The Colonel smiled and shook hands with him. In the ordinary way of
social life this was quite an unnecessary thing to do. But he acted
according to the impulses common to a thousand of his type--and a
fine type--in England. Setting aside the mere romantic exterior of
a Macedonian brigand, here was a young man of the period with
astonishingly courteous manners, of--and this was of secondary
consideration--of frank and winning charm, with a free-and-easy
intimacy with Balzac, of fearless truthfulness regarding his
deficiencies, and with a golf handicap of one. The Colonel's hand
and heart went out in instinctive coordination. The Colonel
Winwoods of this country are not gods; they are very humanly
fallible; but of such is the Kingdom of England.

"At any rate," said he, "you mustn't dream of leaving us yet."

He went downstairs and met his sister in the hall.

"Well?" she asked, with just a gleam of quizzicality in her eyes,
for she knew whence he had come.

"One of these days I'll take him out and teach him to shoot," said
the Colonel.



CHAPTER X

THE shooting party came, and Paul, able to leave his room and sit in
the sunshine and crawl about the lawn and come down to dinner,