ve rather annoyedme now, by climbing down like that.” She did not feel that humility suited him, and she was conscious of a sense of disappointment.
“My good girl,” he whispered, “you’ve got a lot to learn from the philosophers. You must let me put you through a course of reading.”
Her disappointment flamed into anger at his words, and she responded coldly to his adieux. When he had left the room she sat down once more upon the sofa, and in the few moments of silence which followed, she experienced a variety of sensations. She felt as though he were the schoolmaster again who had scolded her; she felt abashed and did not know why; she felt angry with him, and, after their happy hours together, her displeasure fell like a destructive hand upon the day’s edifice; she felt that they belonged to different worlds, and that it was hopeless to attempt to understand him; she felt that she was right and he was wrong, and yet there was a doubt at the back of her mind as to whether the opposite might not somehow be the case.
CHAPTER XIV – THE COURT PHILOSOPHER
In the West an interest in Philosophy is considered to be an indication of eccentricity; and the thought brings before the imagination some long-haired and ancient professor, detached from the active world, wandering around a college quadrangle, his hands folded, and his face upturned to the sky as though averted from the stains of spilt food upon his breast. In the East, however, the Philosopher is held in high honour; and his vocation calls to mind a thousand tranquil figures each of whom has been the power behind an Oriental throne.
Daniel Lane was a philosopher by inclination and by education, and his great common sense was the definite consequence of careful reasoning.
He believed that Right was an unconquerable force which needed no display of manners or sounding of trumpets to signal its movement; and so long as he did not offend against the laws formulated by his philosophy, he did not look for difficulties or defeat.
Nor was he a man who could be terrorized by any threats; and though Lord Blair had warned him that assassination was a likely end to a political career in Cairo, he was not in the slightest degree troubled by the thought. Very reluctantly he consented to profit by the activities of the Secret Service; and he determined to dispense with their aid as soon as he had made himself acquainted with the ramifications of native intrigue.
He began his work at the Residency, therefore, without trepidation; and on the first morning of his official employment he inaugurated a procedure which before nightfall was the talk of many in the native quarter.
In a secluded corner of the garden, at the end of a short terrace at the edge of the Nile, there was a luxuriant group of palms, in the shade of which stood a marble bench of Arabic design, built in a half-circle upon a base of Damascus tiles. A mass of shrubs and prolific rose bushes shut it off from the main grounds; while from passing boats it was screened by a low parapet covered by a wild tangle of flowering creepers. This sheltered and peaceful alcove was promptly appropriated by Daniel, and in this setting he made his appearance in the political life of Cairo.
His first visitor was a wealthy, silk-robed land-owner from Upper Egypt, who desired to lay certain complaints before the British authorities, in regard to the hostile actions of a native inspector of Irrigation. The man had been shown into the waiting-room in the Residency, where he had been filled with anxiety by the ticking of the typewriters in the adjoining room, the constant ringing of telephone bells, and the hurried passage to and fro of clerks and liveried servants. He had wondered whether he knew sufficient English to make himself understood without the aid of an interpreter, and whether, if the interpreter’s services were required, he would have to give him very handsomebackshish to render his tongue persuasive.
Therefore, when he was led presently across the lawn to the sunny terrace beside the Nile, where he came upon a mild and quiet figure who stood smoking his pipe, and idly tossing pebbles into the placid waters, and who now greeted him in the benevolent language of the Koran, his agitation left him upon the moment, and with it went the need of cunning. He stated his case frankly, as he strolled to and fro with Daniel in the sunlight, and he blessed God and his Prophet that the interview which he had dreaded so long in anticipation should prove so undisturbing in actuality.
Daniel next found himself seated upon the marble bench with a caravan-master who had failed through the ordinary channels to obtain redress for the illegal seizure of certain goods at the Tripolitan frontier; and this personage’s amazement at the Englishman’s knowledge of the desert routes was profound.
