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He went through a pantomime of examining a joint of meat, with goatish sniffs. This joke was likely
to last Ellis a long time; his jokes usually did; and there was nothing that gave him quite so keen a
pleasure as dragging a woman’s name through mud.
Flory did not see much more of Elizabeth that evening. Everyone was in the lounge together, and
there was the silly clattering chatter about nothing that there is on these occasions. Flory could never
keep up that kind of conversation for long. But as for Elizabeth, the civilised atmosphere of the Club,
with the white faces all round her and the friendly look of the illustrated papers and the ‘Bonzo’
pictures, reassured her after that doubtful interlude at the pwe.
When the Lackersteens left the Club at nine, it was not Flory but Mr Macgregor who walked home
with them, ambling beside Elizabeth like some friendly saurian monster, among the faint crooked
shadows of the gold mohur stems. The Prome anecdote, and many another, found a new home. Any
newcomer to Kyauktada was apt to come in for rather a large share of Mr Macgregor’s conversation,
for the others looked on him as an unparalleled bore, and it was a tradition at the Club to interrupt his
stories. But Elizabeth was by nature a good listener. Mr Macgregor thought he had seldom met so
intelligent a girl.
Flory stayed a little longer at the Club, drinking with the others. There was much smutty talk about
Elizabeth. The quarrel about Dr Veraswami’s election had been shelved for the time being. Also, the
notice that Ellis had put up on the previous evening had been taken down. Mr Macgregor had seen it
during his morning visit to the Club, and in his fair-minded way he had at once insisted on its
removal. So the notice had been suppressed; not, however, before it had achieved its object.