Millicent Dixon’s uncle, Col. Elliott Coke, invalided from some remote Afghan frontier station whose name on the map was utterly out of proportion to the inconsiderableness of the place, was in London. I met him at the Bassishaws’ when Arthur, in tones of infinite respect, had pointed out to my notice a small, keen face, curried by Indian suns, with moustaches out of which both the colour and the moisture had been grilled years and years before.

“I say, Rollo,” Bassishaw had whispered, “do you know who that is? That’s Col. Coke.”

“It’s a good name,” I observed. “Who’s he?”

“Who’s he? I say, Rollo! Why, he’s the best authority on hill batteries and jungle skirmishes in India! Led an attack on some darned place or other in—I forget the date. V. C. Went through the Afghan war, you know—got about a hundred and fifty clasps.”

“Indeed?” I said. “Present me.”

Arthur had presented me to his hero almost apologetically, and I had since improved the acquaintance considerably.

I gathered from the Colonel that the Afghan frontier was not overrun with European ladies to any great extent, and certainly the little man’s manner on being transported to a place where a full numerical half of the population (and a much larger proportion in every other respect) consisted of women, was very pleasant to watch. The luxury of seeing them was almost enough for him, and when it came to the intimacies of conversation the little warrior’s embarrassment was as delightful as young Ted Carmichael’s.

“Gad, Butterfield,” he said, as we threaded Piccadilly one evening, “this is home, you know! It’s like one big family—you feel as if you can speak to any of them!”

The Colonel’s observation was perhaps truer than he had any idea of; but I couldn’t dash his boyish pleasure.

“Yes,” I replied. “I almost envy you the delight, Coke, of having the full measure all at once. It is to you what tiger-shooting would be to me, did my tastes run in that direction.”

“Gad,” he replied (he seldom replied without “Gad”), “it’s marvellous! And all with faces as white as my own, Butterfield!”

I smiled, looking at the piece of tropical cookery he called white, but let him run on.

“Do you know,” he said, “there was Powell’s wife, and poor Jack Dennis’s widow, and the adjutant’s sister; and, by Gad, except for a dahi that Powell kept (Powell’s wife was never strong), there wasn’t another woman, Butterfield, in the whole damned station! And Winifred Dennis didn’t amount to much. But here——”

He never seemed to get accustomed to it. Had a London fog stamped the metropolitan complexion indelibly and universally black, Coke would have given a sigh, as knowing that his glimpse was too good to have lasted, and returned to his old order of things. The rustle of a silk skirt was an unstaled wonder to him; and the contrast between what he called the “real European baby-ribbon sort of thing” and the “infernal blouse and puggaree business” never failed to entertain him.

With Miss Dixon he was soon on good terms, but with most other ladies, Mrs. Loring Chatterton first of all, his diffidence was marked. His chivalrous devotion was Quixotic, but most of them would have bartered it, I am sure, for a more work-a-day and less punctilious style of attention. Mrs. Loring, indeed, said so.

“I don’t know where he got his style of conversation from,” she remarked, “but he is absolutely embarrassed when I present him to a woman. How do you account for it, Mr. Butterfield?”

“It is not,” I replied, “that he is deficient in physical bravery. I can only account for it on the supposition of instinct. He knows your propensities, Mrs. Loring, and would possibly die as he has lived, a blameless bachelor.”

“But it’s just the same with the married women,” she returned. “What is there to be afraid of in Alice Carmichael?”

“I decline to be invidious, Mrs. Loring,” I replied. “He gets along well enough with Millicent Dixon.”

“They are related,” she replied, somewhat inconclusively.

“I am afraid it is a non sequitur,” I answered. “Friendship generally varies inversely as the square of the distance of the relationship.”

“I wonder what we could do?” she said, half to herself. “Do you think Mrs. Gervase would do him any good?”

The wicked, wedded creature! Emily Gervase, a youthful widow, was Cicely Vicars’s sister. I drew myself up with dignity.

“Mrs. Loring,” I said, looking full at her, “I wonder that you do not tremble! What is it you would do? Has Col. Coke, of a score of Indian hill fights, the bearer of honourable scars of war and climate, not earned his peace? Would you, now that his body is broken on the outposts of an Empire for your protection, harrow the boyish soul within it? No, madam. On me, if you will, you may exercise your arts; but if you once submit that venerable head to the machinations of Emily Gervase—I expose you.”

“Exercise arts on you!” she retorted. “You’re too fond of it; and I shall be—nice—to the Colonel, in spite of you, Mr. Butterfield.”

