“Why shouldn’t we set ourselves to break it down? After all, she must be a beast. And she should have kept him while she had him. It’s our innings. Deb, I bet you a gallon of oil for Cora that one or the other of us gets a kiss from him to-night. I’m mad to-night—mad—game for anything!... There! I forgot that blooming party next door. Mad’m’s got a pal in to play her accompaniments; she won’t let us off; not just for a Chorus meeting.”
A conspirator’s rap at the door; the soldier thrust his head stealthily round the corner; ascertained with relief that both members of the Chorus were present; and entered, pulling from his pocket a smoked haddock by its tail.
“I’ve brought a present for Cora; two presents,” from the other pocket he extracted a tin of asparagus. “Shall we revel up here to-night, as a thanksgiving? I don’t know for what; but I’m in the mood.” His brick-coloured face was impassive; his voice slow and toneless; his entire personality redolent of beef decently roasted and eaten at the proper time at a proper table. Anyone more obviously opposed to riotous revels, or to moods of any kind, it would be hard to imagine.
“H’m ... I believe we shall have to divide the haddock before we cook it,” Jenny speculated with a dubious eye on Cora’s limitations, while Deb ruefully explained their evening’s engagement.
“Damn,” said the soldier gently. “Am I invited? I won’t go. I have to sit at attention when I hear music, or else I don’t look as if I were listening. And that’s so tiring. Look here, I can’t endure an evening without you two; honestly I can’t. Why not pretend to be ill, one of you?” Hastily he amended: “Both of you.”
“I can; I’ve been feeling frightfully rotten on and off lately, since the ’flue. My heart’s gone funny from too many operations, or too many aspirin, or something. We could go in next door for about ten minutes, and then I’ll pretend I’m taken suddenly bad, and slip out in a I-hope-nobody-will-notice-or-make-a-fuss manner; and Deb will naturally follow me out, looking—what’s the word, you high-brows? sol—? sol—? something to do with lawyers.”
“Looking solicitous. Right then; I’ll skulk about on the landing till I hear you. Say I’m out for the evening. That’s settled. We can always throw Jenny on the bed, and me under it, if anybody knocks to enquire. You’d better put the haddock in your wash-basin for the present, Deb.”
“And please, where am I to wash?”
Ames thought it over. He bestowed on every question, great or small, exactly the same amount of stolid phlegm. “In Jenny’s room.”
“Not available. Dolph and Manong are spooning in there.”