“Oh—ah! and who is that lady in the straw hat on the grey cob?”
“Mrs. MacDonald, I think.”
“And the gentleman?”
“Her husband.”
“Really! you are quite sure it is her husband, Mrs. Browne. I understood that in India ladies seldom rode with their husbands.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Batcham,” Helen returned innocently, “horses are apt to be so skittish in India that it isn’t really safe to go out without a man, and of course one would rather have one’s husband than anybody else.”
“Not at all, I assure you, Mrs. Browne. I understand that quite the opposite opinion prevails among the ladies of Calcutta, and I can depend upon the source of my information. Now these two people in the dog cart—they are actually flirting with each other in broad daylight! It is impossible,” said Mr. Batcham, with an accent of grave deprecation, “that they can be married.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs,” said Helen shortly, “they were married about the same time as we were. Why shouldn’t they flirt with each other if they want to?”
“Certainly not,” said young Browne, who was driving. “It leads to incorrect ideas of their relations, you see. Fact is, I caught Tubbs kissing his wife in a dark corner of the Maidan by the Cathedral myself the other evening, and it was such a very dark corner that if I hadn’t happened to be lighting a cheroot at the time, I wouldn’t have believed that Tubbs was Tubbs any more than Mr. Batcham does. Tubbs can’t afford a popular misapprehension that he isn’t Mrs. Tubbs’s husband. I’ll tell Tubbs.”
“I think,” said Helen rebukingly, “that you might have taken some other place to light your cigar in, George.”