Part 22 (1/2)
”What it is to be a man of tact! You've made that purple creature perfectly happy. Don't say you're going to be less kind to another woman!”
She tapped with a reproachful fan the scarlet sleeve of his thin serge mess-jacket, her appraising eye busy with the badges worn on the dark green roll-collar and the miniature medals and star. If a clever woman could be the confidante of a Cabinet Minister, the post of right-hand to the Officer Commanding H.M. Forces in Gueldersdorp might be won. And then the world would know what Hannah Wrynche was born for. What was he saying?
”I never warn my victims beforehand.”
”Sphinx! and I hoped to find you in the relenting mood!”
”If possible, ma'am, my granite bosom is more unyielding than on the last occasion when ...”
”Do go on!” said the fan.
”When you tried to tap it.”
”You're all alike.” She sighed. ”That is, you give the keynote, and the others take up the tune. Even Bingo--Bingo, whom I firmly believed incapable of keeping a secret in which his dearest interests were concerned longer than ten minutes--Bingo has sprung a surprise on me. I shall end by falling in love with my own husband--such an indecent thing to do after seven years of married life!”
”Fortunately, the scene of your lapse from the crooked path of custom is distant from the West End of London nearly seven thousand miles. And you can rely upon me for secrecy.”
”Ah, that!... If only you _did_ leak a little information now and then.”
Her eyebrows went up to the dry fringe of her Pompadour transformation.
”For the sake of the thirsting public at home, to say nothing of my reputation as a Special Correspondent----”
”Drive over and call on General Brounckers at Head Laager, Geitfontein, on the Border, early to-morrow. Perhaps he would oblige you with matter for a paragraph, and forward the cable by private wire?”
Her birdlike eyes were bright on him.
”I would go if I thought I could get anything by going. Special information--with reference to a Plan of Attack. Oh! if you knew how I'm dying to be really under fire. To hear bullets zip-zip--isn't that the sound?--as they strike the ground or walls, and sh.e.l.ls scream overhead!”
She clasped her sunburnt little jewelled hands in affected ecstasy. His eyes were stern, and the lines about his mouth deepened.
”Pray to-night that you may never hear those sounds you speak of!”
She struck an exaggerated att.i.tude of horrified consternation.
”But no! Why am I here?”
”The Lord only knows. I've seen a hen peck at a lump of dynamite....”
”Ah, you never will take me seriously. But own in your secret heart you're as much afraid as I am that a Relieving Column will be sent down from----Do tell me again where Grumer is with the Brigade? Uli, in Upper Rhodesia--thanks! Well, Grumer is quite a near friend of Bingo's, and an old flame of mine. But--to burst our lovely peac.o.c.k bubble of Siege and let the whole situation down, _sans coup ferir_, into muddy commonplace--may Grumer never come!” She held up her coffee-cup, and drank the toast.
”Only for the women and children here,” he said, and his thin nostrils moved to the measure of his quickened breathing, and a hot spark glowed in his keen eyes, ”I'd have joined you in that. But under the present circ.u.mstances--I'd give five years of life--and I love life!--if our lookouts could pick up Grumer's Advance by the time grey dawn creeps up the east again.”
She was incredulous.
”You, who said when you got orders to sail for South Africa--I have it on the authority of your Henley hostess--'I hope they'll give me a warm corner'!”
”I did say--just that. And I meant it.”
His lips pursed in a soundless whistle. She went on:
”I've seen your preparations. The little old forts, put into such repair!
and the armoured train, with a Maxim and a Hotchkiss, standing in the Railway siding, ready for business. And the earthworks! And the trek-waggon barricades, and the shelters panelled and roofed with corrugated iron. And your bomb-proof Headquarter Bureau, the iron skull that's to hold the working brain of the place ... with underground telegraphic and telephonic communications with all the forts and outposts.