"Well, he won't worry you then. Let it alone, my dear fellow. It's all right."
Clearly Mr. Ruston meant to go to Dieppe. That was now to Harry Dennison bad news; but he meant to go to Omofaga also, and to go soon; that was good. Harry, however, had still something that he wished to convey—a bit of diplomacy to carry out.
"I hope you'll find Maggie better," he began. "She was rather knocked up when she went."
"A few days will have put her all right," responded Ruston cheerfully.
He was never ill and treated fatigue with a cheery incredulousness. But, at least, he spoke with an utter absence of undue anxiety on the score of another man's wife.
Harry Dennison, primed by Mrs. Cormack's suggestions, went on,
"I wish you'd talk to her as little as you can about Omofaga. She's very interested in it, you know, and—and very excitable—and all that. We want her mind to get a complete rest."
"Hum. I expect, then, I mustn't talk to her at all."
The manifest impossibility of making such a request did not prevent Harry yearning after it.
"I don't ask that," he said, smiling weakly.