Delicately. My dear Captain Jeyes——
Jeyes.
I didn’t find out that I was neck and heels in love with her until nearly a year afterwards, when my regiment went to the Curragh. That did it—separation! What I suffered in that hole, thinking of her, starving for her! In less than three months I was in London again, on leave, and in my old stall at the Pandora. But even then, Farncombe, I hadn’t your pluck.
Farncombe.
Pluck?
Jeyes.
The pluck to snap my fingers at the world and propose marriage to a Pandora girl. Besides, my mother was alive then, and— abruptly, with a wild look would you like to know what she used to call these Pandora women, Farncombe? Bending forward, his hands tightly clenched. She used to call them a menace to society. With their beauty, and their flagrant opportunities for displaying it, they are a living curse, she used to say—a source of constant dread to mothers whose hope it is to see their sons safely mated to modest, maidenly girls of the typical English pattern. She told us once—my brothers and me—frightened as to where we were drifting, that she was one of many mothers who prayed on their knees daily that their boys might be spared from being drawn into the net woven by their own weaknesses and passions—drawn into it by these—these——! He breaks off, stares about him for a moment, and then rises. Oh, but I oughtn’t to have repeated this to you. Pardon. Walking away unsteadily. Ho, damned bad taste! Behind the table, supporting himself by leaning upon it. Where was I? Back from the Curragh! Confused. Yes—yes—and so things went on for a couple o’ years—I trailing after Lily closer than ever—and at last—at last I did ask her to be my wife.
Lily.
Who has been listening to Jeyes with parted lips and wide-open eyes—appealingly. Don’t! Don’t, Nicko; don’t!
Jeyes.