Page:The Story of the Gadsbys - Kipling (1888).djvu/38

 (aside).—At last! I wish to goodness she'd look away. "For having behaved"—as I have behaved, and declare that I am thoroughly and heartily sick of the whole business, and take this opportunity of making clear my intention of ending it, now, henceforward, and forever. (Aside.) If any one had told me I should be such a blackguard!

(shaking a spoonful of potato chips into her plate.)—That's not a pretty joke.

—No. It's a reality. (Aside.) I wonder if smashes of this kind are always so raw.

—Really, Pip, you're getting more absurd every day.

—I don't think you quite understand me. Shall I repeat it?

—No! For pity's sake don't do that. It's too terrible, even in fun.

(aside).—I'll let her think it over for a while. But I ought to be horse-whipped.

—I want to know what you meant by what you said just now.

—Exactly what I said. No less.

—But what have I done to deserve it? What have I done?

(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?

—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.

(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.

(throwing back her head and laughing naturally).—They train us women well, don't they, Pip?