'She played poor Dartrey pranks before he buried--he, behaved well to
her; and that says much for him; he has: a devil of a temper. I 've seen
the blood in his veins, mount to cracking. But there's the man: because
she was a woman, he never let it break out with her. And, by heaven, he
had cause. She couldn't be left. She tricked him, and she loved him-
passionately, I believe. You don't understand women loving the husband
they drag through the mire?'

Dudley did not. He sharpened his mouth.

'Buried, you said, sir?--a widower?'

'I've no positive information; we shall hear when he: comes back,' Victor
replied hurriedly. 'He got a drenching of all the damns in the British
service from his. Generalissimo one day at a Review, for a trooper's
negligence-button or stock missing, or something; and off goes Dartrey to
his hut, and breaks his sword, and sends in his resignation. Good
soldier lost. And I can't complain; he has been a right-hand man to me
over in Africa. But a man ought to have some control of his temper,
especially a soldier.'

Dudley put emphasis into his acquiescence.

'Worse than that temper of Dartrey's, he can't forgive an injury. He
bears a grudge against his country. You've heard Colney Durance abuse
old England. It's three parts factitious-literary exercise. It 's milk
beside the contempt of Dartrey's shrug. He thinks we're a dead people,
if a people; "subsisting on our fat," as Colney says.'