"Don't you sometimes change your decisions?"
"I suppose I do," I answered; "but not this one."
"I am in a great puzzle," he said. "And very sorry. Aren't you going to be so good as to give me some clue to this mystery? Did you find the hops so dull?"
"O no! " I said. "I liked them very much I enjoyed them very much. I am sorry to stay away."
"Why?" he asked again, with a little sort of imperative curiosity which was somehow very pleasant to me.
"I do not think it is right for me to go," I said. Then, seeing grave astonishment and great mystification in his face, I added, "I am a Christian, Mr. Thorold."
"A Christian!" he cried, with flashes of light and shadow crossing his brow. "Is _that_ it?"
"But, my dear Miss Randolph you know we are friends?"
"Yes," I said, smiling, and glad that he had not forgotten it.
"Then we may talk about what we like. Christians go to hops."
"I suppose they may," I answered slowly.
"But they _do_. There was our former colonel's wife Mrs. Holt; she was a regular church-goer, and a member of the church; she was always at the hop, and her sister; they are both church members. Mrs. Lambkin, General Lambkin's wife, she is another. Major Banks's sisters those pretty girls, they are always there; and it is the same with visitors. Everybody comes; their being Christians does not make any difference."
"Captain Thorold," said I, "I mean Mr. Thorold, don't you obey your orders?"
"Yes generally," he said. And he laughed.
"Have you got orders not to come to our hop?"
"I think I have. You will not understand me, but this is what I mean, Mr. Thorold. I _am_ a soldier, of another sort from you; and I have orders not to go anywhere that my Captain does not send me or where I cannot be serving Him."
"I wish you would show those orders to me."
I gave him the open page which I had been studying, that same chapter of Colossians, and pointed out the words. He looked at them, and turned over the page, and turned it back.
I was silent. I had not expected he would.
"And I was going to say, I never saw any Christians that were soldiers; but I have, one. And so you are another?" And he bent upon me a look so curiously considering, tender, and wondering, at once, that I could not help smiling.