'Well, yes, no doubt I knew old Pew would be horrified. Perhaps it was the idea of that which gave a zest to the thing.' 'Precisely! and you never thought of my fifty pounds, and you ran this risk for the sake of a young man without a penny, who never could be your husband.' Ida grew scarlet and then deadly pale. 'There, don't look so distressed, child. I must try to forget my fifty pounds, and to think of your future career. It is a deuced awkward business--here come the omelette and the coffee--an escapade of this kind is always cropping up against a girl in after life--sit down and make yourself comfortable--capital dish of kidneys--the world is so small; and of course every pupil at Mauleverer Manor will gabble about this business. No mushrooms!--what is the little woman thinking about?' Captain Palliser seated himself, and arranged his napkin under his chin, French fashion. His features were of that aquiline type which seems to have been invented on purpose for army men. His eyes were light blue, like his boy's--Ida's dark eyes were a maternal inheritance--his hair was auburn, sprinkled with gray, his moustache straw-colour and with a carefully trained cavalry droop. His clothes and boots were perfect of their kind, albeit they had seen good wear. He had been heard to declare that he had rather wear feathers and war-paint, like a red Indian, than a coat made by a third-rate tailor. He was tall and inclining to stoutness, broad-shouldered, and with an easy carriage and a nonchalant air, which were not without their charm. He had what most people called a patrician look--that is to say the air of never having done anything useful in the whole course of his existence--not such a patrician as a Palmerston, a Russell, a Derby, or a Salisbury, but the ideal lotus-eating aristocrat, who dresses, drives, and dines and gossips through a languid existence. The Captain's career in the East had not been particularly brilliant. His lines had not lain in great battles or stirring campaigns. Except during the awful episode of the Mutiny, when he was still a young man, he had seen little active service. His life, since his return from India, had been a blank. His mind, never vigorous, had rusted slowly in the slow monotony of his days. He had come to accept the rhythmical ebb and flow of life's river as all-sufficient for content. Breakfast and dinner were the chief events of his life--if it was well with these it was well with him. There was a rustic tavern where in summer a good many people came to dine, either in the house or the garden, and in a room adjoining the kitchen there was a small French billiard-table with very big balls. Here the Captain played of an evening with the _habitués_ of the place, and was much looked up to for his superior skill. An occasional drive into Dieppe on the _banquette_ of the diligence, and a saunter by the sea, was his only other amusement.