Later, a deputation of sheikhs from Dongola was received in the shade of the rustling palms: grave, anxious men who had come to speak of the disaffection of certain neighbouring tribes, and to express their own loyalty, which was somewhat in doubt.
At the close of the interview, while he was warning them against revolt, Daniel happened to notice a bundle of stout wooden faggots lying near by in readiness for use as supports for some young trees which had recently been planted. He went across to them, and selecting one of them, carried it back to his seat upon the bench; and presently, turning to the sheikhs, he asked if any man amongst them could break such a faggot across his knees.
The youngest member of the deputation, a magnificent specimen of negroid humanity, took the faggot in his brown hands, and strained his muscles in the attempt to break it, but without success. His colleagues, older men, made no trial of their lesser strength, but were satisfied to declare the task to be impossible.
Daniel rose and took it from them, and a moment later flung it to the ground in two halves. “That faggot,” he said, quietly resuming his seat, “may be likened to the land of Dongola, which is to be the strong support of the fruit-bearing tree of the Sudan. But if it fail in its useful duty, it may thus be broken asunder by hands more powerful than yours, and be cast into the flames.”
To the native mind a demonstration of this kind was more potent than any words, and the deputation of sheikhs left the alcove, carrying with them a tale which would be told to their children’s children.
As they retreated across the lawn towards the entrance, Daniel suddenly caught sight of Muriel, whose face peered out from amongst the rose bushes, as though she were looking to see if he were alone.
“Hullo!” he called out; “what are you doing here?”
“Spying on you,” she answered, coming out into the open, her arms full of roses which she had been picking.
“That’s very wrong of you,” he said.
“Well, you’ve taken possession of my particular corner,” she laughed, “and I always get my roses from here.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied as they seated themselves upon the marble bench. “I though you slacked about upstairs until midday.”
She looked at him squarely. “You’ve got a wrong idea about me altogether,” she declared. “It’s true I don’t spend my mornings in smashing up Government property… By the way, why did you break that wooden stake across your knee?”
He laughed quietly. “It was a parable: it represented a certain province of the Soudan, and its possible fate at England’s hands.”
She thought it out. “I wonder what would have happened,” she mused, “if you’d found that you couldn’t break it. I suppose in that case you would have said it represented England.”
“No,” he answered, “I should have been in a bad fix, and it would have served me right for showing off. But I don’t often attempt what I don’t think I can do. It’s a bad thing to fumble about with anything that’s beyond one, like a dog with an uncrackable bone.”
“Somebody ought to have invented a proverb,” she said, “like ‘Don’t worry what you can’t bite.’ But, you know, you’re fumbling about with me very badly.”
“Would you rather I bit clean through you right away?” he asked. “Supposing I said I thought I had smashed you open already…?”
“I’d pity your strange delusion,” she answered, and they both laughed, though Muriel did not feel hilarious.
“Well, supposing I just said I thought I could do so, and was going to try?”
“I’d reply: ‘Any thing, so long as you don’t worry me.’”
Again they laughed, and this time Muriel did so with more sincerity, for she felt that she had answered him well.
He took a rose from the bunch in her hands, and smelt it thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m going to try,” he said at length. “I’m going to understand you, and then make you understand yourself. I’m going to show you yourself.”
“You’re a busy man,” she answered, at once estranged; “you’d better not take on any new job.”
“It’s worth while, I think,” he replied.
There was something in his voice which changed the tone of their conversation, and arrested the development of her hostile feelings. The flippancy of their words died away, and a new seriousness, a salient eventfulness, took its place. Suddenly Muriel was filled with longing to be understood, to be laid bare mentally both to him and to herself. She felt solitary and her heart cried out for the enlightenment of friendship; yet she did not dare to make an intimate of this man, whose treatment of her sex did not seem to be conspicuously delicate. Nevertheless the inadequacy, the inutility of her method of life was very forcibly presented to her, and she seemed to be beating at the bars of her cage. There was something so flat and unprofitable in all that she had done, and the desire was urgent in her to realize herself and expand.
