t! I've been shaping my affairs to that end since Autumn. What
makes you speak as though it had occurred to you for the first time?

She. I? Oh! I don't know. I've had long enough to think, too.

He. And you've changed your mind?

She. No. You ought to know that I am a miracle of constancy. What are
your arrangements?

He. Ours, Sweetheart, please.

She. Ours, be it then. My poor boy, how the prickly heat has marked your
forehead! Have you ever tried sulphate of copper in water?

He. It'll go away in a day or two up here. The arrangements are simple
enough. Tonga in the early morning reach Kalka at twelve Umballa at
seven down, straight by night train, to Bombay, and then the steamer of
the 21st for Rome. That's my idea. The Continent and Sweden a ten-week
honeymoon.

She. Ssh! Don't talk of it in that way. It makes me afraid. Guy, how
long have we two been insane?

He. Seven months and fourteen days, I forget the odd hours exactly, but
I'll think.

She. I only wanted to see if you remembered. Who are those two on the
Blessington Road?

He. Eabrey and the Penner Woman. What do they matter to us? Tell me
everything that you've been doing and saying and thinking.

She. Doing little, saying less, and thinking a great deal. I've hardly
been out at all.

He. That was wrong of you. You haven't been moping?

She. Not very much. Can you wonder that I'm disinclined for amusement?

He. Frankly, I do. Where was the difficulty?

She. In this only. The more people I know and the more I'm known here,
the wider spread will be the news of the crash when it comes. I don't
like that.

He. Nonsense. We shall be out of it.

She. You think so?

He. I'm sure of it, if there is any power in steam or horse-flesh to
carry us away. Ha! ha!

She. And the fun of the situation comes in where, my Lancelot?

He. Nowhere, Guinevere. I was only thinking of something.

She. They say men have a keener sense of humour than women. Now I was
thinking of the scandal.

He. Don't think of anything so ugly. We shall be beyond it.

She. It will be there all the same in the mouths of Simla telegraphed
over India, and talked of at the dinners and when He goes out they will
stare at Him to see how he takes it. And we shall be dead, Guy dear dead
and cast into the outer darkness where there is--

He. Love at least. Isn't that enough?

She. I have said so.

He. And you think so still?

She. What do you think?

He. What have I don