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 Christopher had Valentine Wannop in that town. That was perhaps why he elected to remain there. She asked:

"Why does Christopher stay on in this God-forsaken hole The inglorious base, they call it

"Because he's jolly well got to Major Perowne said. "He's got to do what he's told

She said: "Christopher You mean to say they'd keep a man like Christopher anywhere he didn't want to be

"They'd jolly well knock spots off him if he went away," Major Perowne exclaimed "What the deuce do you think your blessed fellow is The King of England He added with a sudden sombre ferocity: "They'd shoot him like anybody else if he bolted What do you think?"

She said: "But all that wouldn't prevent his having a girl in this town?"

"Well, he hasn't got one," Perowne said. "He sticks up in that blessed old camp of his like a blessed she-chicken sitting on addled eggs That's what they say of him I don't know anything about the fellow "

Listening vindictively and indolently, she thought she caught in his droning tones a touch of the homicidal lunacy that had used to underlie his voice in the bedroom at Yssingueux. The fellow had undoubtedly about him a touch of the dull, mad murderer of the police-courts. With a sudden animation she thought:

"Suppose he tried to murder Christopher And she imagined her husband breaking the fellow's back across his knee, the idea going across her mind as fire traverses the opal. Then, with a dry throat, she said to herself: