Soldiers Three Volume I Part 21

MACKESY. I go twenty better.

DOONE. Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you say? Hi! Wake up!

JERVOISE. Eh? What's that? What's that?

CURTISS. We want a hundred rupees from you. You're a bachelor drawing a gigantic income, and there's a man in a hole.

JERVOISE. What man? Any one dead?

BLAYNE. No, but he'll die if you don't give the hundred. Here! Here's a peg-voucher. You can see what we've signed for, and Anthony's man will come round to-morrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.

JERVOISE. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It isn't one of your jokes, is it?

BLAYNE. No, it really _is_ wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest poker-winner last week, and you've defrauded the tax-collector too long.

Sign!

ANTHONY. Let's see. Three fifties and a seventy--two twenty--three twenty--say four hundred and twenty. That'll give him a month clear at the Hills. Many thanks, you men. I'll send round the _chapra.s.si_ tomorrow.

CURTISS. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of course you mustn't--

ANTHONY. Of course. It would never do. He'd weep with grat.i.tude over his evening drink.

BLAYNE. That's just what he would do, d.a.m.n him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gaddy?

ANTHONY. No. Divorce Court at last?

BLAYNE. Worse. He's engaged!

ANTHONY. How much? He _can't_ be!

BLAYNE. He _is_. He's going to be married in a few weeks. Markyn told me at the Judge's this evening. It's _pukka_.

ANTHONY. You don't say so? Holy Moses! There'll be a shine in the tents of Kedar.

CURTISS. 'Regiment cut up rough, think you?

ANTHONY. 'Don't know anything about the Regiment.

MACKESY. It is bigamy, then?

ANTHONY. Maybe. Do you mean to say that you men have forgotten, or is there more charity in the world than I thought?

DOONE. You don't look pretty when you are trying to keep a secret. You bloat. Explain.

ANTHONY. Mrs. Herriott!

BLAYNE. (_After a long pause, to the room generally._) It's my notion that we are a set of fools.

MACKESY. Nonsense. _That_ business was knocked on the head last season.

Why, young Mallard--

ANTHONY. Mallard was a candlestick, paraded as such. Think awhile.

Recollect last season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mallard, did Gaddy ever talk to any other woman?

CURTISS. There's something in that. It _was_ slightly noticeable now you come to mention it. But she's at Naini Tal and he's at Simla.

ANTHONY. He had to go to Simla to look after a globetrotter relative of his--a person with a t.i.tle. Uncle or aunt.

BLAYNE. And there he got engaged. No law prevents a man growing tired of a woman.

ANTHONY. Except that he mustn't do it till the woman is tired of him.

And the Herriott woman was not that.

CURTISS. She may be now. Two months of Naini Tal work wonders.

DOONE. Curious thing how some women carry a Fate with them. There was a Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away and got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down there.

I remember three men desperately devoted to her, and they all, one after another, took wives.

CURTISS. That's odd. Now I should have thought that Mrs. Deegie's influence would have led them to take other men's wives. It ought to have made them afraid of the judgment of Providence.

ANTHONY. Mrs. Herriott will make Gaddy afraid of something more than the judgment of Providence, I fancy.

BLAYNE. Supposing things are as you say, he'll be a fool to face her.

He'll sit tight at Simla.

ANTHONY. 'Shouldn't be a bit surprised if he went off to Naini to explain. He's an unaccountable sort of man, and she's likely to be a more than unaccountable woman.

DOONE. What makes you take her character away so confidently?

ANTHONY. _Primum tempus_. Gaddy was her first, and a woman doesn't allow her first man to drop away without expostulation. She justifies the first transfer of affection to herself by swearing that it is for ever and ever. Consequently--

BLAYNE. Consequently, we are sitting here till past one o'clock, talking scandal like a set of Station cats. Anthony, it's all your fault.

We were perfectly respectable till you came in. Go to bed. I'm off.

Good-night all.

CURTISS. Past one! It's past two, by Jove, and here's the _khit_ coming for the late charge. Just Heavens! One, two, three, four, _five_ rupees to pay for the pleasure of saying that a poor little beast of a woman is no better than she should be. I'm ashamed of myself. Go to bed, you slanderous villains, and if I'm sent to Beora to-morrow, be prepared to hear I'm dead before paying my card account!

THE TENTS OF KEDAR

Only why should it be with pain at all, Why must I 'twixt the leaves of coronal Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?

Why should the other women know so much, And talk together:--Such the look and such The smile he used to love with, then as now.

_Any Wife to any Husband_.

SCENE.-_A Naini Tal dinner for thirty-four. Plate, wines, crockery, and khitmatgars carefully calculated to scale of Rs. 6000 per mensem, less Exchange. Table split lengthways by bank of flowers._