human
Here, let's hark back to the ordinary conduct of material existence, she said.
gpt
Tea? Won't you sit down? No--well, just as you like best. Take it standing. Let me see, what were we discussing when we got switched on to unexpectedly personal lines of conversation? The war--yes, I remember. I was just going to tell you that Fallowfeild believes it's going to be a nasty dragging unsatisfactory business. Everyone gasses about the Boers being a simple pastoral people. But Fallowfeild says their simplicity is just another name for guile, and that he anyway can't conceive a more disconcerting job than fighting a nation of farmers and huntsmen and gamekeepers in their own country, every inch of which they know. People say they've no military science. But so jolly much the better for them. They can be unfettered opportunists, with nothing to think of but outwitting the enemy and saving their property and their skins. The poor British Tommy will be no match for them; nor will the British officer-man either, till he's unlearned his parade-ground etiquette, and his haw-haw red-tape methods and manner, and learned their very primitive but very cute and foxy ones. By which time, Fallowfeild says, the mourning warehouses here at home will have made a record turnover, and there will be altogether too many new graveyards for comfort in South Africa.
human
Are you going?
gpt
Yes, he answered.
human
It grows late. It's time I went, I think.
gpt
Perhaps it is. Poppy's eyes had become inscrutable.
human
I really ought to attend to my Gamping, and pass the time of day with Cappadocia. Her snappishness has scared the maids. They refuse to go within a measured furlong of her.
gpt
Good-by, she said.
human
I don't quite know when we shall meet again.
gpt
Why? Iglesias asked. The muscles of his throat were rigid. He had much ado to speak plainly and naturally.
human
Are you leaving home?
gpt
Home? she answered.
human
Yes, I'm leaving it. Good-by again. Don't let me keep you. Certainly I'm leaving home. Indeed, I believe I have left it already--for good.