Chapter III: The Lady's Lover

The Major waited for his visitor--waited in a mood which, in spite of his promise to Miss Maynard, promised unpleasantness for Mr. Spooner. Time passed on, and he did not come. The Major paced up and down stairs, to and from the windows, and from room to room. Finally, he took a large meerschaum pipe from the mantelshelf in the smoking-room and smoked it in the drawing-room, a thing he would not have dared to do--very properly--if Miss Maynard had been at home.

"I promised young Trafford I'd go and see what I thought of that new gun of his," growled the Major, "and here's that jackanapes keeping me in to listen to his insulting twaddle."

The Major probably forgot that at any rate the jackanapes in question had no appointment with him.

At last he threw open the window, and thrusting his head out, looked up and down the street to see if he could catch a glimpse of the expected Spooner.

"The fellow's playing with me!" he told himself considerably above a whisper. "Like his confounded impudence!"

Suddenly he caught sight of a shovel hat and clerical garments turning the street corner, and re-entering the room with some loss of dignity, commenced reading the "Broad Arrow" upside down. Presently there was a knock at the street door, and a stranger was shown upstairs unannounced.

"I have called," he began.

The Major rose.

"I am perfectly aware why you have called," said he. "My niece is not at home."

"No," said the visitor. "I am aware--"

"But," continued the Major, who meant to carry the thing with a high hand, and give Mr. Spooner clearly to understand what his opinions were, "she has commissioned me to deal with the matter in her name."

The Rev. John Roland--for it was the Rev. John Roland--looked somewhat mystified. He failed to see the drift of the Major's observation, and also did not fail to see that, for some reason, his reception was not exactly what he would have wished it to be.

"I regret," he began, with the Major standing bolt upright, glancing at him with an air of a martinet lecturing an unfortunate sub for neglect of duty, "that it is my painful duty--"

"Sir," said the Major, stiff as a poker, "you need regret nothing."

The Rev. John Roland looked at him. It was very kind of him to say so, but a little premature.

"I was about to say," he went on, feeling more awkward than he had intended to feel, "that owing to circumstances----"

"On which we need not enter," said the Major. "Quite so--quite so!"

He rose upon his toes, and sank back on his heels. Mr. Roland began to blush. He was not a particularly shy man, but under the circumstances the Major was trying.

"But I was about to remark that----"

"Sir," said the Major, shooting out his right hand towards Mr. Ronald in an unexpected manner, "once for all, sir, I say that I know all about it--once for all, sir! And the sooner we come to the point the better."

"Really," murmured Mr. Roland, "I am at a loss--"

"Then," cried the Major, suddenly flaring up in a way that was even startling, "let me tell you that I wonder you have the impertinence to say so. And I may further remark that the sooner you say what you have to say, and have done with it, the better for both sides."

Thereupon he went stamping up and down the room with heavy strides. Mr. Roland was so taken aback, that for a moment he was inclined to think that the Major had been drinking.

"Major Clifford," he said, with an air of dignity which he fondly hoped would tell, "I came here to speak to you on a matter intimately connected with your niece's future happiness."

"What the dickens do you mean by your confounded impudence? Do you mean to insinuate, sir, that my niece's happiness can be affected by your trumpery nonsense?"

"Sir," said Mr. Roland. "Major!"

There was no doubt about it, the Major must be intoxicated. It was painful to witness in a man of his years, but what could you expect from a person of his habits of life? He began to wish he had postponed his visit to another day.

"Don't Major me! Don't attempt any of your palavering with me! I'm not a fool, sir, and I am not an idiot, sir, and that's plain, sir!"

"Major," he said--"Major Clifford, I will not tell you----"

"You will not tell me, sir! What the dickens do you mean by you will not tell me? Do you mean to insult me in my own house, sir?"

Mr. Roland was disposed to think that the insult was all on the other side, and inclined to fancy that a man who abused another before he knew either his name or errand, could be nothing but a hopeless lunatic.

"This pains me," he observed--"pains me more than I can express."

"Well, upon my life!" shouted the Major. "A fellow comes to my house with the deliberate intention of insulting me and mine, and yet he has the confounded insolence to tell me that it pains him!"

"Major," Mr. Roland was naturally beginning to feel a little warm, "you are not sober."

"Sober!" roared the Major. "Not sober! Confound it! this is too much!"

And before the curate knew what was coming, the Major took him by the collar of his coat, led him from the room, and--let us say, assisted him down the stairs. The front door was flung open, and, in broad daylight, the astonished neighbours saw the Rev. John Roland, M.A., of Caius College, Cambridge, what is commonly called "kicked-out," of Major Clifford's house.