It was
gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the indrawing of
his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke upon the
faces of quite half the Order of patience under privation.
The atmosphere was one of congratulation; the week's _Gazette_ had
transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel.
The officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt bosom--he
had them laundried in England and sent out with the mails--made a
serious social effort to correspond, and succeeded in producing more
than one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her Majesty's
forces in India which none of them heard before. They were all delighted
at Herbert's step, he was just the kind of person to get a step, and to
get it rather early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled with the
general gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, too, of
the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the
surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no strain
imaginable one could see the relaxation.
"We can't do much in celebration," Lindsay was saying, "but I've got a
box at the theatre, if you'll come.
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