"The devil I won't, you mean. Why, for what else under the sky did I come
out here but the glorious chance of War?" Her impatient foot tapped the
floor. He recognised the warning of domestic battle, glowered, and gave
in.
"Well, if you get chipped, don't blame me. There's about as much cover on
a baccarat-table as you'll find on that small-bush veld."
"All the better for seeing things, my dear!" She gave him a radiant glance
over her shoulder as she snapped her diamond necklace.
"You'll see things you won't enjoy. Mind that. Unless the whole affair
ends in sheer fizzle."
"I'll pray that it mayn't!"
"I'd pray to have you much more like the ordinary woman who funks
raw-head-and-bloody-bones if I thought it would be any good!"
"My poor old boy, it's thirty years too late. You ought to have begun
while I was crying in the cradle. And--I _was_ under the impression that
you married me because you found me different from the ruck. And
besides--think of my paper!"
"Damn the rag! I think of my wife!"
She swept him a curtsy:
"Cela va sans dire!"
"And how a woman of your birth and breedin' can dream of nothin' else but
doin' somethin' that'll make you notorious--set the smart crowd gabblin'
and gapin' and crushin' to stare--is more than I can understand!"
She flashed round upon him. "You have the wrong word! Notoriety--any
social _divorcee_ or big-hatted music-hall high-kicker can have _that_--if
only they've kicked high enough! Popularity is what I'd have if I
could--and only the People can give it--as Brutus and Cromwell and
Napoleon knew!"
He admitted that those old Roman johnnies who jawed in the Forum knew what
they were about, but added that the Puritan chap with the wart on his nose
was a thundering old humbug, ending triumphantly: "And we whacked old
Bony at Waterloo! And--suppose you stop a Boer bullet and get knocked
out--where do I come in?"
She jangled out her shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner,
I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out
for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all
the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's
settled about Sheila and the orderly?"
He nodded.
"Righto! but there'll be two troopers, not one. And you'll be under the
Corporal's orders about range, and distance, and keepin' out of the hands
of--the other side. You don't absolutely yearn to be killed or taken
prisoner, I suppose?"
Her heart beat high at the latter-named eventuality. She saw London
rushing to read of the thrilling seizure and the yet more thrilling escape
of the Lady War Correspondent attached to H.I.M. forces on the Frontier:
Who got clean away, mind you, with complete information of the strategic
plans of the General in command of the enemy's laagers, sewn inside her
corsets or hidden in her shoes!
Bingo little dreamed of the definite plan seething under his little wife's
transformation coiffure. It had matured since her meeting on the
railway-journey from Cape Town with an interesting personality. A big,
brown-bearded Johannesburger, with light queer eyes, who had been reticent
at first, but more interesting after his confidence had been gained.
Van Busch he had named himself. Of the British South African War
Intelligence Bureau. That man knew how to value women. And he had proved
them at what he called the risky game.
"With nerve and josh like yours, and plenty of money for palm-oil ..." Van
Busch had said, and winked, signifying that there were no lengths to which
a woman of Lady Hannah Wrynche's capabilities might not go. And he had
slipped into her hand a card scrawled with an address where he might be
got at _in case_ ...
The pencilled oblong of soiled pasteboard was yet in a secret compartment
of her handbag. By letter addressed care of W. Bough, Transport Agent and
Stock-dealer, Van Busch was to be communicated with at a farmstead some
thirty miles north.
The spice of adventure her palate craved could be had by corresponding
with Van Busch through the man Bough. After that---- Well! She had her
plan ...
She tied her husband's white tie, took him by the ears, kissed him warmly
on each side of his large pink face, glowing with blushes evoked by her
unwonted display of affection, and led him away to dinner, her mental
vision seeing prophetic broadsheets papering the kerbs of Piccadilly, the
ears of her imagination making celestial melody of those raucous yells:
"Speshul Edition! Hextry Speshul Edition! 'Ere y'are, sir; on'y a
'a'penny. SPESHUL!"