CHAPTER XXIVDISILLUSIONRhona Helvellyn came stalking in, looked round, recognised Patrine, came over and dropped down beside her on the divan, full to the brim of the invariable subject, and suffering to talk.Through the good offices of a legal pal she had got in to hear the Suffragette Trial at the Old Bailey that day. Fan Braid and Kitty Neek had been frightfully plucky. Full of grit and vim, in spite of the six weeks' hunger-strike. Began shrieking like Jimmy O! the moment they were brought into the dock by the warders and wardresses. On being rebuked by the Judge, Fan had bunked a bundle of pamphlets at the head of his lordship, catching the Clerk of the Court, who was seated immediately underneath the Bench, no end of a biff in the eye."And then?"Patrine heard a strange voice from her own stiff lips asking the question."Then both of 'em were removed from the Dock. It was done—in time!" Rhona's light eyes danced with enjoyment. "Such a scrimmage! Such a rumpus! Took three men and a woman to tackle each of 'em. We could hear 'em giving tongue all the way down to the cells. Then they had to go on with the Trial without 'em." She chuckled. "You may guess there were a lot of us at the back of the Court waiting—just for that! Perfect wadge all together. Hell and trimmings when we started. They had to eject us before they could jog on with their gay old summing-up!""But in the end they got through?" The weary voice was so unlike Patrine's that she wondered why Rhona did not jump and stare at her. But Rhona was mounted on her hobby-horse, and unobservant of other things."Through right enough! And Fan and Kitty—" Rhona screwed up her lips into the shape of a whistle, and winked away a tear that hung on one of her fair eyelashes; "It's too brutal! Three months each, and poor little Kitty dying of lung-trouble. They only brought her back from Davos in May. That riles me!" She clenched her hands fiercely and went on, cautiously lowering her tone: "So far I've taken no active share in any Militant Demonstration. Partly because I'd be wiped off the Club books if I got spouting in public, or was mixed up in any police-court business, partly because I'm funky—there's the word! But at last I'm wound up! It was Kitty's little peaky-white face did it! ... She—she broke a blood-vessel as the warders were carrying her down to the cells."A sob choked Rhona's voice, and a spasm of misery wrenched her. She controlled herself. She was deadly in earnest—wound up to go, as she had said. She went on, talking rapidly, in a tone that only reached the ear it had been meant for. How many such secret disclosures the Club divan had known."I've thought.... A regular swarm of Distinguished French and Belgian Big Pots and Little Pots—Mayors—Prefects and Deputies, Judges, Press Representatives and Inspectors-General—are engaged in Discovering England this week as ever is. It's an echo of the Entente Cordiale. Behind the badge of the International Advancement Association—I've got one!—I might drop in at one of their farewell speechifications, I believe the next's on Friday at Leamington—and heckle 'em like one o'clock! Ask 'em why women don't have the Vote in France and Belgium——""Don't they?""Nix a bit! Not for all the fuss they make about the sex. Or—to fix the scene of my maiden effort nearer home—there's a Banquet of Archbishops, Bishops and their wives at the Mansion House to-morrow night. Music just after the flesh-pots and before the speeches or after—a select company of Concert Artistes, the gemmen in boiled shirts and the usual accompaniments; the ladies in white with black sashes and black gloves. And that's where I shall come in—in white with black trimmings. Land of Hope and Glory!—when I get up and ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to plump for Female Suffrage!—or shall it be the Lord Mayor? ... Won't my Uncle Gustavus burst the buttons off his episcopal waistcoat. You've seen him. He's Bishop of Dorminster—and they fasten 'em at the back.""Let the Bishop keep his buttons on!" said Patrine, suddenly and savagely. "What the—devil does it matter whether women get the Vote? Would we keep it if we got it, or throw it away—oh! idiots—idiots!—to gratify some vulgar vanity, or some beastly sensual whim?""Gee-whillikins!" Rhona whistled shrilly in astonishment. "Why, I thought you were one of Us. Not actively militant, but a sympathiser, no end. Didn't you get our Committee in touch with Mrs. Saxham, when we'd set our hearts on having her speak at the Monster Meeting of Women we're going to have in October at the Grand Imperial Hall? She's promised to address us on Suffrage and we're all over ourselves to hear her. That last article of hers inThe National Quarterly—'The Burden of Tyre,' has collared the literary cake. People tell me who've read it that she doesn't care a hang about the Vote for Women in any other sense than that it'd open a gateway to legislation on the Sex Question of a much more drastic kind. She'd bring in a Bill to have moral offences against children dealt with by a Jury of Mothers—a lot they'd leave of the offender once they'd their claws on him!