“O, I want to be taught,” she exclaimed, “I want to be taught…” She checked herself, and was silent.
He looked at her in surprise, for she uttered the words with intensity, and it was clear that she meant them; but it was not clear that they were prompted by more than a passing emotion, for presently she began to talk about the lighter things of her life, and she spoke of the various events in prospect which would keep her from brooding. The greater part of each day for the next week or so was already filled; and Muriel spoke of these coming events as though they were dispensations granted to her by a benevolent Fortune for her heart’s comfort.
“I’ve come to the conclusion,” she said, “that the only way to be happy is to be surrounded by amusing people, so that there is no opportunity for thinking about oneself.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re wrong. Your happiness must come from within, from the contentment and fullness of your own mind. The Buddha once said ‘Let us dwell free from yearning, among men who are anxious’; and there is an anonymous Oriental poem which says something about the lost paradise being hidden, really, in the human breast. My good girl,” he exclaimed, warming to his subject, “don’t you realize that what you can get from this restless world of ‘society’ you live in is only pleasure, not happiness, and even at that it doesn’t last. You are like a punctured wheel: so long as people are pumping you up, you seem to be all right, but when they leave you alone you go flat, because your inner tube isn’t sound. You ought to be alone in the desert for a bit: it would do you all the good in the world.”
Muriel looked at him questioningly. “Were you alone in the desert?” she asked. There had come into her mind a vision of that harîm of which she had heard tell.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly alone …” he replied; for he had many friends among the natives.
His answer gave fresh colour to her thoughts, and a sense of annoyance crept over her.
“It seems to me,” she remarked, “that I ought to remind you of the Biblical saying, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’”
She got up, and, with a little nod to him, strolled back to the rose-bushes. He watched her as she added fresh blooms to the bunch she was carrying; and he noticed how the sunlight caught her hair and made it beautiful. He would have liked to have gone after her and taken her in his arms.
Presently he returned to the house, and, finding that there were no more native visitors, went to talk over serious matters of policy with the regular Secretaries.
He remained to luncheon at the Residency, and at the table Lord Blair enquired eagerly as to whether he had found his first morning’s work interesting, and appeared to be relieved to hear that such was the case.
Muriel joined in the conversation. “I was eavesdropping behind the bushes,” she said, “and I can say with confidence that Mr. Lane enjoyed it all thoroughly, especially the part where he smashed up the gardener’s work of weeks.” Therewith she related the incident of the wooden stake, but in her narrative the faggot became an immense tree-trunk.
Lord Blair rubbed his hands. “That’s the sort of thing!” he exclaimed. “Dear me, dear me! – what strength you have, Daniel!”
“Yes,” said Muriel, “his mere presence would make the dullest party piquant. One has only to recollect that if he were suddenly to get out of control, every person in the vicinity would run the risk of being banged into a boneless emulsion…”
She broke off with a laugh, and Daniel smiled affably. Somehow, in spite of his Herculean proportions, he was not a man one would associate with violence.
After luncheon, Daniel spent some time in talking to Lord Blair in regard to native affairs; and it was already half past three when he left the Great Man’s study, and walked across the hall to the main entrance. Here he encountered Lady Muriel, who was just going off upon her visit to the bazaars. She was about to step into a very new and luxurious automobile, which Mrs. de Courcy Cavilland, wife of the Colonel of the Dragoons, had recently purchased to the honour of the regiment and to the dismay of her husband. This lady, a small fluffy woman, with innocent blue eyes and sharp little teeth, was making gushing remarks to Muriel as Daniel appeared at the head of the steps; and three young Dragoon officers were standing behind her, like nice little dogs awaiting their turn to go through their tricks. Actually they were excellent fellows, but in the presence of their colonel’s wife, they bore little resemblance to the fire-eating cavalrymen of tradition; and Daniel, as he looked down upon them from the top of the steps, wondered which was the more disastrous influence in a regiment – that of the colonel’s wife upon the younger officers, or that of the younger officers upon the colonel’s wife.