Capt. G. No. It's a reality. (Aside.) I wonder if smashes of this kind are
always so raw.
Mrs. H. Really, Pip, you're getting more absurd every day.
Capt. G. I don't think you quite understand me. Shall I repeat it?
Mrs. H. No! For pity's sake don't do that. It's too terrible, even in fur.
Capt. G. I'll let her think it over for a while. But I ought to be
horsewhipped.
Mrs. H. I want to know what you meant by what you said just now.
Capt. G. Exactly what I said. No less.
Mrs. H. But what have I done to deserve it? What have I done?
Capt. G. (Aside.) If she only wouldn't look at me. (Aloud and very slowly, his
eyes on his plate.) D'you remember that evening in July, before the Rains
broke, when you said that the end would have to come sooner or later--and you
wondered for which of US it would come first?
Mrs. H. Yes! I was only joking. And you swore that, as long as there was breath
in your body, it should never come. And I believed you.
Capt. G. (Fingering menu-card.) Well, it has. That's all.
A long pause, during which Mrs. H. bows her head and rolls the bread-twist into
little pellets; G. stares at the oleanders.
Mrs. H. (Throwing back her head and laughing naturally.) They train us women
well, don't they, Pip?
Capt.
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