—and make it a Life Sentence every time, for the fellow who seduces a girl."Patrine listened in stony silence. Rhona chattered on. "Of course the work she does amongst those unlucky wretches—young girls and women who've come to grief—is topping. But why waste herself rescuing prostitutes and street-walkers? Aren't any of us good enough—or bad enough to interest her? I'm going to ask her that when you introduce me—remember you've promised to!"Patrine said in a voice jarred and harsh with anger:"Since your declared intention is to be offensive to Mrs. Saxham, whose shoes neither you nor myself, nor any woman of our set is worthy to unlace, I take back the promise, if it was ever given!""What's up?" Rhona turned and stared. "I say!—but you look fearfully seedy! Worried about Margot, is that it?" She was off on another tack, carried by the light shifting breeze of her imagination. "Poor little Margot!—in spite of good advice and top-hole mascots—booked for the Nursery Handicap—and out of the running for a year!""Who told you—that?—about Margot?""Melts—the head housemaid here—had it from Kittum's maid Pauline, who dropped in to fetch away some stored luggage of her ladyship's.... They've furnished a house at Cadogan Place—Margot and her Franky-wanky. West End enough, and quite exquie inside, but not as convee as the dear old Club. But—I believe I'm boring you." Her nimble glance left Patrine's face, and darted in the direction of von Herrnung. "Who's the big, good-looking, carroty man, gobbling you up with his eyes while he's talking piffle to Cynthia and Trix? Now I remember—Ihaveheard some hints of your going over to the Common Enemy." Rhona's sharp light eyes sparkled like polished gold-stones. "Is that the reason why you've bleached your hair? What a putrid shame of you! And the Enemy's a foreigner—a German! Did he give you that gorgeous ring?"Upon the third finger of Patrine's left hand was the magpie pearl set in platinum, gleaming to its wearer's fevered fancy, like some malignant demon's eye. Rhona caught the hand, and uttered a little squeak as Patrine wrenched it away. She—Patrine—was driven beyond endurance: her self-command was breaking. Her hair seemed to creep upon her tingling scalp. Down her spine and along the muscles of her thighs passed slow recurrent waves of physical anguish. She could have screamed aloud, torn her garments, set her teeth in her own flesh. But she mastered herself sufficiently to say:"I won the ring over a bet in Paris. You can see for yourself I don't wear it on the engagement left. Do not despair of me. At this moment I do not particularly esteem women. But on the other hand, I absolutely abominate men!""Hope for you then, politically speaking," said the misanthropic Rhona. "What, are you going?"Patrine had thrown aside her paper and risen, towering over her. She nodded without speaking, and went out of the smoking-room, crumpling the letter she had written in her strong white hand. She would not post it, she told herself as she passed through the outer lounge. She would go and look up Uncle Owen at Harley Street. She spoke a word to an agile hall-boy in the vestibule and he skipped out, and signalled a taxi-cab.A handsome Darracq four-seater, enamelled bright yellow and fitted in ebonized steel, was waiting by the kerbstone. As the taxi manoeuvred to get round it, von Herrnung's voice said, speaking behind Patrine:"Stop the boy, that machine will not be wanted.... I have here a car that is lent me by a friend."She turned and saw him, standing hat in hand. His tone was pleasant, and he was smiling. He went on:"He—my friend—is a Secretary of our German Embassy. He has three automobiles—why should he not lend me one?" He replaced his hat and pulled a curved gold cigar-case out of the breast-pocket of his waistcoat asking: "I may light a zigarre after these stupid cigarettes I have been smoking? It will not be unpleasant tognädiges Fräulein?"His courtesy insulted. His smile was an outrage. She controlled the trembling of her lips with difficulty. Whether he observed or not was uncertain, he seemed to busy himself solely with the selection and kindling of his cigar."Pardon that I get in first, as I shall be driving!" he said, and threw away the smoking vesta, pushed back the hall-boy who was wrestling with the door-handle, got in and took his place at the steering-wheel, beckoning to Patrine."Thanks, but I cannot.... I am going to Berkeley Square.""I will drop you at Berkeley Square." He met her eyes hardily. "You will not refuse me this pleasure, when I have not seen you since—" The slight significant pause stabbed as it had been meant to. He saw her wince, and finished: "Since two days. Will you not get in?"She took the seat beside him. He stretched his arm across her knees and shut the door neatly. She leaned back to avoid his touch, and he