There was always a sledge-hammer method in the Major's fence, and the subject dropped.
The room was heavy with the odors of meats and drinks. Dark as it was, the flood of sunshine streaming into the veranda outside, where yellow hornets were buzzing and the servants washing up the dishes, sent a glare even into the shadows. Neither the furniture nor appointments of the room owed anything to the East--for Indian art was, so to speak, not as yet invented for English folk--yet there was a strange unkennedness about their would-be familiarity which suddenly struck the latest exile, young Mainwaring.
"India is a beastly hole," he said, in an undertone--"things are so different--I wish I were out of it." There was a note of appeal in his young voice; his eyes, meeting Alice Gissing's, filled with tears to his intense dismay. He hoped she might not see them; but she did, and leaned over to lay one kindly be-ringed little hand on the table quite close to his.
"You've got liver," she said confidentially. "India is quite a nice place. Come to the assembly to-night, and I will give you two extras--whole ones. And don't drink any more madeira, there is a good boy. Come and have coffee with me in the drawing room instead; that will set you right."
Less has set many a boy hopelessly wrong. To do Alice Gissing justice, however, she never recognized such facts; her own head being quite steady. But Major Erlton understood the possible results perfectly, and commented on them when, as a matter of course, his long length remained lounging in an easy-chair after the other guests had gone, and Mr. Gissing had retired to business. People, from the Palais Royale playwrights, downward--or upward--always poke fun at the husbands in such situations; but no one jibes at the man who succeeds to the cut-and-dried necessity for devotion. Yet there is surely something ridiculous in the spectacle of a man playing a conjugal part without even a sense of duty to give him dignity in it, and the curse of the commonplace comes as quickly to Abelard and Heloise as it does to Darby and Joan. So Major Erlton, lounging and commenting, might well have been Mrs. Gissing's legal owner. "Going to make a fool of that lad now, I suppose, Allie. Why the devil should you when you don't care for boys?"