Page:Under the Deodars - Kipling (1890).djvu/62

 —They'll be more scandalised before the end.

—Do-ont! I don't like you to talk in that way.

—Unreasonable man! Who asked me to face the situation and accept it?Tell me, do I look like Mrs. Penner? Do I look like a naughty woman? Swear I don't? Give me your word of honour, my honourable friend, that I'm not like Mrs. Buzgago. That's the way she stands, with her hands clasped at the back of her head. D'you like that?

—Don't be affected.

—I'm not. I'm Mrs. Buzgago. Listen! Pendant une anne, toute entiére Le regiment n'a pas r'paru An Ministère de la Guerre; On le r'porta comme perdu. On se r'noncait à r'trouver sa trace, Quand un matin subitement, On le vit r'parâitre sur la place, Le Colonel toujours en avant."

That's the way she rolls her r's. Am I like her?

—No, but I object when you go on like an actress and sing stuff of that kind. Where in the world did you pick up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn't a drawing-room song. It isn't proper.

—Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is both drawing-room and proper, and in another month she'll shut her drawing-room to me, and thank God she isn't as improper as I am. Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish I was like some women and had no scruples about—what is it?—"wearing a corpse's hair and being false to the bread they eat".

—I am only a man of limited intelligence and, just now, very bewildered. When you have quite finished flashing through all your moods tell me, and I'll try to understand the last one.

—Moods, Guy! I haven't any. I'm sixteen years