human
Jim, said the Duchess that night, after a _tête-à-tête_ dinner, when the pair reached the coffee stage,
gpt
Good Lord!
human
Pooh! Why do you not say damn, as I feel inclined to do?
gpt
You say such queer things,
human
I should like to do them. Oh, why wasn't I born a real live man. I should have lived--lived--lived.
gpt
Well, said Jim, stolidly clipping his weed,
human
In a satin-lined, rose-wood jewel-box, if you call that living.
gpt
I see what you mean, confessed the Duke, lighting up.
human
Same here. I was ever so much jollier aboard that dirty tramp. I slugged one of the crew--a Finn, he was--a hulking Finn, who thought I was a world-crawler, an' no man. They carried him away in bits,
gpt
Jim, I really believe that we might understand one another. You and I are meant to be pals, and not a conventional man and wife. If you were only a backwoodsman I should adore you.
human
An' do the washin', an' the scrubbing and the cookin'? I fancy I see you puttin' your back into that sort of work, Leah. Honey-pots are more in your line.
gpt
I am as sick of honey-pots as you are. All this dressing and undressing, and court functions, and paltry pigeon-shooting, and skating at Prince's on sham ice, and yachting at Cowes in a floating hotel--oh, Lord, how it bores me!
human
You're always bored, grunted her husband, unsympathetically.
gpt
Can you wonder at it, when I have to go round and round and round in a decorated ring like a trick-pony? If I were a woman it would be satisfactory, no doubt.
human
Well, said Jim, obtusely,
gpt
I am a man, she announced, in resonant contralto tones.
human
I feel like one, anyhow. Didn't some one say there was no sense in this grown-up business. Well, I am like that. Up to the time you went after Lola Fajardo I did enjoy things all round, but somehow I feel as though the bottom had dropped out of creation.
gpt
Drop Lola Fajardo also, then, growled the Duke, colouring.
human
I never went near her.
gpt
Because you couldn't. The serpent in the bamboo--eh, Jim?
human
I don't care anything for her now.
gpt
I am glad of that, because you belong to me--to me.
human
And much you think of me!
gpt
I think you are extremely selfish, and desperately weak with even ugly women, and quite a brute when you don't get your own pretty way, and--in short, you are a man, a glorious lord of creation.
human
Oh, drop rottin'.
gpt
I am not rotting, as you delicately put it. Like myself, this sugary civilisation has spoiled you. If you had to earn your bread I should respect you, Jim. I might even love you. Yes --she considered for a moment--
human
I daresay it might come to that.
gpt
What does all this mean?
human
I'll tell you, Jim. I have just found out by my very own self that you and I are cave-people pitchforked into the wrong century. We live ten thousand years too late--just think of it--ten thousand years of life and death. Let us go back to the mud, Jim, and take up the life where we left it when you were killed, spearing that mammoth.
gpt
Leah!
human
I know what you think, but I am as sane as you are, and ten times cleverer. No ; she loosened her arms from his neck and locked them behind her.
gpt
Look at me, Jim. Am I a doll?
human
You're a rippin' fine woman,
gpt
So you think--so the world thinks. Yet I have to live in a wadded box like a wax doll. I want to get out of that box--it stifles me, chokes me. I am sick of the tents of Shem, and wish to house under those of Esau. You and I will take the privilege of rank and be eccentric. As pals we'll get on much better than as a Mayfair man and wife of the wrong sort, beyond the borders of this horrid civilisation that is. Buy a yacht, Jim--a tramp hulk with those triple expansion engines you told me about, and let us make for the South Seas. There's a clear path down Channel. Let us explore, let us venture into the Naked Lands and exploit the fringes of the empire. I want to live--to live, you understand. Oh, she cried almost fiercely,
human
No, said Jim, truthfully, and as stolid as ever;