XXI

They lingered not long over wine and cigars. Lady Hannah Wrynche,

entertaining what she disdainfully termed a "hen party" in her private

rooms at Nixey's, vacated in her honour by the landlord's wife--expected

them to coffee. Much to the relief of the military authorities at Cape

Town, Milady, most erratic of Society meteors, had quitted that centre of

painstaking official misinformation, for the throbbing spot of debatable

land whence events might be gathered as they sprang. Shooting across the

orbit of the reddening, low-hanging War-planet, she had descended upon

Gueldersdorp in a shower of baggage-trunks, fox-terriers, and

interrogations. For one thing, she explained to everybody, she had

undertaken to supply a London Daily with a series of articles, written

from the Seat of Hostilities, and for another, Bingo was on the Staff, and

it would be so nice for him, poor dear, to have his wife near him in case

he happened to get ... was "chipped" the proper technical term, or

"potted"? The articles were intended to be the real thing--racy of the

soil, don't you know? and full of "go" and atmosphere. Let it be said here

that they achieved raciness. The London print in which they appeared came

to be christened by the scoffer and the incredulous the _Daily Whale_--it

swallowed and disgorged so many of the Jonahs rejected by other editors.

But the profits increased, and the proprietors could afford to smile at

envy.

Just now the insatiable gold fountain-pen from whence our indefatigable

Lady Correspondent derived her literary pseudonym, was employed in

recording merest gossip, in the absence of the longed-for opportunity for

its wielder to prove herself the equal, if not the superior, of Dora Corr.

Dora was the woman Lady Hannah admired and envied above all others.

Colonial Editor to _The Thunderbolt_, War Correspondent, financial expert,

political leader-writer, and diplomatic go-between when Cabinet Ministers

and Empire-builders would arrive at understandings, the serfdom of sex,

the trammels of the petticoat, may have been said to weigh as lightly upon

this thrice-fortunate spinster as though it were no drawback to be a

daughter of Eve.

Oh! prayed Lady Hannah, for the chance of proving that another woman can

equal this brilliant feminine Phoenix! Meanwhile her bright eyes and quick

sense of humour took note of the toilettes of some of her guests, wives

and daughters of notable citizens who had not hurried South at the first

mutterings of the storm. The purple satin worn by the Mayoress tickled her

no less than the unfeigned horror of its wearer when offered from her

hostess's chatelaine cigarette-case the choicest of Sobranies. Lady

Hannah's laugh was the rattling of a mischievous boy's stick across his

sister's piano-wires, and the metallic jangle preceded her assurance that

everybody did it--all women in Society, at least, and you were thought

odd if you didn't. After dinner, in the most exclusive houses, the most

rigid of hostesses invariably allowed their women guests to smoke. They

knew people worth having wouldn't come if they weren't allowed to.

"Never beneath my roof!" gasped the shocked and scandalised wearer of the

purple splendours demanded of the wife of a Chief Magistrate. "Never at my

table!" Of course, the agitated Mayoress went on to say, one had heard of

the doings of the Smart Set. But one had hoped it wasn't true, or, at

least, had been very much exaggerated by "writing-people." The Mayoress,

though a mild woman, had her sting.

Lady Hannah, immensely tickled to find the morals of Bayswater rampant, as

she afterwards expressed it, in the centre of South Africa, cackled as she

helped herself to a second liqueur-glass of Nixey's excellent

apricot-brandy. Small, thin, restless, she presented a parched appearance,

with bright, round, beady eyes continually roving in search of information

from beneath the straggling fringe of a crumpled Pompadour transformation,

for those horrors had recently become fashionable, and the whole world of

women were vying with one another in the simulation of the criminal type

of skull, with the Dolichocephalic Bulge.

"My dear lady, tobacco-ash is an excellent thing for killing moth in

carpets, and Time,--when one is compelled to bestow it upon dull people;

and a perfectly healthy, Nonconformist conscience must be a comfortable

lodger. But as regards the sacred roof, and the defended table, it's a

question how long both British institutions remain intact, with those big

guns getting into position round us...." She waved her small hand, its

once well-tended nails superbly ignored, its sun-cracks neglected, its

load of South African diamonds coruscating magnificently in the light of

Nixey's electric bulbs, and shrugged her thin, vivacious shoulders.

