“I will not. Don’t I know what my own husband wants better than any doctor?”
“But Ambrose don’t want to go to Bab-us-Sahel.”
“Does he not, indeed?” triumphantly. “I asked him would he like it, and he said he would greatly.”
“I wonder did he even know what you were talking about? Plenty of times I don’t believe he’s so much as listening.”
“Y’are very polite, indeed! I know better.”
“But see here, Evie, the floods will be coming down any day now, and you wouldn’t be safe in any country boat—only a steamer, and you know there ain’t one to spare.”
“Sure that’s the very reason we ought start at once—to make the voyage before the floods begin. They don’t come till a full fortnight after this—I was asking about it this morning—and that’ll give us oceans of time.”
“You can never tell. They would as likely have begun a fortnight ago—only they have not. Anybody will tell you there’s no reckoning on ’em.”
“Well, I can’t help that——” with a sudden shifting of her ground. “I tell you we are going.”
“You can’t go without getting leave. Even if the doctor would let you, Ambrose is on the staff, and you can’t go carrying him off to t’other end of nowhere without a word to the General.”