She kept her word. She indulged her undoubted gifts for being “nice” to people in a series of variations, the theme of which was always the same—the development of the Colonel’s intimacy with Mrs. Gervase. Mrs. Loring’s methods were old enough to me—I knew them by heart; but to the maiden soul of the Colonel they came as a revelation of female unselfishness.

“Do you know, Butterfield,” he said to me one evening, “I’m beginning to think Mrs. Chatterton is no end of a fine woman, by Gad! She’s loyal, by Gad! The way she stands by that little friend of hers, Mrs. Gervase—you know her”—(I nodded)—“why, it’s just what a man would do!”

“Then you have met Mrs. Gervase, Coke?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “the other evening. She’s infernally shy, by Gad! Quiet, you know. That’s what I like about an Englishwoman here. Now, Powell’s wife, and the regimental women——”

“Exactly; were not shy. And what do you think of Mrs. Gervase?”

“Well, you know,”—the little man looked at me with a comical air of worldly knowledge that was a joy to see,—“she was awfully quiet, Butterfield—only looked at you; but I brought her out, by Gad! And she’s intelligent, too, when you once get her talking.”

“You succeeded in making her talk, then?” I asked with an irony that was for my private satisfaction, and meant nothing to him.

“Yes,” he replied, “after I’d—played her a bit, you know. And that woman, Butterfield, displayed an intelligence, by Gad, on transport, and commissariat, and mobilisation that was simply little short of marvellous! Marvellous, by Gad!”

“She’s a clever woman, I believe,” I answered. “She asked you how often you had been wounded, I suppose?”

“She did ask me that,” he admitted; “but women haven’t got to hear about that kind of thing, you know, Butterfield. You’ve got to keep ’em at arm’s length in such matters—kind of——”

“Exactly. Play them a bit. I congratulate you, Colonel, on having—er—brought out Mrs. Gervase.”

“Oh,” he replied, “she’s only a child, of course, widow or no widow; but she’ll make a fine woman, Butterfield.”

I would have given much that Emily Gervase should have heard herself set down a child. The Colonel, unconsciously, had in his hand the opportunity for complete and sweeping revenge.

It was my fortune to be present when Mrs. Gervase, doubtless after deep consideration, made the next move. We were to call on Mrs. Charlie Vicars—or rather, Coke was to call, and persuaded me along with him.

“Mrs. Chatterton said you wouldn’t mind, Butterfield,” he said; “and, by Gad, I can’t keep two of them going.”

“You undervalue yourself, Coke,” I said. “But I’ll come.”

And so we found ourselves in the Æstheticism of Mrs. Vicars’s drawing-room. That lady found means to entertain me, while Coke applied himself to the creation of a conversational warmth that should induce the unfolding of the timid bud by his side.

“Col. Coke seems to have taken quite a fancy to Emily, Mr. Butterfield?” said Mrs. Charlie interrogatively.

“It is a pretty sight, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied. “The scarred veteran in the evening of his life, his grim battles behind him, returning to take a younger generation on his knee——”

Mrs. Vicars looked round in alarm.

“—And to tell of fights in which their fathers were engaged——”

“Col. Coke is not so old as that, Mr. Butterfield. He can’t be much older than you,” she interrupted.

“He is young enough to be Emily’s father,” I admitted, “and perhaps a little too juvenile to be her grandfather. Coke is fifty.”

“He doesn’t look it, Mr. Butterfield.”

“He looks it, Mrs. Vicars, and you know it. Let us talk about something else. How is Master—Percival, is his name to be?”

The young gentleman in question had known the light of day for exactly three weeks, and was the commencement of Cicely Vicars’s family. I had been presented to him in his cot some days before, but beyond mutual celibacy, there was little as yet in common between us, and the conversation had flagged.

“Yes,” Mrs. Vicars responded, “he’s to be called Percival; and oh, Mr. Butterfield, he’s to be christened in a week, and I wondered——”

She hesitated.

“I already stand sponsor to an embarrassing extent, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied. “I never ascertained precisely to what the position pledged me, but I have an uncomfortable sense of responsibility to which I do not feel inclined to add.”

“But, Mr. Butterfield, those were—other people’s children—not mine.”

She turned a supplicating eye on me. It runs in the family.

“Naturally,” I replied. “It would be a big burden, in these days of small families, for any one person. But no, Mrs. Vicars. Perhaps on a future occasion——I have it!” I added.