The entrance of the gentlemen relieved the situation. Lady Hannah jumped

up and rushed at the Colonel. "As if she meant to eat the man," the

Mayoress said afterwards, in the shadow of that threatened roof. But,

impervious to the entreaty of the bright black eyes and the glittering

hand that gesticulated with the urgent fan, he bowed, smiled, said a few

pleasant words to his hostess, and walked "straight across"--as the

Mayoress afterwards confided to the Mayor--to take a seat beside the

large, placid, matronly figure palpitating in purple satin on an imported

Maple sofa.

Pleased and flattered, she made room for him, while Lady Hannah became the

gossip-centre of a knot of Mess uniforms....

"Both babies well?" It would have been unlike him not to have remembered

that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great

friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the

promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia--made

of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods--the most

enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark.

And the Makalaka have a legend about a big flood and a wise old man who

built a house of reeds and skins that floated.... The North American

Indians will tell you that it was a Big Medicine Canoe, and amongst the

tribes of the Nilghiri Hills you find exactly the same story that the

Chaldean scribes wrote on their tablets of clay. To-day in Eastern

Kurdistan they'll point you out the peak on which the Ark grounded. The

Armenians hold it was Ararat.... It's curious how the root-legend crops up

everywhere...."

"But of course it must." Her good, calm eyes showed surprise, and her

broad, white, matronly bosom was a little fluttered. "Doesn't the Bible

teach us that the Deluge covered the whole earth? Even Hammy and Berta can

tell you the whole story about Noah, and the raven--and the dove."

He smoothed his moustache with a palm that wiped the smile out.

"I must get them to tell it me one of these days." The twinkle in his eye

was not to be repressed. "It would save such a deal of trouble to believe

there was only one Noah, and only one Ark, don't you know?"

Her motherly bosom panted.

"_My_ children shall _never_ believe anything else!"

He was grave and sympathetic, though a muscle in his thin cheek twitched.

"I believe the toy Ark of our happy childish memories is built, if not of

gopher-wood, at least upon the lines laid down in Scripture. Has Hammy

ever tried to get his to float? Mine invariably used to sink--straight to

the bottom of the bath. Perhaps that continually-recurrent catastrophe had

something to do with the sapping of my infant faith, or the establishment

of a sinking-fund of doubt regarding the veracity of the Noachian

reporter?"

She leaned towards him, her placid grey eyes dilating with pity for this

man.

"You ought to come and sit under our minister Mr. Oddris, on Sundays. Pray

do. He would convince you if anybody could. Such an eloquent, able,

well-informed man, and so _truly pious_ and _brave_!"

The laugh perforce escaped him. The convincing Apostle Oddris had called

on him at official headquarters that day, to inquire whether, as the said

Oddris's wife and children were going to the Women's Laager, his place as

a husband and father was not by their side? Being informed that

able-bodied male beings were not included in the list of the defenceless,

he had become importunate in the matter of at least a bomb-proof shelter

to be erected in his back-yard.

"I had rather sit under Hammy and hear about Noah, with Berta on the other

knee."

Her heart went out wholly to him.... 'Out of the mouths of babes.' ...

Wasn't _that_ one of the texts with promise?...

"You love children?"

"Bless the little beggars!" he said heartily, "they're the jolliest

company in the world."

She leaned towards him, palpitating between her shyness of the Commander

of the Garrison and her womanly curiosity to know more about the man.

"Hammond--the Mayor has told me--I hope it is not indiscreet to mention

it--that the first thing you did, on joining your regiment in India as a

young subaltern, was to gather all the European children in cantonments

together and march them through the place, playing 'The Girl I Left Behind

Me' on the flute."

His brow grew black as thunder. The utterance came, terse and sharp.

"Ma'am, you have been gravely misinformed."

She jumped in terror.

"Oh!... Can it be?... Colonel, I do so beg you to forgive me! Let me

assure you that neither the Mayor nor myself will ever again repeat the

story."

"Ma'am, if you do ..."

"But I promise, never ..."

"Ma'am, if you never do, at least remember that the flute was an ocarina."

He left the good soul in an ecstasy of giggles, and crossed to Lady

Hannah. She welcomed him with a glitter of eyes and teeth and discovered

the reserve-chair that had been covered by her somewhat fatigued and

wilted draperies of maize Liberty-silk, veiled with black Maltese lace.

"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 shells 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 attitude 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 peacock 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

circumstances--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.

