“Yes, mother,” I said; “but first--” and I struck Captain Wynne full in the face, so that, unprepared as he was, he fell over a table and on to the floor. Every one started up. There was instant silence. In a moment he was on his feet, and, like myself, another man. Turning, he said, with amazing coolness, wiping the blood away, for I was strong, and had hit hard, “Madam, I beg your pardon; we have been behaving like beasts, and I am fitly punished. As to you, Mr. Wynne, you are a boy, and have undertaken to rough it with men. This shall go no further.” “It shall go where I please,” I cried. “No, no; Hugh, Hugh!” said my mother. “‘We will talk it over to-morrow,” said the captain; and then, turning, “I mean, gentlemen, that this shall stop here. If any man thinks I am wrong, let him say so. I shall know how to settle accounts with him.” “No, no,” said the colonel; “you are right, and if any officer thinks otherwise, I too am at his service.” In the silence which came after he added, “Permit me, madam;” and offering his arm to my mother, we following, they went downstairs, Jack and I after them, and so into the street and the reproachful calm of the starlit April night. VIII “Even so far away as now,” says Jack, writing in after-days, “it grieves me to think of that winter, and of this mad scene at the London Coffee-house. When I saw Hugh go in with the officers, I waited for an hour, and then went away. Returning later, I learned that he was still upstairs. I felt that if I stayed until he came forth, although he might not be in a way to talk to me, to know that I had waited so long might touch him and help him to hear me with patience. I walked to and fro until the clock had struck twelve, fearful and troubled like a woman. Sometimes I think I am like a woman in certain ways, but not in all. “There were many people who loved Hugh, but, save his mother, none as I did. He had a serious kindliness in his ways, liking to help people, and for me at certain times and in certain crises a reassuring directness of swift dealing with matters in hand, most sustaining to one of my hesitating nature. His courage was instinctive, mine the result of obedience to my will, and requiring a certain resolute effort. “I think of him always as in time of peril, throwing his head up and his shoulders back, and smiling, with very wide-open eyes, like his mother’s, but a deeper blue. The friendship of young men has often for a partial basis admiration of physical force, and Hugh excelled me there, although I have never been considered feeble or awkward except among those of another sex, where always I am seen, I fear, to disadvantage.