“But surely they must know——”
“That they will throw Ashraf Ali into the arms of Ethiopia, and extend Scythian influence down to our very borders, thanks to the way in which Fath-ud-Din has been allowed practically to repudiate Sir Dugald Haigh’s treaty? Why, Georgie, that’s just the sort of thing these fellows never see until it comes to pass. Then they lament that the world is so dreadfully out of joint, and say it all springs from our ingrained suspiciousness.”
“But, Dick, you wouldn’t countenance such a breach of faith?”
“No, I told Ashraf Ali so—told him he would hear of my resignation first. Funny thing, isn’t it, to take a man who knows the frontier as I do, and let him give five of the best years of his life to working for it night and day, and then to send a jack-in-office who has never seen it to reverse all he’s done? It’s a queer world, Georgie. But we’ll retire with clean hands, at any rate, you and I, and taste the modest joys of the pensioned in a suburban flat, with a five-pound note at Christmas-time from Mab and her Commissioner to help us along.”
Georgia could not trust herself to speak. She was holding Dick’s hand in hers, and smoothing his coat-cuff industriously.
“Well, never say die!” he went on. “I may get a berth in some Colonial defence force yet, and from that giddy height we’ll smile superior upon a jeering world, serenely conscious that we can do without the five-pound note.”
At one time Georgia would not have lost a moment in reminding him that she could in any case return to the active practice of her profession, but now she would not even suggest to Dick that last humiliation of living upon his wife’s earnings. Instead, she lifted his hand to her lips.
“We shan’t mind poverty, dear. We shall have been true to our people, and besides, your resignation may save the frontier. It will come out why you retired, and when once the reason is known, public opinion will be roused, and the Government will have to return to the old policy, even though we may not be here to carry it out. But oh, Dick, how can you speak civilly to Mr Burgrave after this?”
“Why, Georgie, the difficulty would be to speak uncivilly to him. The man is so wrapt up in his own greatness that he can’t imagine any one’s venturing to differ from him. He sweeps on like a glacier, removing all obstacles by his mere passage. The stones and rocks and things get carried along too, you know, whether they like it or not, and when the glacier has done with them it dumps them down in a neat heap, that’s all. Besides, we have to give Mab her chance.”
“If Mab marries him, I have done with her,” said Georgia, with conviction.