It's colossal! A masterpiece of cool, deadly, lethal forethought.... I

thought I was incapable of the delicious shiver of expectation that the

schoolboy enjoys, sitting in the stalls of dear Old Drury, waiting for the

curtain to rise on the first act of the Autumn Drama. But you've given it

to me--you and our friends out there!" She waved the dry little glittering

hand. "And you can talk in cold blood of marching out--and leaving the

hive--and all the honey you might have had out of it. Sweet danger,

perilous sport, the great Game of War--played as a man like you knows how

to play it in this little sandy world-arena, with all the Powers and

Dominions looking on. Preserve us! Oh, to be in your shoes this minute, if

only for one week! But as I can't, it's you I hope to see riding the

whirlwind and directing the storm. Not only for my own sake and the

wretched paper's--though, mind you, I don't pretend to be anything but a

mercenary, calculating worldly creature ..."

His eyes were very kind.

"Bingo knows better!"

Her laugh did not jangle this time.

"Lady Grasby, that vitriol-tongued water-nymph, as somebody clever once

called her, said that if Bingo got killed by any chance, I should sit down

and write a gossipy descriptive article, dealing with his military career,

married life, and last moments, before I ordered my widow's-weepers.

Horrible things! They've come in again, too! Talking of gossip, which I

know you only pretend to despise, I found the son of a mutual acquaintance

dying in the Hospital here. You know the Bishop of H ...?"

"His eldest son, Major Fraithorn, was my senior when I was Assistant

Military Secretary at Gibraltar in '90. And the Bishop is quite a dear

crony of my mother's."

"The Bishop," she said, "was always a person of excellent good

taste--except when he cut off his second son, Julius, with two hundred a

year for turning Anglican, wearing a soft hat and Roman collars, and

joining the staff at that clerical posture shop in Wendish Street West as

Junior Curate."

"St. Margaret's. I know the church. Often go there when I'm at home."

"It's the Halfway House to Rome, according to the Bishop, who won't be

content with running at every red rag of Ritualism that flutters in his

own diocese, but keeps up the character of belligerent Broad Churchman by

writing pamphlets and asking questions in the House of Lords with

reference to affairs which are the business of other people. According to

him, the red cassocks of the acolytes at St. Margaret's are cut out of the

very skirts of the Woman of Babylon, and Father Turney and his

curates--they're all Fathers there, and celibates by choice--are wolves in

wool, and Mephistophelean plotters against the liberties of the Church.

_Punch_ published a cartoon of the Bishop shutting his eyes and charging

at a windmill in a cope and chasuble. He is sending out a string of

Protestant-Church-Integrity vans all over England, Scotland, and Wales

this season, with acetylene-lantern pictures from Foxe's 'Book of

Martyrs,' and a lecturer to point the morals and adorn the tales.... But

if he could see his Mary's boy to-day, he'd put up with any amount of

felt-basin hats and Roman collars, and incense and altar-genuflections

wouldn't count for a tikkie. Oh! it's been a sore with me this many a

year, but when I saw him to-day I said, 'Thank God I never had a child!'

Because to have seen a boy or girl grow up and wither away as that

beautiful young fellow is withering, is a thing that a mother must shudder

to look back upon, even when she has found her lost one again in Heaven."

There was genuine feeling in her voice, usually loud, harsh, and tuneless.

The bright black bird-eyes had a gleam as of tears. He turned to her with

sympathetic interest.

"The Bishop will be obliged to you for finding this out. No hint of it had

reached me. I am due at the Hospital in the morning, and we'll see if

something can't be done for the boy."

She shook her head.

"It's a case of tuberculous lung-disease. He developed it in the Clergy

House at St. Margaret's, and made light of it, supposing or pretending

that the cough and wasting and difficulty of breathing meant bronchial

trouble, the result of London fogs. These young people who don't value

Life--glorious gift that it is! When he broke down utterly, at the end of

a rampant campaign against Intemperance--he wouldn't be the Bishop's son

if he didn't gall the withers of some hobby-horse or other--the doctors

agreed there was nothing for him but South Africa."

He frowned, knowing how many sufferers had died of that deadly

prescription. She went on:

"So he came out--alone--upon the advice of the well-intentioned wiseacres,

knowing nothing of the country, to live on his two hundred a year until

the end. And the end is coming--in Gueldersdorp Hospital--with giant

strides." She blinked. "They've isolated him in a small detached ward. He

has a kind friend in the Matron, and the chart-nurse is in love with him,

unless I'm mistaken in the symptoms of the complaint. And he looks like

St. Francis of Assisi, wedded to Death instead of Poverty--and coughs--fit

to tear your heart. B'rrh!" she shuddered.

