A few days later, on the morning of the New-Year's-Day Review, Colonel
Matthew de Warrenne once again strode up and down his verandah,
arrayed in full review-order, until it should be time to ride to the
regimental parade-ground.

He had coarsened perceptibly in the six years since he had lost his
wife, and the lines that had grown deepest on his hard, handsome face
were those between his eyebrows and beside his mouth--the mouth of an
unhappy, dissipated, cynical man....

He removed his right-hand gauntlet and consulted his watch.... Quarter
of an hour yet.

He continued the tramp that always reminded Damocles of the restless,
angry to-and-fro pacing of the big bear in the gardens. Both father
and the bear seemed to fret against fate, to suffer under a sense of
injury; both seemed dangerous, fierce, admirable. Hearing the clink
and clang and creak of his father's movement, Damocles scrambled from
his cot and crept down the stairs, pink-toed, blue-eyed, curly-headed,
night-gowned, to peep through the crack of the drawing-room door at
his beautiful father. He loved to see him in review uniform--so much
more delightful than plain khaki--pale blue, white, and gold, in full
panoply of accoutrement, jackbooted and spurred, and with the great
turban that made his English face look more English still.

Yes--he would ensconce himself behind the drawing-room door and watch.
Perhaps "Fire" would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would
get "what-for" from whip and spur, and be put over the compound wall
instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and out at the