She flashed round upon him. "You have the wrong word! Notoriety—any social divorcée or big-hatted music-hall high-kicker can have that—if only they've kicked high enough! Popularity is what I'd have if I could—and only the People can give it—as Brutus and Cromwell and Napoleon knew!"
He admitted that those old Roman johnnies who jawed in the Forum knew what they were about, but added that the Puritan chap with the wart on his nose was a thundering old humbug, ending triumphantly: "And we whacked old Bony at Waterloo! And—suppose you stop a Boer bullet and get knocked out—where do I come in?"
She jangled out her shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner, I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's settled about Sheila and the orderly?"
He nodded.
"Righto! but there'll be two troopers, not one. And you'll be under the Corporal's orders about range, and distance, and keepin' out of the hands of—the other side. You don't absolutely yearn to be killed or taken prisoner, I suppose?"
Her heart beat high at the latter-named eventuality. She saw London rushing to read of the thrilling seizure and the yet more thrilling escape of the Lady War Correspondent attached to H.I.M. forces on the Frontier:
Who got clean away, mind you, with complete information of the strategic plans of the General in command of the enemy's laagers, sewn inside her corsets or hidden in her shoes!
Bingo little dreamed of the definite plan seething under his little wife's transformation coiffure. It had matured since her meeting on the railway-journey from Cape Town with an interesting personality. A big, brown-bearded Johannesburger, with light queer eyes, who had been reticent at first, but more interesting after his confidence had been gained.
Van Busch he had named himself. Of the British South African War Intelligence Bureau. That man knew how to value women. And he had proved them at what he called the risky game.
"With nerve and josh like yours, and plenty of money for palm-oil ..." Van Busch had said, and winked, signifying that there were no lengths to which a woman of Lady Hannah Wrynche's capabilities might not go. And he had slipped into her hand a card scrawled with an address where he might be got at in case ...