disconcerting.”
“I daresay you’re right, Seth. Ill try and remember when we’re in company. But I shall always think of her as Black Bitch, somehow. By the way, what has become of Ali?”
“Ali? Yes, I had forgotten. He was murdered by Major Joab yesterday evening. And that reminds me of something else. I must order a new crown.”
TWO
OVEY dovey, cat’s eyes.”
You got that out of a book.
“Well, yes. How did you know?”
“I read it too. It’s been all round the compound.”
“Anyway, I said it as a quotation. We have to find new things to say somehow sometimes, don’t we?”
William and Prudence rolled apart and lay on their backs; sun hats tilted over their noses shading their eyes from the brilliant equatorial sun. They were on the crest of the little hills above Debra-Dowa; it was cool there, eight thousand feet up. Behind them in a stockade of euphorbia trees stood a thatched Nestorian shrine. At its door the priest’s youngest child lay sunning his naked belly, gazing serenely into the heavens, indifferent to the flies which settled on the corners of his mouth and sauntered across his eye-balls. Below them the tin roofs of Debra- Dowa and a few thin columns of smoke were visible among the blue gums. At a distance the Legation syce sat in charge of the ponies.
“William darling, there’s something so extraordinary on your neck. I believe it’s two of them.”
“Well, I think you might knock it off.”
“I believe it’s that kind which sting worst.”
“Beast.”
“Oh, it’s gone now. It was two.”
“I can feel it walking about.”
“No, darling, that’s me. I think you might look sometimes when I’m being sweet to you. I’ve invented a new way of kissing. You do it with your eyelashes.”
“I’ve known that for years. It’s called a butterfly kiss.”
“Well, you needn’t be so high up about it. I only do these things for your benefit.”
“It was very nice, darling. I only said it wasn’t very new.”
“I don’t believe you liked it at all.”
“It was so like the stinging thing.”
“Oh, how maddening it is to have no one to make love with except you.”
“Sophisticated voice.”
“That’s not sophisticated. It’s my gramophone record voice. My sophisticated voice is quite different. It’s like this.”
“I call that American.”
“Shall I do my vibrant-with-passion voice?”
“No.”
“Oh, dear, men are hard to keep amused.” Prudence sat up and lit a cigarette. “I think you’re ef-feminate and undersexed,” she said, “and I hate you.”
“That’s because you’re too young to arouse serious emotion. You might give me a cigarette.”
“I hoped you’d say that. It happens to be the last. Not only the last in my pocket but the last in Debra-Dowa. I got it out of the Envoy Extraordinary’s bedroom this morning.”
“Oh, Lord, when will this idiotic war be over? We haven’t had a bag for six weeks. I’ve run out of hair wash and detective stories and now no cigarettes. I think you might give me some of that.”
“I hope you go bald. Still, I’ll let you have the cigarette.”
Pru, how sweet of you. I never thought you would.”
“I’m that kind of girl.”
“I think I’ll give you a kiss.”
“No, try the new way with eyelashes.”
“Is that right?”
“Delicious. Do it some more.”
Presently they remounted and rode back to the Legation. On the way William said: “I hope it doesn’t give one a twitch.”
“What doesn’t, darling?”
“That way with the eyelashes. I’ve seen people with twitches. I daresay that’s how they got it. There was once a man who got run in for winking at girls in the street. So he said it was a permanent affliction and he winked all through his trial and got off. But the sad thing is that now he can’t stop and he’s been winking ever since.”
