"You told me not to maunder just now," says Bingo, with ponderous sarcasm. "Who is the maunderer, I'd like to know? By the Living Tinker, I should have thought that this siege life would have put iron into a man's blood instead of—of Crème de Menthe. Are you takin' those dashed morphia tabloids of Taggart's for bad-water collywobbles again? Yes? I thought as much. Chuck 'em to the aasvogels; stick to your work—you can't complain of its lackin' interest or variety—and let this girl alone. She's a lady, and the adopted daughter of an old friend of my wife's, and don't you forget it!" Bingo's gills are red, and he puffs and blows as large, excited, fleshy men are wont to. "If you do you'll answer to me!"
"I tell you," Beauvayse cries, white-hot with passion, and raising his voice incautiously, "that I mean to marry her. I tell you again that I will div——"
"Do you want the man in the street and every soul in the hotel to know your private affairs?" demands Bingo. "If so, go on shoutin'. As to your bein' a widower, the chances are on the other side.... Gueldersdorp ain't exactly what you would call a healthy place just now. And as to divorcin' your wife, how do you know she'll ever be accommodatin' enough to give you reason? And if she did, do you think a girl brought up in a Catholic Convent would marry you, even if you called to ask her with a copy of the decree absolute pasted on your chest? Hang it, man, your mother's son you ought to know better! And—oh come, I say!"
For Beauvayse sits down astride an iron chair, and lays his shirt-sleeved arms on the back-rail, and his golden, crisply-waved head upon them.
"I—I love her so, Wrynche. And to stand by and see another man cut in and win what I've lost by my own rotten folly hurts so—so damnably." His mouth is twisted with pain.
"Is there another chap who wants to cut in?" Bingo demands.
"You know one gets a bit clairvoyant when one is mad about a woman," says Beauvayse, lifting his shamed wet eyes and haggard young face from the pillow of his folded arms. "Well, I'm dead certain that there is another man who—who is as badly hit as me."
"Who is the other man?"
"Saxham!"
"The Doctor! Shouldn't have supposed a fellow of that type would be susceptible now," says Bingo. "Gives an uncompromisin' kind of impression, with his chin like the bows of an Armoured Destroyer, and his eyebrows like another chap's moustaches."