In the drawing-room after dinner the girl found an occasion to approach Spencer Coyle. She stood before him a moment, smiling while she opened and shut her fan, and then she said abruptly, raising her strange eyes: "I know what you've come for, but it isn't any use."
"I've come to look after _you_ a little. Isn't _that_ any use?"
"It's very kind. But I'm not the question of the hour. You won't do anything with Owen."
Spencer Coyle hesitated a moment. "What will _you_ do with his young friend?"
"Mr. Lechmere? Oh, poor little lad! We've been talking about Owen. He admires him so."
"So do we all. That's why we're in such despair."
"Personally then you'd _like_ him to be a soldier?" Spencer Coyle inquired.
"I've quite set my heart on it. I adore the army and I'm awfully fond of my old playmate," said Miss Julian.
Her interlocutor remembered the young man's own different version of her attitude; but he judged it loyal not to challenge the girl.
"It's not conceivable that your old playmate shouldn't be fond of you. He must therefore wish to please you; and I don't see why--between you--you don't set the matter right."
"Wish to please me!" Miss Julian exclaimed. "I'm sorry to say he shows no such desire. He thinks me an impudent wretch. I've told him what I think of _him_, and he simply hates me."
"But you think so highly! You just told me you admire him."
"His talents, his possibilities, yes; even his appearance, if I may allude to such a matter. But I don't admire his present behaviour."
"Have you had the question out with him?" Spencer Coyle asked.
"Oh, yes, I've ventured to be frank--the occasion seemed to excuse it. He couldn't like what I said."
Miss Julian, thinking a moment, opened and shut her fan again.
"Why, that such conduct isn't that of a gentleman!"
After she had spoken her eyes met Spencer Coyle's, who looked into their charming depths.
"Do you want then so much to send him off to be killed?"
"How odd for _you_ to ask that--in such a way!" she replied with a laugh. "I don't understand your position: I thought your line was to _make_ soldiers!"
"You should take my little joke. But, as regards Owen Wingrave, there's no 'making' needed," Mr. Coyle added. "To my sense"--the little crammer paused a moment, as if with a consciousness of responsibility for his paradox--"to my sense he _is_, in a high sense of the term, a fighting man."