“You have what?”

“Coke’s your man, Mrs. Vicars. Come.”

I rose, and assisted her to rise also. She hung back, but I brought her along. It was the very thing! We approached the couple. The Colonel was holding forth on the dialects of the North-Western Provinces.

“Coke!” I said. He looked up.

“Accept my felicitations. You are to stand godfather to Mrs. Vicars’s little boy next week.”

Coke blushed a vivid gamboge, and stopped dead.

“Gad!” he stammered. “Wha—what’s that, Butterfield?”

“Sponsor, my dear Coke,” I returned, “at the investiture of a fellow-man with a name. You’re just the man.”

Things were whirling round Coke. He grasped the edge of the sofa with both hands, and looked blankly at us.

“Me!” he gasped, “me! at a christening! What the devil—me a godfather! No, I’m damned if I can!”

“My dear Coke,” I answered, “calm yourself. Of course you can—you must! A man with the Victoria Cross cannot get out of these things so easily. Look at me—a baker’s dozen at least.”

“Gad,” he replied, wiping his brow, “I’d rather get the Cross again.”

“Nonsense,” I replied. “It’s a duty. Somebody did it for us, and we keep up the tradition. Besides, it’s unlucky to have to ask twice.”

I had no authority for this last statement, but it seemed to go. Coke leaned back for ease in breathing.

“But I’ve never done anything of the kind,” he almost whispered. “I shall shake like a recruit. I shan’t know what to do—I shall get mixed up with the bridesmaids——”

The Colonel’s notions as to the procedure of christenings were undoubtedly vague. I looked at Mrs. Gervase.

“This is not a wedding,” I said, “but a christening. That’s all right, Coke. You shall wear your uniform and grasp the hilt of your sword all the time. You’ll do.”

“But—but—hang it, Butterfield, what about the family? You’ll pardon me, ladies, but I—you are the only members I am happy enough to know.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Vicars, “there’s only mother, Colonel. I forgot you hadn’t met her. You shall to-morrow. You do promise?”

The Colonel was evidently looking for flaws in the position, but seemed to find none. He rose, as unhappy a little soldier as ever wore a medal.

“Well, ladies,” he said, “I would rather have shot Afghans for you for twelve months than undertake this—this post. If I break down you mustn’t blame me. I’ll do my best.”

And with a sigh he pulled his white moustaches nervously, and we begged leave to go.

Now, my only object in all this was a half-whimsical protest, such as is permissible against what was evidently in the minds of both these ladies—the matching of Mrs. Gervase with a man easily twenty years her senior. The position of godfather to a succeeding generation, apart from the edification of seeing such a man as Coke in such a capacity, was much more suitable than any wedding so uneven, and I had allowed myself to hint as much. But Coke himself, as he afterwards told me, had carried the thing a good deal further.

It was in the smoke-room of the FainÉant Club that I heard its conclusion. The ceremony was over, and Coke was composing his nerves with green Indian cigars. He had sat meditatively watching the smoke for some time, when he suddenly looked up and caught my eye.

“Well, Butterfield,” he said, “I got it over; but, by Gad, never again! They shall call 'Deserters’ next time for me!”

“Yes?” I said inquiringly.

“Yes,” he replied. “It was this way, Butterfield. I called on Mrs. Vicars next day, and met her mother, and, by Gad, Butterfield”—the Colonel threw his cigar away in his excitement, and faced full round on me—“it was little Cissie Munro, who threw me over before I left, thirty years ago! By Gad”—he sank back in his chair—“you could have pulled my shoulder-straps off! I knew her in a minute. I didn’t know whether she was living or dead, Butterfield. I’m used to my friends dying—and there, by Gad, she turns up! My stars, it beats all!”

It was certainly a coincidence.

“And the awkward part of the whole thing was—I don’t mind telling you, Butterfield—that I’d all but taken a fancy to that quiet little daughter of hers, Mrs. Gervase. Well, I was all at sea; the whole thing was too infernally odd. It didn’t seem right, somehow, that I should be thrown over by one woman, make love to her daughter, and be godfather to what might have been my own grandchild, by Gad; and I was in no end of a mess. Don’t you think so?”

I admitted the questionableness of the proceeding.

“Well, I could not get out of the confounded christening—thanks to you, Butterfield,—but as to Mrs. Gervase, that was another matter. I can help that. And she’s a good little woman, too,” he added, “if she were not so infernally modest, by Gad.”

“I think it is, perhaps, better, Coke,” I replied.