rt; troubled his head very
little about politics, save when they had to do with a possible
German invasion, and was always ready to do any one a good turn. His
brother-officers declared that he was not half a bad sort, which was
high praise from the usually reticent service man. His capacity may be
accurately gauged by the fact that he did not possess a single enemy,
and that every one spoke well of him. A mortal who possesses no quality
likely to be envied by those around him is certain to belong to the rank
and file of humanity. But these unconsidered units of mankind can always
console themselves with the undoubted fact that mediocrity is invariably
happy.

Such a man as Random would never set the Thames on fire, and certainly
he had no ambition to perform that astounding feat. He was fond of his
profession and intended to remain in the army as long as he could. He
desired to marry and beget a family, and retire, when set free from
soldiering, to his country seat, and there perform blamelessly the
congenial role of a village squire, until called upon to join the
respectable corpses in the Random vault. Not that he was a saint or
ever could be one. Neither black nor white, he was simply gray, being an
ordinary mixture of good and bad. As theology has provided no hereafter
for gray people, it is hard to imagine where the bulk of humanity will
go. But doubts on this point never troubled Random. He went to church,
kept his mouth shut and his pores open and vaguely believed that it
would be all right somehow. A very comfortable if superficial philosophy
indeed.

It can easily be guessed that Random's somewhat colorless personality
would never attract Lucy Kendal, since the hues of her own character
were deeper. For this reason she was drawn to Hope, who possessed that
aggressive artistic temperament, where good and bad, are in violent
contrast. Random took opinions from books, or from other people, and
his mind, like a looking-glass, reflected whatever came along; but Hope
possessed opinions of his own, both right and wrong, and held to these
in the face of all verbal opposition. He could argue and did argue, when
Random simply agreed. Lucy had similar idiosyncrasies, inherited from
a clever father, so it was just as well that she preferred Archie
to Frank. Had the latter young gentleman married her, he would have
dwindled to Lady Random's husband, and would have found too late that he
had domesticated a kind of imitati