CHAPTER VIII A BRIEF REVENGE "Ladies?" ejaculated the Commandant. "In my quarters?" Vashti nodded demurely. "I think you might have told me," she said in a tone of mild reproach. "But--my dear young lady----" "Thank you--" "Hey?" "--for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don't mind confessing that, though it hasn't come to a quarrel yet, my looking-glass and I are not the friends we were." Here, had the Commandant been a readier man, he might have answered with a compliment, and a truthful one. For indeed it was a very beautiful face that the lantern showed him, and--here was the strange part of the business--it had been growing younger since she stepped off the ship, and somehow it must have contrived, in spite of the darkness, to convey a hint of its rejuvenescence, for the word "young" had slipped from him quite involuntarily. But, after all, there is nothing so subtle as simplicity, and, after all, the Commandant managed to imply that she must be a witch. "Then, my dear young lady," he replied, "since you have spirited these females into my quarters, I can only ask you to go and spirit them away again." She shook her head. "What! You won't?... Very well, then, I must deal with them, while you go off with the lantern and search for Mrs. Treacher." "You are a brave man," said she; "and--and I think--by the look of them--you are going to have great fun." The Commandant stood for a moment rubbing his chin and staring after the lantern, as it vanished in the fog. With a shake of the shoulders he pulled himself together, marched into the Barracks, and boldly opened the door. "Miss Gabriel!" "Major Vigoureux!" "Certainly, ma'am--these being my own quarters, unless--" He paused and gazed around, as if to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him. "Yes, yes--and at this time of night. As I was just saying to Charlotte here, 'Think what a terrible construction one might put on it!'" The Commandant lifted his eyebrows. ("I behaved like a brute," he confessed afterwards, "but the woman, a few hours before, had shown no mercy to me.") "Indeed, ma'am?" said he. "A construction? Then you must invent one for me, please, since I can think of none." "We have had the most terrible experience, sir--the most terrible fright! You have seen Mrs. Treacher?" "Has anything happened to Mrs. Treacher?" "No--but it all came about through the fog----" "--and my husband deserting me," put in Mrs. Pope. The Commandant passed a hand across his brow. The gesture seemed to express perplexity; in truth it covered amusement and a kind of fearful joy in his newly-found talent for dissimulation. "My dear Mrs. Pope," he answered, his voice faltering a little, "You don't mean to tell me that your excellent husband----"