A photograph was presented in lieu of the original, and no one had anything to say against the photograph. It represented an unmistakable soldier, even if he had not been in uniform. The face was clear-cut and clean-shaven, and some might have thought it had rather a melancholy expression--but such expressions in photographs are common, and not always truthful. Leo, for one, openly admired her sister's lover.
"I do detest a smirk," she cried, gaily; "I am so glad Paul's man did not make him smirk. Were you with him when this was taken, Maud?"
No, it had been taken in London on Paul's way through; he had promised copies to his regiment, and Maud had assisted him to send these out.
Was he sorry to leave the service? She thought he was, a little.
"So you had to--to cheer him up?" rejoined Leo, inwardly laughing over the remembrance of poor Val and his perfunctory proposal. "I daresay it does cheer up people to marry them. Your knight of the lugubrious countenance----ahem!"
"I don't know what you mean," said Maud, coldly.
"Heigho! I came near a cropper that time," muttered Leo, to herself.
When she was alone she took up the photograph again and looked at it. She could have wished for Maud's sake that she was to be united to a more lively-looking individual. The eyes, she could almost swear, were sad eyes. The mouth had a droop about it.
"It would not matter if it were Sybil or me," reflected she, within herself; "but no one can ever get a word out of Maud unless she pleases, and how is she going to bucket along a solemn spouse?... She seems content with him, and awfully proud of the whole affair--but I always fancied she would end with a jolly, jovial sort of creature, who would not care two straws whether she sulked or not. Now, something in this face,"--she scanned it thoughtfully--"leads me to think that Paul _would_ care. He has a tired look--as if there were a weight upon him. Good heavens!" quickly, "Maud isn't the person to remove a weight; she's a regular old featherbed herself, when there's nothing to stir her up. She was all right at the Fosters, no doubt, with this going on, and everybody tootling round her; but if they only knew--if _he_ only knew what she can be like at home!...