He repeated: "I'll see what can be done to-morrow. These cases are

deceptive. There may be a gleam of hope."

"There is one doubt about the case which might infer a hope. I don't know

what discoveries the London doctors made, but I wormed out of the

chart-nurse, who plainly adores him, that the doctors in Gueldersdorp

can't scare up a bacillus for the life of them."

His eyes lightened involuntary admiration, though his tone was jesting.

"You're thrown away on mere journalism. Criminal Investigation or Secret

Intelligence would offer wider fields for your abilities."

"Wait!" she said, her beady eyes black diamonds. "I shall hope to prove

one day that an English woman-journalist can be as useful as a Boer spy in

the matter of useful information. Why, why am I not a man? You only don't

trust me because I am a woman."

He had touched the rankling point in her ambition. He applied balm as he

knew how.

"Your being a woman may have made all the difference--for Fraithorn. I

shall set Taggart of the R.A.M.C. at him to-morrow; the Major's a bit of a

crack at pulmonary cases. And he shall consult with Saxham, and----"

"Saxham." Her eyebrows were knitted. "I thought I knew the names of your

Medical Staff men. But I can't recall a Saxham."

"This Saxham is Civilian--and rather a big pot--M.D., F.R.C.S., and lots

more. We're lucky to have got him."

She stiffened, scenting the paragraph.

"Can it be that you mean the Dr. Saxham of the Old Bailey Case?"

"The Jury acquitted, let me remind you."

"I believe so," she said; "but--he vanished afterwards. I think an

innocent man would have stopped and faced the music, and not beaten a

retreat with the Wedding March almost sounding in his ears. But--who

knows? You have met his brother, Captain Saxham, of the --th Dragoons? It

was he who stepped into the matrimonial breach, and married the young

woman."

"The young woman?"

"His brother's fiancee--an heiress of the Dorsetshire Lee-Haileys, and

rather a pretty-faced, silly person, with a penchant for French novels and

sulphonal tabloids. I always shall believe that she liked the handsome

Dragoon best, and took advantage of the Doctor's being--under the cloud of

acquittal by a British Jury, to give him what the dear Irish call 'the

back of her hand.'"

"The better luck for him!"

"It was mere instinct to let go when the man was dragging them both under

water," she asserted.

"A Newfoundland bitch would have risen above it."

"You hit back quick and hard."

"I'm a tennis-player and a polo-player and a cricketer."

"What game is there that you don't play?"

"I could tell you of one or two.... But I must really go and speak to some

of these ladies. One of them is an old friend."

"I know whom you mean. If I didn't, her glare of envy would have

enlightened me. Did I tell you that _I_ encountered an old friend--or, at

least, a friend of old--at the Hospital yesterday?"

"You mean poor Fraithorn?"

"Not at all. I'm only a friend of his mother. I had only heard of the boy,

not met him, until I tumbled over him here. But this face--severely framed

in a starched white _guimpe_ and floating black veil--belonged to my Past

in several ways."

He showed interest.

"Your friend is a nun? At the Convent here? How did you come across her?"

"She called to see the Bishop's son--while I was with him. It seems that,

judging by the poor dear boy's religious manuals and medals, and other

High Church contraptions, the Matron had got him on the Hospital books as

a Roman Catholic. And, consequently, when my friend looked in to visit a

day-scholar who was to be operated on for adenoids--I've no idea what they

are, but a thing with a name like that would naturally have to be cut out

of one--she was told of this poor fellow, and has shed the light of her

countenance on him occasionally since. Yesterday was one of the occasions,

and Heavens! what a countenance it is even now! What a voice, what eyes,

what a manner! I believed I gushed a bit.... She met me as though we'd

only parted last week. Nuns are wonderful creatures: _she's_ unique, even

as a nun."

He said: "I believe I had the honour of meeting the lady of whom you speak

when I called at the Convent yesterday afternoon. A remarkable, noble, and

most interesting personality."

Lady Hannah nodded. "All that. But you ought to have seen her at eighteen.

