G. And then there are one's affairs at Home to be considered--my place
and the rents, and all that. I don't suppose my father can last much
longer, and that means the title, and so on.
M. 'Fraid you won't be entered in the Stud Book correctly unless you go
Home? Take six months, then, and come out in October. If I could slay
off a brother or two, I s'pose I should be a Marquis of sorts. Any fool
can be that; but it needs _men_, Gaddy--men like you--to lead flanking
squadrons properly. Don't you delude yourself into the belief that
you're going Home to take your place and prance about among pink-nosed
Kabuli dowagers. You aren't built that way. I know better.
G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can. _You_ aren't
married.
M. No--praise be to Providence and the one or two women who have had the
good sense to _jawab_ me.
G. Then you don't know what it is to go into your own room and see your
wife's head on the pillow, and when everything else is safe and the
house shut up for the night, to wonder whether the roof-beams won't give
and kill her.
M. (_Aside_.) Revelations first and second! (_Aloud_.) So-o! I knew a
man who got squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me that he never
helped his wife on to her horse without praying that she'd break her
neck before she came back. All husbands aren't alike, you see.
G. What on earth has that to do with my case? The man must ha' been mad,
or his wife as bad as they make 'em.
M. (_Aside_.) 'No fault of yours if either weren't all you say. You've
forgotten the tune when you were insane about the Herriott woman. You
always were a good hand at forgetting. (_Aloud_.) Not more mad than men
who go to the other extreme. Be reasonable, Gaddy. Your roof-beams are
sound enough.
G. That was only a way of speaking. I've been uneasy and worried about
the Wife ever since that awful business three years ago--when--I nearly
lost her. Can you wonder?
M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the same place. You've paid your
toll to misfortune--why should your wife be picked out more than anybody
else's?
G. I can _talk_ just as reasonably as you can, but you don't
understand--you don't understand. And then there's The _Butcha._ Deuce
knows where the Ayah takes him to sit in the evening! He has a bit of a
cough. Haven't you noticed it?
M. Bosh! The Brigadier's jumping out of his skin with pure condition.
He's got a muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a two-year-old.
What's demoralised you?
G. Funk. That's the long and the short of it. Funk!