his vanity.'
'Now, sir,' said Laura Fielding, licking her spoon, 'since you have been so very kind, and since I should like to send Giovanna off to Notabile, I shall ask you to be kinder still and walk with me as far as St Publius: there are always a great many blackguard soldiers hanging about the Porta Reale, and without my dog , . .'
Dr Maturin declared that he should be happy to act as vicar to so noble a creature, and indeed he looked unusually pleased and cheerful as they left the courtyard and as he handed her across the Piazza Regina, crowded with soldiers and two separate herds of goats; but by the time they were walking past the Auberge de Castile part of his mind had drifted away, back to the subject of mood and its origins. Another part was very much in the present, however, and his silence was in some degree deliberate; it did not last long, but as he had foreseen it disturbed Laura Fielding. She was under a constraint - a constraint that he perceived more and more clearly - and both her tone and her smile were somewhat artificial when she said, 'Do you like dogs?'
'Dogs, is it?' he said, giving her a sideways glance and smiling. 'Why now, if you were an ordinary commonplace everyday civilly-prating gentlewoman I should smirk and say 'Lord, ma'am, I dote upon 'em,' with as graceful as writhe of my person as I could manage. But since it is you I shall only observe that I understand your words as a request that I should say something: you might equally have asked did I like men, or women, or even cats, serpents, bats.'
'Not bats,' cried Mrs Fielding.
'Certainly bats said Dr Maturin. 'There is as much variety in them as in other creatures: I have known some very high-spirited, cheerful bats, others sullen, froward, dogged, morose. And of course the same applies to dogs - there is the whole gamut from false fawning yellow curs to the heroic Ponto.'
'Dear Ponto said Mrs Fielding. 'He is a great comfort to me; but I wish he were a little wiser. My father had a Maremma dog, a bog-dog, that could multiply and divide.'
'Yet, said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, 'there is a quality in dogs, 1 must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas ? when you consider how immensely it enhances daily life and how it enriches a man's past and future, so that he can look back and forward with complacency - why, it is a pleasure to find it in brute creation.'
Affection was also to be found in commanders: it fairly beamed from Pullings as Jack Aubrey led him up to the Governor and his guest. Jack did not at all relish this meeting with Wray, but since he felt that he could not avoid it without meanness he was glad that etiquette required that he should present his former lieutenant: the necessary formality would take away some of the awkwardness. Not that there seemed a great deal of awkwardness ahead, he reflected, looking along the line. Wray looked much the same, a tall, good-looking, animated, gentlemanlike fellow wearing a black coat with a couple of foreign orders; he was perfectly well aware of Jack's approach - their eyes had met some time before - but he was laughing away with Sir Hildebrand and a red-faced civilian, apparently quite unmoved, as though he had not the least reason to look furtive, or even uneasy in his mind.
The line moved on. It was their turn. Jack made the presentation to the Governor, who replied with a slight inclination of his head, an indifferent look, and the word 'Happy'. Then he urged Pullings on a step and said, 'Sir, allow me to name Captain Pullings. Captain Pullings, Mr Secretary Wray.'
'I am delighted to see you, Captain Pullings,' said Wray, holding out his hand, 'and I congratulate you with all my heart on your share in the Surprise's brilliant victory. As soon as I read Captain Aubrey's dispatch,'- bowing to Jack - 'and his glowing account of your unparalleled exertions I said Mr Pullings must be promoted. There were gentlemen who objected that the Torgud was not in the Sultan's service at the moment of her capture - that the promotion would be irregular - that it would establish an undesirable precedent. But I insisted that we should attend to Captain Aubrey's recommendation, and I may tell you privately,' he added in a lower tone, smiling placidly at Jack as he did so, 'that I insisted all the more strongly, because at one time Captain Aubrey seemed to do me an injustice, and by promoting his lieutenant I could, as the sea-phrase goes, the better wipe his eye. Few things have given me greater pleasure than bringing out the commission, and I am only sorry that the victory should have cost you such a cruel wound.'
'Mr Wray: Colonel Manners of the Forty-Third,' said Sir Hildebrand, who felt that this had been going on far too long.
Jack and Pullings bowed and gave place to the Colonel: Jack heard the Governor say 'That was Aubrey, who took Marga,' and the soldier's almost instant keen reply 'Ah?
It was held by the enemy, I recollect?' but his mind was deeply perturbed. Was it possible that he had misjudged Wray? Could any man have such boundless impudence to speak so if it were false? Wray could certainly have barred the promotion if he had wished; there was the perfect excuse of the Torgud's being a rebel. Jack tried to recall the exact details of that far-away unhappy, angry evening in Portsmouth - just what was the sequence of events? -just how much had he drunk? - who were the other civilians at the table? - but he had been through a great deal of much more open violence since that time and he could jio longer fix the grounds of his then certainty. Cheating there had been, and for large sums of money, of that he was still sure; but there had been several players at the table, not only Andrew Wray.
He became aware that Pullings had been talking about the Second Secretary in a tone approaching enthusiasm for some time - 'such magnanimity, magnanimity, you know what I mean, sir - benevolent eye - uncommon learned too, no sort of doubt about it - should certainly be First Secretary if not First Lord' - and that they were standing at a table covered with bottles, decanters and glasses.
'So here's to his health, sir, in admiral's flip,' cried Pullings, putting an ice-cold silver tankard into his hand.
'Admiral's flip, at this time of day?' said Jack, looking thoughtfully at Captain Pullings' round, happy face, with its livid wound now glowing purple - the face of one who had already swallowed a pint of marsala and who was in any case quite overcome with joy - the face of an ordinarily abstemious man who was now in no state to drink champagne mixed with brandy half and half. 'Would not a glass of pale ale do as well? Capital stuff, this East India pale ale.'
'Come sir,' said Pullings reproachfully. 'It's not every day I wet the swab.'
'Very true,' said Jack, remembering the time he first put on a commander's epaulette - only one in those days - and his unbounded delight. 'Very true. To Mr. Secretary's very good health, then. May he prosper in all his designs.'
The admiral's flip did for poor Pullings even sooner than might have been expected. They were separated by a tide of thirsty officers, many of whom wished Pullings joy of his promotion, and Jack had not been talking to his old friend Dundas for five minutes before he saw two of them leading, almost carrying, Pullings away. He followed and^found that they had put him on a seat in a quiet corner of the garden, where he was very nearly asleep, pale,
