No More Learning

He could have gone to the world's end. I
would have helped him. I made him, didn't I, Polly? Didn't I create
that man? Doesn't he owe everything to me? And to reward me, just when
everything was nicely arranged, by this lunacy that spoiled everything! "

"Very few men understand your devotion thoroughly. "

"Oh, Polly, don't laugh at me! I give men up from this hour. I could
have killed him then and there. What right had this man--this Thing I
had picked out of his filthy paddy-fields--to make love to me? "

"He did that, did he? "

"He did. I don't remember half he said, I was so angry. Oh, but such
a funny thing happened!
I can't help laughing at it now, though I felt
nearly ready to cry with rage. He raved and I stormed--I'm afraid we
must have made an awful noise in our kala juggah. Protect my character,
dear, if it's all over Simla by tomorrow--and then he bobbed forward in
the middle of this insanity--I firmly believe the man's demented--and
kissed me! "

"Morals above reproach," purred Mrs. Mallowe.

"So they were--so they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don't believe
he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and
it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin--here. "
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. "Then, of
course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman,
and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily
that I couldn't be very angry. Then I came away straight to you. "

"Was this before or after supper? "

"Oh!