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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Soldiers Three"

You
bloat. Explain.
ANTHONY. Mrs. Herriott!
BLAYNE. (_After a long pause, to the room generally._) It's my notion
that we are a set of fools.
MACKESY. Nonsense. _That_ business was knocked on the head last season.
Why, young Mallard--
ANTHONY. Mallard was a candlestick, paraded as such. Think awhile.
Recollect last season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mallard, did
Gaddy ever talk to any other woman?
CURTISS. There's something in that. It _was_ slightly noticeable now
you come to mention it. But she's at Naini Tal and he's at Simla.
ANTHONY. He had to go to Simla to look after a globetrotter relative
of his--a person with a title. Uncle or aunt.
BLAYNE. And there he got engaged. No law prevents a man growing tired
of a woman.
ANTHONY. Except that he mustn't do it till the woman is tired of him.
And the Herriott woman was not that.
CURTISS. She may be now. Two months of Naini Tal work wonders.
DOONE. Curious thing how some women carry a Fate with them. There was
a Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away
and got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down
there.


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