"How in the world did you find it all out?" said Dick, at last.
"You shouldn't go off your head if you want to keep secrets, Dickie. It was absolutely impertinent on my part; but if you'd seen me rocketing about on a half-trained French troop-horse under a blazing sun you'd have laughed. There will be a charivari in my rooms tonight. Seven other devils——"
"I know—the row in the Southern Soudan. I surprised their councils the other day, and it made me unhappy. Have you fixed your flint to go? Who d'you work for?"
"Haven't signed any contracts yet. I wanted to see how your business would turn out."
"Would you have stayed with me, then, if—things had gone wrong?" He put his question cautiously.
"Don't ask me too much. I'm only a man."
"You've tried to be an angel very successfully."
"Oh ye—es!... Well, do you attend the function tonight? We shall be half screwed before the morning. All the men believe the war's a certainty."
"I don't think I will, old man, if it's all the same to you. I'll stay quiet here."
"And meditate? I don't blame you. You observe a good time if ever a man did."
That night there was a tumult on the stairs. The correspondents poured in from theatre, dinner, and music-hall to Torpenhow's room that they might discuss their plan of campaign in the event of military operations becoming a certainty. Torpenhow, the Keneu, and the Nilghai had bidden all the men they had worked with to the orgy; and Mr. Beeton, the housekeeper, declared that never before in his checkered experience had he seen quite such a fancy lot of gentlemen. They waked the chambers with shoutings and song; and the elder men were quite as bad as the younger. For the chances of war were in front of them, and all knew what those meant.
Sitting in his own room a little perplexed by the noise across the landing, Dick suddenly began to laugh to himself.
"When one comes to think of it the situation is intensely comic. Maisie's quite right—poor little thing. I didn't know she could cry like that before; but now I know what Torp thinks, I'm sure he'd be quite fool enough to stay at home and try to console me—if he knew. Besides, it isn't nice to own that you've been thrown over like a broken chair. I must carry this business through alone—as usual. If there isn't a war, and Torp finds out, I shall look foolish, that's all. If there is a way I mustn't interfere with another man's chances. Business is business, and I want to be alone—I want to be alone. What a row they're making!"
Somebody hammered at the studio door.
"Come out and frolic, Dickie," said the Nilghai.
"I should like to, but I can't. I'm not feeling frolicsome."
"Then, I'll tell the boys and they'll drag you like a badger."
"Please not, old man. On my word, I'd sooner be left alone just now."
"Very good. Can we send anything in to you? Fizz, for instance. Cassavetti is beginning to sing songs of the Sunny South already."
For one minute Dick considered the proposition seriously.
"No, thanks, I've a headache already."
"Virtuous child. That's the effect of emotion on the young. All my congratulations, Dick. I also was concerned in the conspiracy for your welfare."
"Go to the devil—oh, send Binkie in here."
The little dog entered on elastic feet, riotous from having been made much of all the evening. He had helped to sing the choruses; but scarcely inside the studio he realised that this was no place for tail-wagging, and settled himself on Dick's lap till it was bedtime. Then he went to bed with Dick, who counted every hour as it struck, and rose in the morning with a painfully clear head to receive Torpenhow's more formal congratulations and a particular account of the last night's revels.
"You aren't looking very happy for a newly accepted man," said Torpenhow.
"Never mind that—it's my own affair, and I'm all right. Do you really go?"
"Yes. With the old Central Southern as usual. They wired, and I accepted on better terms than before."
"When do you start?"
"The day after tomorrow—for Brindisi."
"Thank God." Dick spoke from the bottom of his heart.
"Well, that's not a pretty way of saying you're glad to get rid of me. But men in your condition are allowed to be selfish."
"I didn't mean that. Will you get a hundred pounds cashed for me before you leave?"
"That's a slender amount for housekeeping, isn't it?"
"Oh, it's only for—marriage expenses."
Torpenhow brought him the money, counted it out in fives and tens, and carefully put it away in the writing table.
"Now I suppose I shall have to listen to his ravings about his girl until I go. Heaven send us patience with a man in love!" he said to himself.
But never a word did Dick say of Maisie or marriage. He hung in the doorway of Torpenhow's room when the latter was packing and asked innumerable questions about the coming campaign, till Torpenhow began to feel annoyed.
"You're a secretive animal, Dickie, and you consume your own smoke, don't you?" he said on the last evening.
"I—I suppose so. By the way, how long do you think this war will last?"
"Days, weeks, or months. One can never tell. It may go on for years."
"I wish I were going."
"Good Heavens! You're the most unaccountable creature! Hasn't it occurred to you that you're going to be married—thanks to me?"
"Of course, yes. I'm going to be married—so I am. Going to be married. I'm awfully grateful to you. Haven't I told you that?"
"You might be going to be hanged by the look of you," said Torpenhow.
And the next day Torpenhow bade him good-bye and left him to the loneliness he had so much desired.
Chapter XIV
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He of the Faith spoke as master to slave;
Yet at the last, tho' the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,—
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah and died a believer.
—Kizzilbashi.
"Beg your pardon, Mr. Heldar, but—but isn't nothin' going to happen?" said Mr. Beeton.
"No!" Dick had just waked to another morning of blank despair and his temper was of the shortest.
"'Tain't my regular business, 'o course, sir; and what I say is, 'Mind your own business and let other people mind theirs;' but just before Mr. Torpenhow went away he give me to understand, like, that you might be moving into a house of your own, so to speak—a sort of house with rooms upstairs and downstairs where you'd be better attended to, though I try to act just by all our tenants. Don't I?"
"Ah! That must have been a mad-house. I shan't trouble you to take me there yet. Get me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone."
"I hope I haven't done anything wrong, sir, but you know I hope that as far as a man can I tries to do the proper thing by