Colonel Quaritch, V.C. | Page 8

five minutes after time. I have been waiting so long that I have
almost been asleep."
"I am very sorry, my dear, very," said the old gentleman apologetically,
"but--hullo! I've knocked my head--here, Mary, bring me a light!"
"Here is a light," said the voice, and at the same moment there was a
sound of a match being struck.
In another moment the candle was burning, and the owner of the voice
had turned, holding it in such a fashion that its rays surrounded her like
an aureole--showing Harold Quaritch that face of which the memory
had never left him. There were the same powerful broad brow, the
same nobility of look, the same brown eyes and soft waving hair. But
the girlhood had gone out of them, the face was now the face of a
woman who knew what life meant, and had not found it too easy. It had
lost some of its dreaminess, he thought, though it had gained in
intellectual force. As for the figure, it was much more admirable than
the face, which was strictly speaking not a beautiful one. The figure,
however, was undoubtedly beautiful, indeed, it is doubtful if many
women could show a finer. Ida de la Molle was a large, strong woman,
and there was about her a swing and a lissom grace which is very rare,
and as attractive as it is rare. She was now nearly six-and-twenty years
of age, and not having begun to wither in accordance with the fate
which overtakes all unmarried women after thirty, was at her very best.
Harold Quaritch, glancing at her well-poised head, her perfect neck and
arms (for she was in evening dress) and her gracious form, thought to
himself that he had never seen a nobler-looking woman.
"Why, my dear father," she went on as she watched the candle burn up,
"you made such a fuss this morning about the dinner being punctually
at half-past seven, and now it is eight o'clock and you are not dressed. It
is enough to ruin any cook," and she broke off for the first time, seeing
that her father was not alone.
"Yes, my dear, yes," said the old gentleman, "I dare say I did. It is
human to err, my dear, especially about dinner on a fine evening.
Besides, I have made amends and brought you a visitor, our new

neighbour, Colonel Quaritch. Colonel Quaritch, let me introduce you to
my daughter, Miss de la Molle."
"I think that we have met before," said Harold, in a somewhat nervous
fashion, as he stretched out his hand.
"Yes," answered Ida, taking it, "I remember. It was in the long drift,
five years ago, on a windy afternoon, when my hat blew over the hedge
and you went to fetch it."
"You have a good memory, Miss de la Molle," said he, feeling not a
little pleased that she should have recollected the incident.
"Evidently not better than your own, Colonel Quaritch," was the ready
answer. "Besides, one sees so few strangers here that one naturally
remembers them. It is a place where nothing happens--time passes, that
is all."
Meanwhile the old Squire, who had been making a prodigious fuss with
his hat and stick, which he managed to send clattering down the flight
of stone steps, departed to get ready, saying in a kind of roar as he went
that Ida was to order in the dinner, as he would be down in a minute.
Accordingly she rang the bell, and told the maid to bring in the soup in
five minutes and to lay another place. Then turning to Harold she began
to apologise to him.
"I don't know what sort of dinner you will get, Colonel Quaritch," she
said; "it is so provoking of my father; he never gives one the least
warning when he is going to ask any one to dinner."
"Not at all--not at all," he answered hurriedly. "It is I who ought to
apologise, coming down on you like--like----"
"A wolf on the fold," suggested Ida.
"Yes, exactly," he went on earnestly, looking at his coat, "but not in
purple and gold."

"Well," she went on laughing, "you will get very little to eat for your
pains, and I know that soldiers always like good dinners."
"How do you know that, Miss de la Molle?"
"Oh, because of poor James and his friends whom he used to bring here.
By the way, Colonel Quaritch," she went on with a sudden softening of
the voice, "you have been in Egypt, I know, because I have so often
seen your name in the papers; did you ever meet my brother there?"
"I knew him slightly," he answered. "Only very slightly. I did not know
that he was your brother, or indeed