Page:Under the Deodars - Kipling (1890).djvu/85

 in an hour of bitter need, and was even beginning to direct the affairs of the world as before.

"So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed The Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face?"

"Kisses don't as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result of The Dowd's providential arrival has been."

"They ought to build her a statue—only no sculptor dare reproduce those skirts."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Mallowe quietly. "She has found another reward. The Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla giving every one to understand that she came because of her undying love for him—for him—to save his child, and all Simla naturally believes this."

"But Mrs. Bent"

"Mrs. Bent believes it more than anyone else. She won't speak to The Dowd now. Isn't The Dancing Master an angel?"

Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. The doors of the two rooms stood open.

"Polly," said a voice from the darkness, "what did that American-heiress-globe-trotter girl say last season when she was tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made the man who picked her up explode."

Paltry, said Mrs. Mallowe. "Through her nose—like this—'Ha-ow pahltry!

"Exactly," said the voice. "Ha-ow pahltry it all is!"

"Which?"

"Everything. Babies, Diptheria, Mrs. Bent and the Dancing Master, I whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the clouds. I wonder what the motive was—all the motives."

"Um!"

"What do you think?"

"Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep."