“And I’m simply furious; I’d counted on a dramatic situation, Ailsa—­the soldiers farewell, loud sobs, sweetheart faints, lancer dashes away unmanly tears—­’Be strong, be br-r-rave, dah-ling!  Hevving watches over your Alonzo!’

“Not so.  A big brawny brute in spurs comes in the dark to stir us with the toe of his boot.  ‘Silence,’ he hisses, ’if you can’t hear that damn reveille, I’ll punch you in the snoot, an’ then mebbe you’ll spread them lop-ears o’ yourn!’

“Heaven!  Your Alonzo is derided by a hireling!

“’Pack up, you swallow-tailed, leather-seated, pig-prodding sons of galoots!’ Thus, our first sergeant, recently of the regulars, roll-call having ended.

“Coffeeless, soupless, tackless, we leer furtively at the two days’ rations in our haversacks which we dare not sample; lick our chops reflectively, are cruelly chidden by underlings in uniform, further insulted by other underlings, are stepped on, crowded, bitten, and kicked at by our faithful Arab steeds, are coarsely huddled into line, where officers come to gloat over us and think out further ingenious indignities to heap upon us while we stand to horse.  And we stand there two hours!

“I can’t keep up this artificial flow of low comedy.  The plain fact of the situation is that we’re being hustled toward an amphibious thing with paddle-wheels named The Skylark, and I haven’t said good-bye to you.

“Ailsa, it isn’t likely that anything is going to knock my head off or puncture vital sections of me.  But in case the ludicrous should happen, I want you to know that a cleaner man goes before the last Court Marshal than would have stood trial there before he met you.

“You are every inch my ideal of a woman—­every fibre in you is utterly feminine.  I adore your acquired courage, I worship your heavenly inconsistencies.  The mental pleasure I experienced with you was measured and limited only by my own perversity and morbid self-absorption; the splendour of the passion I divine in you, unawakened, awes me, leaves me in wonder.  The spiritual tonic, even against my own sickly will has freshened me by mere contact with the world you live in; the touch of your lips and hands—­ah, Ailsa—­has taught me at last the language that I sneered at.

“Well—­we can never marry.  How it will be with us, how end, He who, after all is said and done, did construct us, knows now.  And we will know some day, when life is burned out in us.

“Hours, days of bitter revolt come—­the old madness for you, the old recklessness of desire, the savage impatience with life, assail me still.  Because, Ailsa, I would—­I could have made you a—­well, an interesting husband, anyway.  You were fashioned to be the divinest wife and . . .  I’m not going on in this strain; I’ll write you when I can.  And for God’s sake take care of your life.  There’s nothing left if you go—­nothing.