"Not a jot," says he, and rose to depart. "But seeing how she mooned over you later, it struck me she might have been paying him out. On your account." He turned towards the door. "You must ha' known her pretty well in Berlin. About as well as you know that Princess Kralta."
"Hutton," says I, "you’re a nosey old gossip."
"Gossip—never. Nosey? That’s my trade, colonel."
Well, I’m used to the mixture of huff and perplexity and envious admiration that my success with the fair sex arouses in my fellow man. Seen it in all sorts, from the saintly Albert looking peeved when her fluttering majesty pinned the Afghan medal on my coat, to Bully Dawson, my Rugby fag-master, in a furious bait after I’d thoughtlessly boasted of my juvenile triumph with Lady Geraldine aforesaid. ("What, a high-steppin' filly like her, dotin' on you, damned little squirt that you are!") Most gratifying—and doubly so in Hutton’s case. So dear little Caprice had wept over me, had she? Capital news, for if the old fondness still lingered, why shouldn’t we resume our idyll of the Jager Strasse, once I was up and doing? Stay, though … what about Kralta, panting in Vienna? A ticklish choice, and I was torn. On one hand, there was an exciting variety about Caprice’s boudoir behaviour, the merry concubine performing for the fun of it; on t’other, my horsey charmer was wildly passionate and spoony about me—and there was more of her. Much to be said on both sides …
In the meantime, Caprice was on hand, and when Hutton gave me the office next day that she purposed to visit me in the evening, I struggled into my shirt and trowsers, cursing my stitches, shaved with care, gave my face furniture a touch of pomade, practised expressions of suffering nobly borne before the mirror while lust-fully recalling the soap bubbles of Berlin … and paused to wonder, I confess, how it would be, meeting her again.
You see, I don’t care to be under obligation to a woman for anything—except money, of course—and this one had saved my life at mighty risk to herself. Furthermore, the harmless jolly little banger of five years ago had emerged as a skilled and ruthless killing lady. On both counts she had the whip hand, so to speak, if she chose to use it—and show me the woman that won’t. Well, Caprice didn’t; being a clever actress and manager of men, she took what might have been an awkward reunion in her sprightly stride, bowling in without so much as a knock, full of sass and nonsense … and ’twas as though five years ago was only yesterday.
"I have not forgiven you!" cries she, dropping her cape and reticule on the table. "Not a word of farewell, not so much as a billet d’adieu when you abandon me in Berlin! Oh, c’est parfait, ca! Well, M. Jansen-Flashman, what have you to say?" She tossed her head, twinkling severely, and I could have eaten her alive on the spot. "I am waiting, m’sieur!"
"My dear, I’ve been waiting five years," says I, playing up, "just for the adorable sight of you—and here you are, lovelier than ever!" She made that honking noise of derision that is so vulgarly French, but I wasn’t flattering. The pretty girl had become a beauty, the pert gamin face had refined and strengthened, the classroom fringe had given way to the latest upswept style crowned with curls, darker than I remembered—but the cupid’s bow lips were as impudent and the blue eyes as mischievous as ever. She was still la petite Caprice, if not so little: an inch or two taller and fuller in her tight-bodiced crimson satin that clung like a skin from bare shoulders to wasp waist and then descended to her feet in the fashionable rippling pleats of the time—it hadn’t occurred to me that female politicals might dress like evening fashion-plates even when they were in the field, so to speak, and I sat lewdly agog.
"I know that look!" says she. "And I am still waiting."
"But, darling, I couldn’t say goodbye—it was Blowitz’s fault, you see; he had me on the train to Cologne before I knew it, and --
"Ah, so Blowitz is to blame! Fat little Stefan overpowered you and carried you off, eh? Some excuse, that!" She advanced with that mincing sway that had never failed to have me clutching for the goods. "Well, it does not serve, milord! I am displeased, and come only to punish you for your neglect, your discourtoisie." She struck a pose. "Behold, I wear my most becoming gown—
Worth, s’il vous plait!—I dress my hair a la mode, I devote care to my complexion, a little powder here, a little rouge there, I choose my most costly perfume (mmm-h!), I put round my neck the velvet ribbon tralala which so aroused the disgusting Shuvalov—you remember?—I make my person attrayante altogether … how do you say … ? ravissante, tres séduisante—"
"Alluring, bigod, scrumptious—"
