“Chance of it,” Wilson said and smiled at her. “Why don’t you stay in camp?”
“Not for anything,” she told him.
“Why not order her to stay in camp?” Wilson said to Macomber.
“You order her,” said Macomber coldly.
“Let’s not have any ordering, nor,” turning to Macomber, “any silliness. Francis,” Margot said quite pleasantly.
“Are you ready to start?” Macomber asked.
“Any time,” Wilson told him. “Do you want the Memsahib to go?”
“Does it make any difference whether I do or not?”
The hell with it, thought Robert Wilson. The utter complete hell with it. So this is what it’s going to be like. Well, this is what it’s going to be like, then.
“Makes no difference,” he said.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t like to stay in camp with her yourself and let me go out and hunt the buffalo?” Macomber asked.
“Can’t do that,” said Wilson. “Wouldn’t talk rot if I were you.”
“I’m not talking rot. I’m disgusted.”
“Bad word, disgusted.”
“Francis, will you please try to speak sensibly,” his wife said.
“I speak too damned sensibly,” Macomber said. “Did you ever eat such filthy food?”
“Something wrong with the food?” asked Wilson quietly.
“No more than with everything else.”
“I’d pull yourself together, laddybuck,” Wilson said very quietly. “There’s a boy waits at table that understands a little English.”
“The hell with him.”
Wilson stood up and puffing on his pipe strolled away, speaking a few words in Swahili to one of the gun-bearers who was standing waiting for him. Macomber and his wife sat on at the table. He was staring at his coffee cup.