smiled, feeling her shudder. Her eyes were on his gloved left hand as he drew it back.He manipulated the electrical starter and the yellow Darracq moved up and out of Short Street. Patrine stared before her, sitting rigid in her place. Not once did her glance visithim. But every skilful movement of his hands upon the steering-wheel, every creak of the springy leather cushion under his great body, every tightening of his mouth or twitch of his thick red eyebrows, were photographed upon her brain.He was irreproachably got up in thin, loose grey tweed morning clothes, cut by a West End tailor, and his feather-weight grey felt hat testified to the make of Scott. His knitted silk tie, a combination of electric blue and vivid yellow, was a discordant note. Patrine was certain it must have been the work of some other woman in Berlin. The heavy flat gold ring through which the ends were drawn was set with a ruby and two diamonds, another false note that jarred her painfully. But he was looking strong and well and in admirable condition. His blue eyes were bright, his red hair and his tightly-rolled moustache glittered in the sunshine, there was a bloom of perfect health upon his florid skin.If Patrine did not look at von Herrnung, his eyes were less abstemious with regard to her. Under cover of their short red eyelashes, they scrutinised her from time to time. There was unbridled curiosity in their regard, and also a retrospective vanity, admiration, and resentment as well. She rode the high horse. She was hellishly sure of herself. Sure of von Herrnung, it might be. This passed in his mind as he said to her:"Do you know that this car has had the honour to carry the Emperor of Germany? WhenSeine Majestätpaid a visit to England in the year 1907, he used it every day."Patrine returned indifferently:"It seems to go smoothly."Von Herrnung said, as the car obeyed every motion of his practised hands upon the steering-wheel:"It is a wonderful traveller. It has been fitted with a Heinz motor, three times more powerful to its weight than any other known petrol-engine. Some journeys, I can tell you, it has had with the All Highest. Travelling incognito, driven always by a—certain young Prussian officer; then of Engineers—attached to the Personal Staff specially for this work.""I daresay you mean yourself?""That is a clever piece of guessing; I congratulate you,gnädiges Fräulein. Well, it is now no secret. I do not object to admit having been the youngLeutnantin the case. So now you know how I gained myflairfor English scenery and my violent penchant for English beauty. A weakness of which I am rather proud, since it is one the Emperor shares."The final sentence might have conveyed a jeer. But Patrine was not listening. She called to her companion: "You are driving in the wrong direction for Berkeley Square, but it does not matter. Please put me down just here at the corner of Harley Street. I can leave this letter at a house there instead of putting it in the pillar-post.""You are not getting out,gnädiges Fräulein. You are coming with me to Hendon. I have there a little business which will occupy an hour." He added with a familiarity that stung, looking at the tense white profile and the black brows knitted in anger: "You are yourself to blame that I cannot part with you. You are really as magnificent by day as by evening—with your so-gloriously-coloured hair. May I also congratulate you on the effective costume? Black and white are our Prussian colours. I take that as a personal compliment.""Take it as you like, it will not make it one.""Sehr gutig. I do not need telling. When I want things I take them. It is a habit of mine."He spoke sheer, brutal truth. Oh God! what of Patrine's had he not coveted and taken, only two horrible days ago. "So," he went on, "you will have to post your letter. I will stop at aPostammtand drop it in for you. You see, I am greedy of your society. At any moment I may be recalled to Germany. One must catch the Bird of Happiness and hold it while one can. Now tell me, is not that a pretty speech?""Extremely, but it does not alter the situation. I have a particular appointment. I cannot go to Hendon with you.""I have already told you that we are going there.Grosse Gott!" His tone was savage. "How is it that you are so confoundedly stubborn? Do you think such behaviour sensible—or wise?""I am certainly wiser than I was two days ago."He slewed his head round to look at her with a greedy curiosity. He saw the lines of face and figure grow rigid, and her bare hands clench themselves together in her lap.He glanced at her ringed hand, then transferred his regard to his own left hand, the glove upon which he had retained at the Club. The soft dressedsuédebulged as though a bandage were concealed underneath. She averted her eyes hastily as though she shunned some ugly, sickening, spectacle. He said:"I see that you honour me by wearing my mascot. The magpie pearl most excellently becomes your beautiful hand, my dear!"They had