Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/219

 tudes, was a fitting oracle to consult in a matter touching the private feelings of memsahibs.

“No,” he growled regretfully, and again aloud; “this must be a white man’s war.”

Sybil leaned over and tapped his knee with her gold tea-spoon. The General started, smiled fatuously at the celebrated Beaumanoir heirloom, as though he were expected to admire it, and then suddenly came down from the clouds, realizing that the young woman with the bright eyes searching his face was something more than a source of anxiety to him. She was a factor to be reckoned with, and if he was a judge of the human countenance she was about to enforce that view.

“A white man’s war with too many women in it, General?” she asked, archly. “Isn’t that rather an anomaly?”

“It’s gospel truth,” the General replied, with sturdy insistence. “Sign of senile decay, though, thinking aloud.”

“You are not decayed. You might as well accuse me of being in my first childhood, and I have really passed that,” Sybil smiled back at him. “But,” she added, “I am childish