We were at the High-School, Kensington, together, I a brat of ten in the

Juniors' Division, she a Head Girl, cramming for Girton. She carried

everything before her there, and emerged with a B.A. Degree Certificate in

the days when it was thought hardly proper for a woman to go about with

such a thing tacked to her skirts. And all the students idolised her, and

the male lecturers worshipped the ground she trod. And when she was

presented--what a sensation! They called her the 'Irish Rose,' and

'Deirdre,' for her skin of cream and her grey eyes and billowing clouds of

black hair. Society raved of her for three seasons, until the fools went

even madder about that little Hawting woman--a stiff starched martinet's

frisky half--who bolted with the man my glorious Biddy had given her

beautiful hand to. And the result! She--who might have married an

Ambassador and queened it in Petersburg with the best of 'em--she's in a

whitewashed Convent, superintending the education of Dutch and Afrikander

schoolgirls in Greek, Latin, French, Algebra and Mathematics,

calisthenics, needlework, the torture of the piano, and the twiddle of the

globes. He has something to answer for, that old crony of yours!"

Lady Hannah stopped for breath, giving the listener his opportunity.

"My dear lady, you have told me a great deal without enlightening me in

the least. Who is my 'crony,' and who was your friend?"

Lady Hannah opened her round beady eyes in astonishment.

"Haven't I told you? She is--or was--Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne, sister of

that high-falutin' little donkey the present Earl of Castleclare, who came

into the title and married at eighteen. His wife has means, I understand.

The old Dowager Duchess of Strome, a bosom friend of my mother's, was

Biddy's aunt, and Cardinal Voisey, handsome being! is an uncle on the

distaff side. All the Catholic world and his wife were at her taking of

the veil of profession nineteen years ago. The Pope's Nuncio, the

Cardinal-Bishop of Mozella, officiated, and the Comtesse de Lutetia was

there with the Duc d'O.... They didn't cut off her beautiful black hair,

though we outsiders were on tiptoe to see the thing done. I don't think I

ever cried so much in my life. Had hysterics--real--when I got home, and

mother scolded fearfully. The Duke of C---- came with his equerry, and

after the cloister-gates had shut--crash--on beautiful Biddy in her bridal

laces, and white satin, and ropes of pearls, and we were all waiting,

breathless, for her to come back in the habit, I heard the Duke say, not

that the dear old thing ever meant to be profane: 'By God! General, I'm

damned if Captain Mildare hasn't made Heaven an uncommonly handsome

present!' And the man he said that to was the husband of the very woman

Dicky had run away with not quite twelve months before. Mercy on us!"

"Good Heavens!" the listener had cried and started to his feet, the dark

blood rushing to his forehead. The ivory-pale, mutely-suffering face

against the background of whitewashed wall flashed back upon his memory,

in a circle of dazzling light. He saw her again, leaning against the door

of the chapel as he told her the cruel news. He heard her saying:

"Are you at liberty to tell me the date of Captain Mildare's death? For I

know--one who was also his friend--and would take an interest in the

particulars."

The particulars! And he had bludgeoned the woman with them--stabbed her to

the heart, poor soul, unknowing....

He was blameless, but he could not forgive himself.... He drove his teeth

down savagely into his lower lip, and muttered an excuse, and went away

abruptly, leaving Lady Hannah staring. He took leave soon after, and went

to his own quarters with the D.A.A.G., while her ladyship, with infinite

relief, getting rid of her feminine guests, repaired with Captain Bingham

Wrynche, familiarly known to a wide circle of friends as "Bingo," and

several chosen spirits to the billiard-room, for snooker-pool, and

whisky-and-soda.

"The grey wolf is on the prowl to-night," said one of the chosen spirits,

as he chalked Lady Hannah's cue with fastidious care. He winked across the

table at Bingo, sunset-red with dinner, champagne, and stroke-play.

"S'st!" sibilated the Captain warningly, winking in the direction of his

wife. Lady Hannah, her little thumb cocked in the air, her round, birdlike

eyes scientifically calculating angles, paused before making a rapid

stroke, to say:

"Don't be cheaply mysterious, my dear man. Of course, the Colonel visits

the defences and outposts and so forth regularly after dark. It's part of

the routine, surely?"

"Of course. But you don't suppose he goes alone, do you, old lady?"

queried Captain Bingo.

"I suppose he takes his A.D.C.?"

"Not to mention a detachment of the B.S.A. Also a squad of the Town Guard

in red neckties, solar topees and bandoliers; with the Rifles' Band, and D

Squadron of the Baraland Irregular Horse. Isn't that the routine,

Beauvayse? You're more up in these things than me, and I fancy there was a

change in the order for the evenin'."

"Rather!" assented Beauvayse, continuing, to the rapture of winking Bingo.

