Part 17 (2/2)
”It's true.”
Colonel Winwood looked at him once more. ”It's not many young men,”
said he, ”who would dare to make such a confession.”
”But what is the good of lying?” asked Paul, with the eyes of a cherub.
”None that I know of,” replied the Colonel. He returned to his chair and rested his hand on the back. ”You play golf, anyhow,” said he, pointing to the brown canvas bag in the corner.
”Oh, yes,” said Paul.
”Any good?”
”Fair to middling.”
”What's your handicap?” asked the Colonel, an enthusiastic though inglorious pract.i.tioner of the game.
”One,” said Paul.
”The deuce it is!” cried the Colonel. ”Mine is fifteen. You must give me a lesson or two when you pull round. We've a capital course here.”
”That's very kind of you,” said Paul, ”but I'm afraid I shall be well enough for ordinary purposes long before I'm able to handle a golf club.”
”What do you mean?”
”This silly pleurisy. It will hang about for ages!”
”Well?”
”I'll have to go my ways from here long before I can play.”
”Any great hurry?”
”I can't go on accepting your wonderful hospitality indefinitely,” said Paul.
”That's nonsense. Stay as long as ever you like.”
”If I did that,” said Paul, ”I would stay on forever.”
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 astonis.h.i.+ngly 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 G.o.ds; 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.
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