He was by no means the dull dog that I had labelled him.

By diligent and sympathetic enquiry I learned that he had been a Natural Science scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had taken a first-class degree--specialising in geology; that by profession (his father's) he was a mining-engineer, and, in pursuit of his vocation, had travelled in Galicia, Mexico and Japan; furthermore, that he had been one of the ardent little band who of recent years had made the Cambridge Officers Training Corps an effective school.
Hitherto, when I had met him he had sat so agreeably smiling and modestly mumchance that I had accepted him at his face value.
I was amused to see how Betty, in order to bring confusion on me, led him to proclaim himself.

And I loved the manner in which he did so.

To hear him, one would have thought that he owed everything in the world to Betty--from his entrance scholarship at the University to the word of special commendation which his company had received from the General of his Division at last week's inspection.

Yes, he was the modest, clean-bred, simple English gentleman who, without self-consciousness or self-seeking, does his daily task as well as it can be done, just because it is the thing that is set before him to do.