"On reaching the earthworks where our obsoletes are mounted, the townies

will now fire a salute of blank, without falling down; and the Band have

instructions to play 'There's Death in the Old Guns Yet.' Those were the

only material changes, except that sentries will for the future wear

fly- and fever-belts outside instead of in."

"So that he can see at a glance," Lady Hannah said approvingly, "that all

precautions are being taken. Very sensible, I call it."

"Ha, ha, haw!" Bingo's joyous explosion revealed to the outraged woman the

fact that she had been "had." "Haw, haw! What a beggar you are to rot,

Beauvayse! and that makes five to us."

Lady Hannah, vibrating with womanly indignation, had made her long-delayed

stroke, missed the pyramid ball, and sent Pink spinning into the pocket.

She threw aside her cue and rubbed her fingers angrily. She hated losing,

and they were playing for shilling lives and half-a-crown on the game.

"You--schoolboys!" She threw them a glance of disdain, as Beauvayse, his

seraphic face agrin, screwed in his supererogatory eyeglass, and lounged

over the table. "You artless babes! Did you suppose I should be likely to

swallow such a _feuille de chou_ without even oil and vinegar? For pity's

sake, leave off winking, Bingo! It's a habit that dates back to the era

when women wore ringlets and white book-muslin, and men sported shaggy

white beaver hats and pegtop trousers, and all the world read the novels

of Lever and Dickens."

"Have Lever and Boz gone out?" asked Beauvayse, pocketing his pyramid

ball. "I play at Blue." He hit Blue scientifically off the cushion and

went on. "Read 'em myself over and over again, and find 'em give points in

the way of amusement to the piffle Mudie sends out. Not that I pretend to

be a judge of literature. Only know when I'm not bored, you know. You to

play, Lord Henry."

But the senior officer of the Staff, Lady Hannah's partner, had vanished.

Somebody passing the open window of the billiard-room had whistled a bar

or so of a particularly pleasant little tune. Another man took Lord

Henry's place, and the game went on, but never finished, for one by one,

after the same quiet, unobtrusive fashion, the male players melted

away.... Left alone, Lady Hannah, feeling uncommonly like the idle boy in

the nursery-story who asked the beasts and birds and insects to play with

him, betook herself to bed.

The arrogance of men! she thought as she hung her transformation Pompadour

coiffure on the looking-glass. How cool, how unshaken in their conviction

of superiority, in spite of all deference, courtesy, pretence of

consideration for Queen Dolt.... But she would show them all one of these

days, what could be achieved by a unit of the despised majority....

"I should like to see him at night-work," she said afterwards, when, very

late, her Bingo appeared in the shadow of the conjugal mosquito-curtains.

"You wouldn't," was her martial lord's reply.

"Wouldn't what?" asked Lady Hannah, sitting up in tropical sleeping

attire.

Bingo, applying her cold cream to a sun-cracked nose, replied to her

reflection in the looking-glass:

"You wouldn't see him. Like the flea in the American story, when you've

got your finger on him is the time he isn't there."

"But he is there for you?"

Bingo shook his head, holding the candle near the glass and regarding his

leading feature with interest.

"Not if he don't choose to be. By the living Tinker! if I go on brownin'

and chippin' at this rate, I shall do for the Etruscan Antiquity Room at

the British Museum. Piff, what a smell of burning! It's the hair-thing

hangin' on the lookin'-glass."

Male Society began to practise the shedding of its final g's, you will

remember, about the time that Female Society took to wearing

transformation coiffures. Lady Hannah, her active little figure rustling

in the thinnest of silk drapery, jumped nimbly out of bed, and rushed to

save her property.

"Idiot!" she shrieked.

"Frightfully sorry! But you're lumps prettier without," said Bingo.

"Don't pile insult on injury."

"Couldn't flatter for nuts!"

"I'll forgive you if you'll tell me how _he_ manages--to attain

invisibility?"

Bingo struck an attitude and began to declaim:

"As the sable shades of Night were broodin' over the beleaguered town of

Gueldersdorp, the manly form of a mysterious bearded stranger in grey

reach-me-downs and a felt slouch might have been observed directin' its

steps from one to the other of the various outlyin' pickets posted on the

veld ..."

"Once for all, I decline to believe such theatrical rubbish! A beard,

indeed! Why not a paper nose and a Pierrot's cap?"

"Why not?" acquiesced placid Bingo, getting into bed. But the eye

concealed by the pillow winked; for he had told her the absolute truth;

and woman-like, that was just what she wouldn't swallow, as he said to

Beauvayse next morning.