“Yes, but your wife!”
“My wife?” George’s face broke with a ray of a smile. “She shall be all right. She is no more than a bird to keep; and we shall live very near the housetops, where she will be at home.”
In fact, the idea of having her all to himself again sprang up a bright little fountain in desolation, unlooked for in his breast. The Colonel pulled his moustache. Nouna, he thought, was the sort of bird to make a very uncomfortable flapping against the bars of any but the most expensive of cages.
“When can I know whether they will give me the berth?” George asked.
“I almost think, from the manner in which they spoke, that what I should say about you would settle it. They are particular as to the stamp of man. You could hear in a week.”
“How soon can I get away, Colonel?”
“As soon as you like; I’ll see that it’s all right.”
“Thanks. I want to wind up all my affairs here quietly, and slip away at any moment when I have arranged for the payment of the debts we have incurred.”
“You can make me security for those. And, by the by, I can give you some good introductions in Paris.”
“Many thanks, Colonel, but it would only be prolonging the social death-struggle. One can only die game to society on—on the income we shall have.”