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And with regard to Colonel Bunnion shall I be accused of cynicism if I say that I admitted him not to my confidence but to my company, because I know that it delighted the honest but boring fellow to prove to himself that he could rise above British prejudice and exhibit tact in dealing with a man in a delicate position?
What the devil's the matter?" cried a voice; and I found I had disturbed from his slumbers an unnoticed Colonel of British Cavalry. "A thousand pardons!" said I. "I thought I was alone, and gave vent to the feelings of the moment." Colonel Bunnion stretched himself and joined me. "That's the worst of this place," he said. "It's so liverish.
For, mark you, all the world even those nearest and dearest to me as I soon discovered believed that the wife of the man who was murdered before my eyes was my mistress. Colonel Bunnion was kind, and he meant to be kind. He was a gentleman for all his wearisomeness, and his kindness was such as I could accept. But I know what I say about him is true. Ye gods!
But one never encounters these rarities, and Bungay and Bacon are no longer the innocent and ignorant rivals whom Thackeray drew. They do not give those wonderful parties; Miss Bunnion has become quite conventional; Percy Popjoy has abandoned letters; Mr. Wenham does not toady; Mr. Wagg does not joke any more.
Colonel Bunnion returned my nod of greeting in the most distracted fashion and gazed at Lola with the frank admiration of British Cavalry. I felt foolishly proud and exhilarated, and gave her at my table the seat commanding a view of the room. I then ordered a bottle of champagne, which I am forbidden to touch.
I stepped into the drawing-room close by and drew up a telegram to Dale. "Lady summoned by Papadopoulos on private affairs. Avoid lunacy save for electioneering purposes. Then I joined Lola and Colonel Bunnion. She was lying back in her laziest and most pantherine attitude, and she looked up at me as I approached with eyes full of velvet softness.
They're so ordinary you can't pick them out from common misters and missuses." Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and proposed coffee in the lounge. There we found Colonel Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola.
With the exception of Colonel Bunnion, I have kept myself aloof from my fellow creatures in the hotel, even taking my meals in my own rooms, not wishing to be stared at as the hero of the scandal that convulsed the place.
Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, lent her shelter or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in a boarding-house to Miss Bunnion. In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so little likely to be published, we need novelists' maps and topographies of London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some American of leisure; they order these things better in America.
Colonel Bunnion, a genial little red-faced man, with bulgy eyes and a moustache too big for his body, who sat, also solitary, at the next table to mine, suddenly began to utter words which I discovered were addressed to me. "Most amazing thing happened to me as I was coming down to dinner.
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