The general shouted:
"I'd be glad to see them. . . . I'm sick to death of these. . . ."
Tietjens took up something he had been saying to Cowley: what it was Sylvia did not hear, but Cowley answered, still droning on with an idea Sylvia thought they had got past:
"I remember when I was sergeant in Quetta, I detailed a man—called Herring—for watering the company horses, after he begged off it because he had a fear of horses. . . . A horse got him down in the river and drowned 'im. . . . Fell with him and put its foot on his face. . . . A fair sight he was. . . . It wasn't any good my saying anything about military exigencies. . . . Fair put me off my feed, it did. . . . Cost me a fortune in Epsom salts. . . ."
Sylvia was about to scream out that if Tietjens did not like men being killed it ought to sober him in his war-lust, but Cowley continued meditatively:
"Epsom salts they say is the cure for it. . . . For seeing your dead. . . . And of course you should keep off women for a fortnight. . . . I know I did. Kept seeing Herring's face with the hoof-mark. And . . . there was a piece: a decent bit of goods in what we called the Government Compound. . . ."
He suddenly exclaimed:
"Saving your . . . Ma'am, I'm . . ." He stuck the stump of the cigar into his teeth and began assuring Tietjens that he could be trusted with the draft next morning, if only Tietjens would put him into the taxi.
He went away, leaning on Tietjens' arm, his legs at an angle of sixty degrees with the carpet. . . .
"He can't . . ." Sylvia said to herself, "he can't, not . . . If he's a gentleman. . . . After all that old fellow's hints. . . . He'd be a damn coward if he kept off. . . . For a fortnight. . . . And who else is there not a public . . ." She said: "O God! . . ."