Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like a newly-powdered baby, they really ought to tan subalterns before they are exported, Polly, sent back by the hostess to do his duty. Slouches up to me across the room, tugging at a glove two sizes too large for him I hate a man who wears gloves like overcoats and trying to look as if he'd thought of it from the first. ''May I ah-have the pleasure 'f takin' you 'nt' supper?" Then I get up with a hungry smile. Just like this.'
'Lucy, how can you be so absurd?'
'And sweep out on his arm. So! After supper I shall go away early, you know, because I shall be afraid of catching cold. No one will look for my 'rickshaw. Mine, so please you! I shall stand, always with that mauve and white ''cloud" over my head, while the wet soaks into my dear, old, venerable feet, and Tom swears and shouts for the mem-sahib's gharri. Then home to bed at half-past eleven! Truly excellent life helped out by the visits of the Padri, just fresh from burying somebody down below there.' She pointed through the pines toward the Cemetery, and continued with vigorous dramatic gesture 'Listen! I see it all down, down even to the stays! Such stays!
Six-eight a pair, Polly, with red flannel or list, is it? that they put into the tops of those fearful things. I can draw you a picture of them.'
'Lucy, for Heaven's sake, don't go waving your arms about in that idiotic manner! Recollect every one can see you from the Mall.'
'Let them see! They'll think I am rehearsing for The Fallen Angel.
Look! There's The Mussuck. How badly he rides. There!'
She blew a kiss to the venerable Indian administrator with infinite grace.
'Now,' she continued, 'he'll be chaffed about that at the Club in the delicate manner those brutes of men affect, and the Hawley Boy will tell me all about it softening the details for fear of shocking me. That boy is too good to live, Polly. I've serious thoughts of recommending him to throw up his commission and go into the Church. In his present frame of mind he would obey me. Happy, happy child!'
'Never again,' said Mrs. Mallowe, with an affectation of indignation, 'shall you tiffin here! ''Lucindy your behaviour is scand'lus." '
'All your fault,' retorted Mrs. Hauksbee, 'for suggesting such a thing as my abdication. No! jamais! nevaire! I will act, dance, ride, frivol, talk scandal, dine out, and appropriate the legitimate captives of any woman I choose, until I d-r-r-rop, or a better woman than I puts me to shame before all Simla, and it's dust and ashes in my mouth while I'm doing it!'
She swept into the drawing-room. Mrs. Mallowe followed and put an arm round her waist.
'I'm not!' said Mrs. Hauksbee defiantly, rummaging for her handkerchief. 'I've been dining out the last ten nights, and rehearsing in the afternoon. You'd be tired yourself. It's only because I'm tired.'
Mrs. Mallowe did not offer Mrs. Hauksbee any pity or ask her to lie down, but gave her another cup of tea, and went on with the talk.
'I've been through that too, dear,' she said.
'I remember,' said Mrs. Hauksbee, a gleam of fun on her face. 'In '84, wasn't it? You went out a great deal less next season.'
Mrs. Mallowe smiled in a superior and Sphinx-like fashion.
'I became an Influence,' said she.
'Good gracious, child, you didn't join the Theosophists and kiss Buddha's big toe, did you? I tried to get into their set once, but they cast me out for a sceptic without a chance of improving my poor little mind, too.'
'No, I didn't Theosophilander. Jack says '
'Never mind Jack. What a husband says is known before. What did you do?'
'I made a lasting impression.'
'So have I for four months. But that didn't console me in the least. I hated the man. Will you stop smiling in that inscrutable way and tell me what you mean?'
Mrs. Mallowe told.
'And you mean to say that it is absolutely Platonic on both sides?'
'Absolutely, or I should never have taken it up.'
'And his last promotion was due to you?'
Mrs. Mallowe nodded.
'And you warned him against the Topsham Girl?'
Another nod.
'And told him of Sir Dugald Delane's private memo about him?'
A third nod.
'Why?'
'What a question to ask a woman! Because it amused me at first. I am proud of my property now. If I live, he shall continue to be successful. Yes, I will put him upon the straight road to Knighthood, and everything else that a man values. The rest depends upon himself.'
'Polly, you are a most extraordinary woman.'
'Not in the least. I'm concentrated, that's all. You diffuse yourself, dear; and though all Simla knows your skill in managing a team '
'Can't you choose a prettier word?'
'Team, of half-a-dozen, from The Mussuck to the Hawley Boy, you gain nothing by it. Not even amusement.'
'And you?'
'Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, mind, but an almost mature, unattached man, and be his guide, philosopher, and friend. You'll find it the most interesting occupation that you ever embarked on.
It can be done you needn't look like that because I've done it.'
'There's an element of risk about it that makes the notion attractive.
I'll get such a man and say to him, ''Now, understand that there must be no flirtation. Do exactly what I tell you, profit by my instruction and counsels, and all will yet be well." Is that the idea?'
'More or less,' said Mrs. Mallowe, with an unfathomable smile.
'But be sure he understands.'
II
Dribble-dribble trickle-trickle What a lot of raw dust!
My dollie's had an accident And out came all the sawdust!
Nursery Rhyme.
So Mrs. Hauksbee, in 'The Foundry' which overlooks Simla Mall, sat at the feet of Mrs. Mallowe and gathered wisdom. The end of the Conference was the Great Idea upon which Mrs. Hauksbee so plumed herself.
'I warn you,' said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning to repent of her suggestion, 'that the matter is not half so easy as it looks. Any woman even the Topsham Girl can catch a man, but very, very few know how to manage him when caught.'
'My child,' was the answer, 'I've been a female St. Simon Stylites looking down upon men for these these years past. Ask The Mussuck whether I can manage them.'