reached Regents Park Square and were turning into the Broad Walk. She plucked the ring from her bare finger, and held it out to him, saying in a low tone:"Please take it back!""I am to take it back? ... You are in earnest?"She repeated her words, holding out the bauble. He released his gloved left hand from the steering-wheel to take it. His eyes were on the road ahead and his face was hard as pink stone. But she heard him give a little sigh of relief as he slipped the ring into an inside coat-pocket. He said, as though to excuse the sigh:"It was given me in April, when I made my raid on Paris from Hanover, landing myAlbatrosonce only during two days' flight. The weather was magnificent. My engine gave no trouble. That is why I call the ring my mascot, you understand. Now that it has been worn by you, it is more precious than when I first received it. Whenever I look at it, it will speak to me of you.""Don't let it!""Why should it not speak of you? Isis! My heart's Queen!""I have told you—don't revolt me with—piffle of that kind. And don't touch me, unless you want me to jump out of the car!"A voice that he barely knew had issued from the face she turned on him—a face all violet shadows and haggard drawn lines, under the burning splendour of the dead beech-leaf hair. She vibrated like an electrified wire, and round her pale pinched mouth and about her blue-veined temples were little points of moisture, fine and glittering as diamond-dust."Am I to understand that my touch is unpleasant to you? That you are angry with me? That you do not love me any more?""Love...."She laughed out harshly, hugely disconcerting him."Lady Wathe said at that Grand Prix night dinner in Paris that you were without a sense of humour. But you must have a grain or so—to talk of love to me!"She turned her face away, and the exquisite beauty of her small white ear appealed to him provokingly. He ground his teeth. He could have thrown his arm about her, and crushed the tall, full, womanly figure against him. How superb she was in her mood of hate. The strapped-up wound in his left hand was throbbing and smarting, just as when she had writhed her head free from his furious kisses and bitten him to the bone.He had made her pay richly for her bite. He hugged himself as he remembered.... Now the sting of desire was renewed in him and he eyed her with greediness. Presently he stooped and said in her ear, coaxingly:"Let us be friends! Dine with me at the Rocroy to-night. We will have a box at the Alhambra, and sup again at the Upas. Say you will come, loved one! Will you not, Patrine?""No!""No? But I think you mean Yes! Do you not?""I have said No! Is that not enough?""You are mad!" he blustered at her—"mad as a March hare!"She answered him:"I have been mad, but I am sane now and I stay so."He said scoffingly:"You may not always remain as you are now!"If he launched a poisoned dart, its meaning glanced aside from her."Shall you not write to me when I am back in Germany? Not one line? Not one single word? Yet I have a few little notes from you that I particularly value....""Make the most of them. I shall write no more." And suddenly her hate and loathing of him reached boiling point and ran over. "My God! Can't you understand that I ask nothing better than never to see nor hear of you again!""Grossartig! You are hellishly conciliatory." His voice was thick and shook with anger. His smile mocked and the look in his eyes was hateful as he pursued in a tone that was now quite gentle and purring: "Just think a bit, my dear! Because—to burn one's boats behind one—that is not prudent at all!"She did not answer, and he drove on to Hendon, planning fresh assaults upon this unconquerable woman's pride.CHAPTER XXVTHREE MEN IN A CARWhen the yellow Darracq car turned in under the archway that advertised Fanshaw's Flying School in three-foot capitals, the name revived no associations in the mind of Patrine. She had never visited the aërodrome upon an afternoon in the mid-week, when as in the present instance practice and instruction were being carried on. The cafés, no longer crowded by smart people, were thinly patronised by bronzed young men in overalls, not innocent of lubricating medium, thirstily drinking ginger swizzle or sucking iced-lemon squashes through yellow straws. Business-looking middle-aged men discussed the market-prices of steels and timbers, dope and fabrics, over bitter beer and ham-sandwiches, while experimenting amateurs, male and female, discussed in loud, relieved voices the experiences of the premier flight. These, having been previously warned not to experiment upon a crowded system, were now ravenously putting in the solid, three-course lunches they had foregone.It was a perfect July day, hot and blue and green and golden. To the nor'-west, you glimpsed the elms and oaks and beeches of Boreham Wood, westward the chestnuts of Bushey and Stanmore in fullest summer foliage. The hawthorns of New Barnet were already browning in the sun. Hill and common