The Eagles Shadow | Page 4

What has she got to do with Juvenile Courts and
child-labour in the South, I'd like to know? Why ain't she at home
attending to that crippled boy of hers--poor little beggar!--instead of
flaunting through America meddling with other folk's children?"
Miss Hugonin put another lump of sugar into his cup and deigned no
reply.
"By gad," cried the Colonel fervently, "if you're so anxious to spend
that money of yours in charity, why don't you found a Day Nursery for
the Children of Philanthropists--a place where advanced men and
women can leave their offspring in capable hands when they're busied
with Mothers' Meetings and Educational Conferences? It would do a
thousand times more good, I can tell you, than that fresh kindergarten
scheme of yours for teaching the children of the labouring classes to
make a new sort of mud-pie."
"You don't understand these things, attractive," Margaret gently pointed
out. "You aren't in harmony with the trend of modern thought."
"No, thank God!" said the Colonel, heartily.
Ensued a silence during which he chipped at his egg-shell in an
absent-minded fashion.
"That fellow Kennaston said anything to you yet?" he presently
queried.
"I--I don't understand," she protested--oh, perfectly unconvincingly.
The tea-making, too, engrossed her at this point to an utterly

improbable extent.
Thus it shortly befell that the Colonel, still regarding her under intent
brows, cleared his throat and made bold to question her generosity in
the matter of sugar; five lumps being, as he suggested, a rather unusual
allowance for one cup.
Then, "Mr. Kennaston and I are very good friends," said she, with
dignity. And having spoiled the first cup in the making, she began on
another.
"Glad to hear it," growled the old gentleman. "I hope you value his
friendship sufficiently not to marry him. The man's a fraud--a flimsy,
sickening fraud, like his poetry, begad, and that's made up of botany
and wide margins and indecency in about equal proportions. It ain't fit
for a woman to read--in fact, a woman ought not to read anything; a
comprehension of the Decalogue and the cookery-book is enough
learning for the best of 'em. Your mother never--never--"
Colonel Hugonin paused and stared at the open window for a little. He
seemed to be interested in something a great way off.
"We used to read Ouida's books together," he said, somewhat wistfully.
"Lord, Lord, how she revelled in Chandos and Bertie Cecil and those
dashing Life Guardsmen! And she used to toss that little head of hers
and say I was a finer figure of a man than any of 'em--thirty years ago,
good Lord! And I was then, but I ain't now. I'm only a broken-down,
cantankerous old fool," declared the Colonel, blowing his nose
violently, "and that's why I'm quarrelling with the dearest, foolishest
daughter man ever had. Ah, my dear, don't mind me--run your
menagerie as you like, and I'll stand it."
Margaret adopted her usual tactics; she perched herself on the arm of
his chair and began to stroke his cheek very gently. She often wondered
as to what dear sort of a woman that tender-eyed, pink-cheeked mother
of the old miniature had been--the mother who had died when she was
two years old. She loved the idea of her, vague as it was. And, just now,
somehow, the notion of two grown people reading Ouida did not strike

her as being especially ridiculous.
"Was she very beautiful?" she asked, softly.
"My dear," said her father, "you are the picture of her."
"You dangerous old man!" said she, laughing and rubbing her cheek
against his in a manner that must have been highly agreeable. "Dear, do
you know that is the nicest little compliment I've had for a long time?"
Thereupon the Colonel chuckled. "Pay me for it, then," said he, "by
driving the dog-cart over to meet Billy's train to-day. Eh?"
"I--I can't," said Miss Hugonin, promptly.
"Why?" demanded her father.
"Because----" said Miss Hugonin; and after giving this really excellent
reason, reflected for a moment and strengthened it by adding,
"Because----"
"See here," her father questioned, "what did you two quarrel about,
anyway?"
"I--I really don't remember," said she, reflectively; then continued, with
hauteur and some inconsistency, "I am not aware that Mr. Woods and I
have ever quarrelled."
"By gad, then," said the Colonel, "you may as well prepare to, for I
intend to marry you to Billy some day. Dear, dear, child," he
interpolated, with malice aforethought, "have you a fever?--your
cheek's like a coal. Billy's a man, I tell you--worth a dozen of your
Kennastons and Charterises. I like Billy. And besides, it's only right he
should have Selwoode--wasn't he brought up to expect it? It ain't right
he should lose it simply because he had a quarrel with Frederick, for,