I’m treating myself to a re-read of Julie Anne Long’s “Like No Other Lover” in which our hero, Miles Redmond, wants desperately to finance another expedition to the fabled land of Lacao, exploration of which has made him famous and solvent, but not quite independently wealthy. If Miles marries the right woman (wrong, wrong, wrong, from the reader’s perspective), her daddy will produce the necessary coin.
If Miles marries Miss Cynthia Brightly, his father will probably disown him, and yet, it’s with Cynthia that Miles feels alive. He tries to reason his way through this contretemps, with indifferent success. At one point, thinking to deal safely and sanely with his animal urges, he arranges for an assignation with a married lady loose without supervision at the Redmond house party. Cynthia shows up in Miles’ bedchamber just the married lady is supposed to arrive, and Miles is flummoxed.
He vacillates, hauling Cynthia out of the corridor, then thrusting her back into the corridor as if she were a “bandalore.”
WHAT’s a bandalore?
A toy containing a coiled spring, which caused it, when thrown down, to rise again to the hand, by the winding up of the string by which it was held.
Sounds to me like a yo-yo, and isn’t that just a marvelous word? It’s:
Period appropriate
Appropriate to the action in the instant scene and…
Symbolically appropriate to the way Miles is hamstrung between his head and his heart. Suffice it to say that Miles runs the straying lady off and elects to spend time with Cynthia… then runs Cynthia off too.
Bandalore, indeed!