Part 51 (1/2)
”Are you certain of that?” said Otis Yeere.
”Quite. We're writing about a house now.”
Otis Yeere ”stopped dead,” as Mrs. Hauksbee put it in discussing the relapse with Mrs. Mallowe.
”He has behaved,” she said, angrily, ”just like Captain Kerrington's pony--only Otis is a donkey--at the last Gymkhana. Planted his forefeet and refused to go on another step. Polly, my man's going to disappoint me. What shall I do?”
As a rule, Mrs. Mallowe does not approve of staring, but on this occasion she opened her eyes to the utmost.
”You have managed cleverly so far,” she said. ”Speak to him, and ask him what he means.”
”I will--at tonight's dance.”
”No-o, not at a dance,” said Mrs. Mallowe, cautiously. ”Men are never themselves quite at dances. Better wait till tomorrow morning.”
”Nonsense. If he's going to revert in this insane way, there isn't a day to lose. Are you going? No? Then sit up for me, there's a dear. I shan't stay longer than supper under any circ.u.mstances.”
Mrs. Mallowe waited through the evening, looking long and earnestly into the fire, and sometimes smiling to herself.
”Oh! oh! oh! The man's an idiot! A raving, positive idiot! I'm sorry I ever saw him!”
Mrs. Hauksbee burst into Mrs. Mallowe's house, at midnight, almost in tears.
”What in the world has happened?” said Mrs. Mallowe, but her eyes showed that she had guessed an answer.
”Happened! Everything has happened! He was there. I went to him and said, 'Now, what does this nonsense mean?' Don't laugh, dear, I can't bear it. But you know what I mean I said. Then it was a square, and I sat it out with him and wanted an explanation, and he said--Oh! I haven't patience with such idiots! You know what I said about going to Darjiling next year? It doesn't matter to me where I go. I'd have changed the Station and lost the rent to have saved this. He said, in so many words, that he wasn't going to try to work up any more, because--because he would be s.h.i.+fted into a province away from Darjiling, and his own District, where these creatures are, is within a day's journey”--
”Ah-hh!” said Mrs. Mallowe, in a tone of one who has successfully tracked an obscure word through a large dictionary.
”Did you ever hear of anything so mad--so absurd? And he had the ball at his feet. He had only to kick it! I would have made him anything!
Anything in the wide world. He could have gone to the world's end. I would have helped him. I made him, didn't I, Polly? Didn't I create that man? Doesn't he owe everything to me? And to reward me, just when everything was nicely arranged, by this lunacy that spoiled everything!”
”Very few men understand your devotion thoroughly.”
”Oh, Polly, don't laugh at me! I give men up from this hour. I could have killed him then and there. What right had this man--this Thing I had picked out of his filthy paddy-fields--to make love to me?”
”He did that, did he?”
”He did. I don't remember half he said, I was so angry. Oh, but such a funny thing happened! I can't help laughing at it now, though I felt nearly ready to cry with rage. He raved and I stormed--I'm afraid we must have made an awful noise in our kala juggah. Protect my character, dear, if it's all over Simla by tomorrow--and then he bobbed forward in the middle of this insanity--I firmly believe the man's demented--and kissed me!”
”Morals above reproach,” purred Mrs. Mallowe.
”So they were--so they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don't believe he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin--here.”
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. ”Then, of course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman, and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily that I couldn't be very angry. Then I came away straight to you.”
”Was this before or after supper?”