"Looking back now," he said, "it is plain to me that this was the point at which I ought to have made a stand. I should have taken Vivi firmly, and said to her: 'My dearest child,'—Uncle Joseph's voice dropped to a gentle, caressing murmur, but he recovered himself with a jerk,—'understand this. A man's work is his life. It is his father and his mother, and his meat and his drink, and the air he breathes; and the woman who marries him must be prepared to stand by his side and see him through it, and not to hang round his neck and get between him and what he has to do. She must sympathise with him when things go wrong, and share his satisfaction when they come right again. If she grows jealous of his work and tries to detach him from it, there will be a disaster. Therefore you must take me and my work together or forswear us both, for they cannot be divided.' That is what I should have said, Philip, for I knew it was true, even as she kissed me. But I didn't. I thought I should be able to educate her up to appreciation of my beloved regiment, and that her prejudice and selfishness would weaken in time.
"But I was wrong. It was I who weakened. I began by turning out less frequently at parade. I began to cut mess. I began to lose touch with the rank and file. Formerly it had been my pride to know the name of every man in my regiment, and something about him. Soon I found myself saluted by men on the parade-ground whose faces I did not recognise. Then I began to listen to Vivien's criticisms of my officers. She sneered at my subalterns, because some of them were hard up and could not keep polo ponies. She called them 'a fusty lot,'—half of them had seen active service before they were twenty-one,—and compared them unfavourably with the Viceroy's Staff. She appeared to regard my affection for them as a sort of slight to herself. She looked down on my splendid little Gurkhas, and said it was a pity I could not get command of a white regiment. And I, instead of telling her straight that she must never speak in that way of my men again, began by making a few lame excuses for them and ended by acquiescing in her opinions. I found myself patronising my own officers—some of the finest soldiers in the Service—and drifting into an attitude of superciliousness towards soldiering in general. And all this, Philip, arose from that ennobling passion, Love!
"Then, when the hot weather came, she went away to Simla. I was to follow her in a month. During that month I came to myself again. I realised, once and for all, that a man's duty comes first in this world, and straightway I saw life clearly and as a whole once more. The cloud that had settled over the regiment lifted again, and by the time I went on leave we were as happy a band as ever.
"I travelled up to the hills full of tremendous emotions, Philip. In the first place, I had not seen Vivien for over a month, and I was mad with the desire of setting eyes on her again. In the second place, I was determined to make it plain that she must not attempt to come between me and the regiment again. It was a delicate problem to tackle, I knew; but I still hugged the delusion that she was only a child and could be educated up to a wife's duties. But I saw a big fight ahead of me—a big fight!"
Uncle Joseph's voice dropped, and the light of battle died out of his eyes.
"What was the end of the fight?" asked Philip, apprehensively. He saw tragedy on the horizon.
Uncle Joseph laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
"I need not have worried," he said. "There was no fight. When I got to Simla I discovered that she had been engaged to another man for nearly a fortnight."
Philip shrank back into his chair, stunned.
"She had not even written to tell me," continued Uncle Joseph. "She had allowed me to travel half across India to see her, and then—!... People told me he wasn't a bad fellow. A bit of a boor, but a good sort on the whole. He was heir to a title of some kind, I think. I never saw him—or her, after the one interview.... They were married about a month later.