Barlow gazed after Elizabeth ruefully, wishing she had thrown him a
life belt. However, it did not matter; it was up to him to act in a
sane manner, men of the Service were taught to rely on themselves. And
in Barlow was the something of breeding that held him to the true
thing, to the pole; the breeding might be compared to the elusive thing
in the magnetic needle. It did not matter, he would probably marry
Elizabeth--it seemed the proper thing to do. Devilish few of the chaps
he knew babbled much about love and being batty over a girl--that is,
the girls they married.
Then the bearer brought Hodson's salaams to the Captain.
And Hodson was a Civil Servant in excelsis. He took to bed with him
his Form D and Form C--even the "D. O.", the Demi Official business,
and worried over it when he should have slept or read himself to sleep.
Duty to him was a more exacting god than the black Kali to the
Brahmins; it had dried up his blood--atrophied his nerves of enjoyment.
And now he was depressed though he strove to greet Barlow cheerily.
"It's a devilish shindy, this killing of our two chaps," he burst forth
with; "I've pondered over it, I've worried over it; the only solace in
the thing is, that the arm of the law is long.
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