Before our first sentences were concluded, Forrester had nerved himself
to the effort of rising, and turned to go.

"You must have fifty things to say to each other," he said. "You'll find
me in the mess-room. But, Guy, don't be long; I've no appetite myself
this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;" and
so faded away gradually through the door.

"How do you like him?" Livingstone called out from the inner room, where
he was donning the "mufti." "He's not so conceited as he might be,
considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very
fair officer, and goes across country like a bird. Did I ever tell you
what first made him famous?"

"No; I should like to hear."

"Well, it was at a picnic at Cliefden. Charley was hardly nineteen then,
and had just joined the ----th Lancers at Hounslow; he wandered away,
and got lost with Kate Harcourt, a self-possessed beauty in high
condition for flirting, for she had had three seasons of hard training.
When they had been away from their party about two hours, she felt, or
pretended to feel, the awkwardness of the situation, and asked her
cavalier, in a charmingly helpless and confiding way, what they were to
do. 'Well, I hardly know,' Forrester answered, languidly; 'but I don't
mind proposing to you, if that will do you any good.' A fair performance
for an untried colt, was it not? Miss Harcourt thought so, and said so,
and Charley woke next morning with an established renown. Shall we go
and find him?"

After breakfast we went with Guy to his room, to do the regulation