I'd have changed the Station and lost the rent to
have saved this. He said, in so many words, that he wasn't going to try to
work up any more, because--because he would be shifted into a province away
from Darjiling, and his own District, where these creatures are, is within a
day's journey"--
"Ah-hh!" said Mrs. Mallowe, in a tone of one who has successfully tracked an
obscure word through a large dictionary.
"Did you ever hear of anything so mad--so absurd? And he had the ball at his
feet. He had only to kick it! I would have made him anything! Anything in the
wide world. He could have gone to the world's end. I would have helped him. I
made him, didn't I, Polly? Didn't I create that man? Doesn't he owe everything
to me? And to reward me, just when everything was nicely arranged, by this
lunacy that spoiled everything!"
"Very few men understand your devotion thoroughly."
"Oh, Polly, don't laugh at me! I give men up from this hour. I could have
killed him then and there. What right had this man--this Thing I had picked
out of his filthy paddy-fields--to make love to me?"
"He did that, did he?"
"He did. I don't remember half he said, I was so angry. Oh, but such a funny
thing happened! I can't help laughing at it now, though I felt nearly ready to
cry with rage.
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