The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

22
THE FOOT OF TIME
"Babies?"
The man gave a slight imperceptible start.
"Baby snakes, Bruce?"
"Yes, the young 'uns, you know—little fellows."
Clare toyed with her cigarette. Her great boy
was out of sorts to-night—not in a mood to be
questioned.
Abdul brought them a small peg of whisky and
soda, left them as silently as he had entered, glided
out wraith-like. Bruce placed his glass through the
aperture made for it in the arm-rest of his long
deck chair. His wife left hers on the table. Clare
liked to do one thing at a time; she enjoyed a slow
pulse. Smoking and drinking did not go well
together with her. She smoked about three
cigarettes daily. Some women she knew smoked
thirty-three. She drank just enough to disqualify
her from the pledge. Just enough to escape eligibility
by a short head. Bruce could have done without
alcohol altogether, being too strong to need it. It
was the same to him whether he drank much or
nothing, but the East is not a white man's country,
and statistics, which are stubborn mules against
which to argue, definitely prove that aerated or
non-aerated soft drinks incline to flabbiness East of
Suez. But not such softness as over-indulgence the
other way.
The snake-like movements of Abdul brought
Clare's thoughts travelling in his direction. She began
to wonder how many wives he kept. Presently:
"Bruce! Abdul has been odd lately," she opened
out. She had been wanting to say it for some
THE FOOT OF TIME
23
while, but somehow or another could not bring
herself to begin.
"Odd?" rejoined Arbuthnot with a burst. "How
do you mean odd?"
He seems to have a secret up his sleeve."
Bruce let out a laugh. "Oh, they often appear
that way," he said.
"No—really—he—he seems quite frightened of
me."
Nonsense, dear, nonsense!"
watching
It isn't nonsense, Barty. A few days ago I was
some girls working on the bushes directly
in front of the bungalow, particularly one of them
a really wonderfully pretty girl. She so interested
me that I questioned the boy about her. He told
me that she was quite new to the garden—said,
indeed, he had never seen her before. Then, shortly
after, having my suspicions about him--"
"Suspicions?"
"Well, I mean he seemed so funny," Clare broke
off. "You know what we women are?" she laughed.
"Not I," Sir Bruce ejaculated tersely.
"Oh, you—yo
you
u
great man's man. I really believe
scarcely kne w
until you met—"
the world contained women
"You?" Bruce finished for her, interrogatively.
"Yes. Till you found one in me, Bruce."
Sir Bruce Arbuthnot, the seventh Baronet of the
line, took a long, lazy ll at his lowing c.
He watched the blue pull
smoke regflectivelyh as
eroot
it
of
blended
usefulness
with the air. It had completed its sphere
in the order of things: served its day,