were plumy with the brake-fern. Heather and ling were purpling into bloom.Still looking westwards, you snatched a glimpse of Windsor. Eastwards, a diamond set in emeralds, was the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Across the whitish-grey scarp of Highgate and the verdant shoulder of heathy Hampstead you saw the dun-coloured haze that is the breath of London, the huge, black, formidable and formless monster, as, sprawling on her ancient River, she keeps her envied place in the Sun.At the café end of Fanshaw's enclosure the Frogged Roumanian String Orchestra were playing the "Dance Rhapsody" of Delius. From a rival establishment came the brazen strains of a German band in a death-wrestle with ragtime. Behind a straggling crowd of visitors, where the cars that had brought them were parked in a double row, von Herrnung stopped the yellow Darracq, leaned across Patrine's unwilling knees and opened the car-door.As Patrine was getting out, a large hand in a white leather glove was thrust forwards for her assistance. The owner of the hand was a square-faced, fair-haired, soldierly-looking servant of the somewhat hybrid type that has replaced the carriage-groom. He wore a dark blue livery overcoat with silver braid upon collar, belt, and shoulder-straps, black knee-boots, and a white topped cap with silver braid, a shiny black peak and an enamel front badge in black, white, and red. Looking past Patrine, he saluted in military fashion and spoke to von Herrnung in German, of which language Patrine possessed a smattering:"Will theHerr Hauptmannspeak to theHerrschaft? Upon business.Er ist sehr wichtig."Von Herrnung, at the first sound of the messenger's voice, had stiffened to rigidity. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction pointed out by the big hand in the white glove, and answered:"Say to theHerrschaftthat I come!"The groom vanished. Von Herrnung jumped out of the yellow Darracq and went quickly over to the machine that had been indicated, a large, superbly-finished F.I.A.T. touring-car of the landau-limousine type, enamelled dark blue with a narrow silver line of finish. The top was open. A white-capped chauffeur in dark blue and silver livery sat immovable at the steering-wheel, and three men, only one of whom was plainly visible to Patrine, occupied the roomy body of the car.The visible man, sitting in the forward seat with his back to the motor, his baldness topped, in deference to the weather, with a white felt Newmarket, was a long-bodied, broad-shouldered personage, certainly over seventy; clean-shaven, with staring eyes of light grey tinged with bilious yellow, and skin of a prevailing yellow-grey doughiness, with a huge wart in the middle of the cheekbone on the side next to Patrine. His clothes were of yellowish-grey like his eyes and skin, his linen had a yellow line in it and a huge, crumpled vest of buff nankeen threw into relief a flaming crimson satin necktie confined within bounds by a flat jewelled ring. He had the air of an old actor of character parts, or of a libertine monk who has foregone the cord and cowled habit. Of the two men sitting facing him little could be seen beyond the peak of a gold-banded white yachting-cap pulled rather low over a bronzed and rather aquiline profile with an upward-turned moustache and slightly-grizzled beard of reddish-brown, and a Homburg straw with a broad black ribbon and a slouched brim, overshadowing the face of the man who sat on White Cap's left hand. An astute and cunning face, his; long and sallow, with narrow, blinking eyes, a drooping nose, and a drooping black moustache. With this its owner played constantly, twisting and pulling it with a delicate white hand that wore a diamond solitaire. He never looked up, when addressed by either of his companions, but raised his eyes to the speaker, and pivoted, without lifting his head.Von Herrnung's friends were nothing to Patrine, and von Herrnung's person was by now intolerable, yet her eyes unwillingly followed the tall, soldierly figure as he drew himself up, clicked his heels and uncovered. A brown hand went up to the peak of the white yachting-cap, the wearers of the straw Homburg and the felt Newmarket slightly raised their hats. Von Herrnung did not speak first, he waited bareheaded to be spoken to. When the door of the big blue car was opened by the servant at an imperious signal from the sallow man, von Herrnung got inside, and sat down beside the personage with the wart on his cheek,—leaning forwards deferentially to be addressed by the bearded wearer of the white yachting-cap, who made great play with a brown right hand that sported a heavy gold curb-chain watch-bracelet. Once the hand clenched and shook in vivacious threat or warning, very close to von Herrnung's handsome nose. That made Patrine laugh, and instantly she was angry with herself for laughing. She put up her long-sticked sunshade, turned her back upon the blue F.I.A.T. car and moved away towards the part of the