beastly affectation knocked out of you with fever! Three thousand rupees a month wouldn't support it."
Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauksbee. He had insensibly come to look upon her as his Frau Confessorin.
"And you apologised!" she said. "Oh shame! I hate a man who apologises. Never apologise for what your friend called 'side'. Never! It's a man's business to be insolent and overbearing until he meets with a stronger. Now, you bad boy, listen to me."
Simply and straightforwardly, as the 'rickshaw loitered round Jakko, Mrs. Hauksbee preached to Otis Yeere the Great Gospel of Conceit, illustrating it with living subjects encountered during their Sunday afternoon stroll.
"Good gracious!" she concluded with the personal argument, "You'll apologise next for being my attaché?"
"Never!" said Otis Yeere. "That's another thing altogether. I shall always be"
"What's coming?" thought Mrs. Hauksbee.
"Proud of that," said Otis.
"Safe for the present," she said to herself.
"But I'm afraid I have grown conceited. Like Jeshurun, you know. When he waxed fat, then he kicked. It's the having no worry on one's mind and the Hill air, I suppose.
"Hill air, indeed!" said Mrs. Hauksbee to herself. "He'd have been hiding in the Club till the last day of his leave, if I hadn't discovered him." Then aloud:
"Why shouldn't you be? You have every right to."
"I1 Why?"
"Oh, hundreds of things. I'm not going to waste this lovely afternoon by explaining; but I know you have. What was that heap of manuscript you showed me about the grammar of the aboriginal—what's their names?
"Gullals. A piece of nonsense. I've far too much work to do to bother over Gullals now. You should see my District. Come down with your husband some day and I'll show you round. Such a lovely place in the Rains! A
