Basil bit his lip, but did not reply. Afterwards, when he came to look back on that dinner, it seemed to him one of the most miserable experiences of his life. It was bad enough to sit down with a couple who, as the husband made only too clear, had nothing in common; but when that husband was also guilty of drinking far too much, showing he had drunk too much, the position became unbearable. Still, there was one redeeming feature—the way in which Mrs Bush tried to make the best of the situation. She talked rapidly, nervously, all the time, trying to avoid any topic which might possibly lead to discussion; but Bush’s temporary burst of good-nature quickly changed to aggressiveness, then to actual surliness, and some of the things he said made Basil go white with rage. The Scout officer’s friends had lost no opportunity of telling him that his wife’s Southern pride was the cause of his domestic unhappiness, and when he found that the guest was also from the South, he felt he had discovered a legitimate source of grievance. Had they been alone, there would have been a fight; but Basil glanced at Mrs Bush, sitting white-faced and rigid, and remembered the duty he owed to his hostess.
At last the meal was over. Mrs Bush rose, and as Hayle opened the door for her, “I think we had better go up on the balcony, Captain Hayle. It will be pleasanter there,” she said.
Her husband got up too, then staggered, and went down on to his knees. Basil turned to help him, but stopped when Mrs Bush laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“I will see to him, Captain Hayle,” she said; “I was afraid he was not very well to-night. Perhaps you had better go;” but she saw him out, saying good-bye to him at the door, before she returned to the invalid, who had got back into his chair and greeted her with a curse.
Don Juan Ramirez, who was very like what old Don José had been thirty years previously, shook his head when Basil mentioned that he had dined with the Bushes.
“Was he—was he as usual?” he asked.
Basil’s pent-up wrath broke out. “If being as usual means being a foul-mouthed, drunken hog, with a wife a million times too good for him, then he was!”
The Spaniard nodded. “He seldom dines at home. Perhaps she thought that, with a guest there, he would—he would be moderate. Poor lady! He drinks all day with the Presidente, a mestizo insurrecto, and with the Supervisor and the school teacher who came from his own State. Then there is worse. There is a mestiza girl—under his wife’s eyes.”
Basil Hayle walked up and down the room, raging, whilst the old Spaniard watched him sympathetically, understanding, being a worthy nephew of Don José of Calocan. Then, adroitly, he turned the conversation on to the subject of that morning’s fight.
“You were rash,” he said, when Basil had finished. “But you were lucky to escape yourself. Why, Felizardo must have three hundred bolomen—five hundred perhaps, as well as many rifles. My uncle knew him well before he took to the hills. Old Don José did not love the Filipinos—who could?—but he used to say always that Felizardo was a gentleman, even though he had killed a priest. Your Government will never catch Felizardo, Senor, never. They will waste lives and money, and they will find that, in the end, Felizardo will be stronger than ever. Why, to-morrow, when the news of your ill-fortune is known, there will be hundreds of fresh recruits clamouring to join his band.”