but it's perfectly true. I haven't a single soul in the world but
you and Lady Violet to think of me at all, or for me to think of."
"I don't suppose you have," said the Hon. Bovyne, thoughtfully.
"You are a lone beggar, Arthur, but a cheery one nevertheless."
"So you see," Clarges went on, "If in accompanying you around the
world in search of new pleasures and exciting experiences, anything
happens to me, you know, Arthur Clarges, of Clarges, nobody need mind.
There isn't anybody to mind."
"All this because Simpson has got four children! Well, I hope you'll
get married yet, Arthur, you queer fish, and have six, two more than
Simpson. I know what you are driving at, however. You think me a
selfish brute. You can't understand how I can leave Lady Vi., and
the two kids, and go off annually on tours of exploration and so
forth. I tell you, I am the better for it, and she is the better for
it, and nobody is any the worst for it, unless it be yourself. Men
who have knocked about as I have done, will continue to knock about
as long as they live. In the army, out of the army, all the same.
Lady Vi. understands me, and I her, and you forget, Arthur, that you
are very--young."
"Then may I never get any older," said Charles, almost rudely.
Not long afterwards his cousin, slightly heavy with wine, went to bed.
Clarges, abnormally wakeful, tried to read _Bell's Life_ which lay
before him and waited until Bovey was fast asleep. They occupied the
same room, a large double-bedded one, which opened into a bathroom
and parlour _en suite_. When he was perfectly certain that his
cousin was sound asleep, so sound that "a good yelp from the county
pack, and a stirring chorus of 'John Peel' by forty in pink could
not wake him," thought Clarges, the latter undertook his delicate
task and accomplished it. He did it quickly and skilfully with a
tiny lancet he found in his cousin's well-appointed travelling bag.
Bovey never stirred. Clarges next undertook to "do" himself. Then a
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