“Why not? I wouldn’t tell a soul, and Micky is only a bird of passage so it can’t possibly matter what he hears. Don’t be tiresome, Bill, expound.”
But the doctor shook his head. “My dear Mollie,” he expostulated, fingering the old pipe tenderly, “a confidence is a confidence and I can’t break it simply to satisfy your curiosity, natural though it may be. And hasn’t the poor devil been discussed enough? How he lives and what he chooses to do in the desert is, after all, entirely his own affair—nobody else’s business.”
“But, Bill, one hears such queer stories—”
“Queer stories be hanged, m’dear. A silly lot of idiotic gossip, this place is rotten with it. Some fool of a busybody starts a rumour without a tithe of foundation to it and it’s all over the town as gospel truth the next day. Carew’s mode of life, his antipathy to women, and his obvious sympathy with the Arabs make him a bit peculiar. Just because the poor chap has the bad taste to ignore your charming sex all the women have got their knives into him. I bet the queer stories you speak of emanate from your blessed feminine tea parties. Trust a woman to invent a mystery—”
“But, Bill, he is mysterious.”
“Rubbish, Mollie. He prefers to make his friends amongst the French and he hates women—that’s the sum total of his crimes as far as I’m aware. Peculiar, if you like, but certainly not mysterious. And as to the last indictment—” the doctor laughed and winked unblushingly at Major Meredith, “—personally I call him a sensible chap to mix only with his own broader minded and more enlightened sex—ouch!” he grunted, as his wife’s helmet landed with a thud on his chest.
“Bill, you’re horrid. Men gossip just as much as women.”
Doctor Chalmers returned her helmet with an ironical bow. “They may do, my dear,” he said with sudden gravity, “but in Algiers it is not the men who gossip about Carew. And for the short time we remain in this hot-bed of intrigue you will oblige me by contradicting, on my authority, any silly stories you may hear about him. He’s a friend of mine. I value his friendship, and I won’t have him adversely discussed in my house.”
Mrs. Chalmers bowed her head to the unexpected storm she had raised. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said contritely, “I didn’t know he was really a friend. In all the years we’ve lived here you’ve hardly ever mentioned him. I do think men are the queerest things,” she added in a puzzled voice that made her companions laugh. Her husband rolled over and began to fill his pipe. “There are still a few little secrets I keep from the wife of my bosom,” he murmured teasingly, “but, seriously, Mollie, hands off Carew.”
“Very well, dear,” she replied with surprising meekness. And for some time she sat silent with knitted brows, poking the sand absently with the handle of her whip. Then she spoke abruptly—“But there’s no smoke without fire, Bill. There must be some foundation for the stories that are told about him. He was divorced or something unpleasant of the kind, wasn’t he?”