human
Keeps his head pretty well, even after his legs are gone, said Ferry.
gpt
Knows too much to go by the sally-port. He's sneaking out through the back gate.
human
Why, what does he go out there for, when he has the run of Waring's sideboard?
gpt
Oh, didn't you hear? Mrs. Doyle sent for him.
human
That's it, is it? Sometimes I wonder which one of those two will kill the other.
gpt
Oh, he wouldn't dare. That fellow is an abject coward in the dark. He believes in ghosts, spooks, banshees, and wraiths,--everything uncanny,--and she'd haunt him if he laid his hands on her. There's only one thing that he'd be more afraid of than Bridget Doyle living, and that would be Bridget Doyle dead.
human
Why can't he get rid of her? What hold has she on him? This thing's an infernal scandal as it stands. She's only been here a month or so, and everybody in garrison knows all about her, and these doughboys don't make any bones about chaffing us on our lady friends.
gpt
Well, everybody supposed he had got rid of her years ago. He shook her when he was made first sergeant, just before the war. Why, I've heard some of the old stagers say there wasn't a finer-looking soldier in all the regiment than Jim Doyle when he married that specimen at Brownsville. Doyle, too, supposed she was dead until after he got his commission, then she reappeared and laid claim to him. It would have been an easy enough matter five years ago to prove she had forfeited all rights, but now he can't. Then she's got some confounded hold on him, I don't know what, but it's killing the poor beggar. Good thing for the regiment, though: so let it go.
human
Oh, I don't care a rap how soon we're rid of him or her,--the sooner the better; only I hate to hear these fellows laughing and sneering about Mrs. Doyle. And here the young fellow hesitated.
gpt
Ferry, you know I'm as fond of Sam Waring as any of you. I liked him better than any man in his class when we wore the gray. When they were yearlings we were plebes, and devilled and tormented by them most unmercifully day and night. I took to him then for his kindly, jolly ways. No one ever knew him to say or do a cross or brutal thing. I liked him more every year, and missed him when he was graduated. I rejoiced when he got his transfer to us. It's because I like him so much that I hate to hear these fellows making their little flings now.
human
What flings?
gpt
Well, you know as much as I do. You've heard as much, too, I haven't a doubt.
human
Nobody's said anything about Sam Waring in my hearing that reflected on him in any way worth speaking of,
gpt
Not on him so much, perhaps, as the world looks at this sort of thing, but on her. She's young, pretty, married to a man years her senior, a snuffy, frowzy old Frenchman. She's alone with her child and one or two servants from early morning till late evening, and with that weazened little monkey of a man the rest of the time. The only society she sees is the one or two gossipy old women of both sexes who live along the levee here. The only enjoyment she has is when she can get to her mother's up in town, or run up to the opera when she can get Lascelles to take her. That old mummy cares nothing for music and still less for the dance; she loves both, and so does Waring. _Monsieur le Mari_ goes out into the foyer between the acts to smoke his cigarette and gossip with other relics like himself. Waring has never missed a night she happened to be there for the last six weeks. I admit he is there many a time when she is not, but after he's had a few words with the ladies in the general's box, what becomes of him? I don't know, because I'm seldom there, but Dryden and Taggart and Jack Merton of the infantry can tell you. He is sitting by her in the D'Hervilly _loge grillée_ and going over the last act with her and rhapsodizing about Verdi, Bellini, Mozart, or Gounod,--Gounod especially and the garden-scene from 'Faust.'
human
Isn't her mother with her, and, being in mourning, doesn't she have to stay in her latticed loge instead of promenading in the foyer and drinking that two-headaches-for-a-picayune punch?
gpt
Suppose she is, answered Pierce, stoutly.
human
I'm a crank,--strait-laced, if you like. It's the fault of my bringing up. But I know, and you know, that that little woman, in her loneliness and in her natural longing for some congenial spirit to commune with, is simply falling madly in love with Sam Waring, and there will be tragedy here before we can stop it.
gpt
See here, Pierce, asked Ferry,
human
He has spoken.
gpt
He has? To whom?
human
To me, three days ago; said I had known Waring longest and best, perhaps was his most intimate friend, and he thought I ought to warn him of what people were saying.
gpt
What have you done?
human
Nothing yet: simply because I know Sam Waring so well that I know just what he'd do,--go and pull the nose of the man who gossiped about him and her. Then we'd have a fight on our hands.
gpt
Well, we can fight, I suppose, can't we?
human
Not without involving a woman's name.
gpt
Oh, good Lord, Pierce, was there ever a row without a woman _au fond_?
human
That's a worm-eaten witticism, Ferry, and you're too decent a fellow, as a rule, to be cynical. I've got to speak to Waring, and I don't know how to do it. I want your advice.
gpt
Well, my advice is _Punch's_: Don't. Hello! here's Dryden. Thought you were on court duty up at head-quarters to-day, old man. Come in and have a wet?