enclosure where the visitors sat or promenaded, drawing eyes as she went with her spangled silver headgear twinkling in the sunshine, and its black cock's plume waving over her strangely coloured hair.So changed, so changed. She was sensible of an alteration even in her gait and gestures. A sickness of the soul weighed on her body as though she walked in invisible fetters of lead. The free space, the fresh air, seemed to yield no physical stimulus. She had bitten deep into the apple of Knowledge, and found bitterness and ashes at the core.CHAPTER XXVIA PAIR OF PALSAmong a dozen pairs of masculine eyes that followed the gallant womanly figure, crowned by the plumed hat of silver spangles and displayed in the frank unreticence of fashion by the semi-transparent sheath of glistening white, a pair very blue, very shiningly alert and interested, drew nearer until the elongated shadow of a small boy in Scout's uniform mingled upon the sunlit turf with the longer shadow of Patrine.His thumping heart had said to him: "You know her!" It was Pat and yet not Pat. Her tall, rounded figure. Her walk. The same face—and another woman's hair. The white gown and the long stole of black cock's feathers he had seen before, and the hat had previously fascinated him. He had asked Pat if it were not made of the twinkly stuff with which they covered the Bobby-dazzlers on Christmas trees? She had cried "Yes!" and assured him that she would always hereafter call it her "Bobby-dazzler chapper." ... And his Cousin Irma, whom Bawne secretly abominated, had said it was too bad to talk costermonger slang to the child. "The child." ... A man must be ready to pardon an insult from the unpunchable female. But Bawne found himself wishing that Cousin Irma had been a boy.He loved Pat. You had to love a person who could keep secrets as faithfully as Dad or Mother, and play tennis and hockey better than a great many grown-up fellows. Bowl you out at cricket, too, middle bail, before you could wink. She could cycle all day without getting knocked up, and swim a mile, easily. For these reasons Bawne knew he loved her. But he loved her most for the reasons that he did not understand."Pat!"He had screwed up his courage to touch his crusher felt and speak the name, but the tall lady with the electrifying hair did not seem to hear. Her long eyes looked at him in a blind way without seeing him. He had never kissed this frozen, stranger's face."I thought you knew me! I most awfully beg your pardon!" he stammered, in scarlet anguish, and the dull eyes suddenly came to life, and the stiff lips smiled:"It's Bawne. My sweet, I'm glad! How did you come here?""Dad brought me because he'd promised," the boy said joyously as they shook hands."Where is Uncle Owen?""Over there." Bawne pointed to two men talking apart beyond the straggling line of spectators, and Patrine recognised the great frame and scholarly stoop of the Doctor, standing with his side-face towards her, a half-consumed cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his stick, a weighty ivory-topped Malacca, loosely gripped in both hands behind his back."And the man he is talking to? Why—of course! It's Sir Roland—how is it I didn't recognise him?""The Chief Scout!" Bawne's tone was one of incredulous wonder. "But you couldn't have forgottenhim! It—isn't possible!"Nor even to a stranger did he appear a personality to be easily forgotten, the bright-eyed, falcon-beaked, middle-aged man, whose feather-weight crusher felt was worn at an inimitable angle, and whose slight, active figure set off his well-cut morning suit of thin blue serge in a way to arouse envy in a military dandy of twenty-five."You see," Bawne explained, "hewas talking business with Father, so I just took myself out of the way." He added: "They hadn't told me to, but they might have forgotten. And so"—the big word came out of the childish mouth quaintly—"I acted on my initiative—you understand?""I understand." The formal handshake once over, their fingers had not separated. She held in her large, strong, womanly palm the hand that was little, and hard, and boyish. It squeezed her fingers, and the squeeze was an apology. It said:"I'd like you to have kissed me if there hadn't been lots of people looking. For, of course, you know I love you, Pat!""And I love you, Bawne. We'll always love each other, whatever happens," said the answering pressure. Her spoken utterance was:"So these are your holidays! ... How did you leave them all at Charterhouse? And—are you still tremendous pals with young Roddy Wrynche?"He said, with a naive, adorable gravity:"Boys don't squabble like girls—and Wrynche is a frightfully decent fellow. We passed together from Shell into Under Fourth, and we've promised always to stand by each other!""Good egg! And now, how is it you're here? Has Uncle Owen given in at last about the flying?""Really and truly! Man alive!"—Bawne's characteristic expletive—"I've been up to-day in the air-'bus and—wasn't it first-class!""Honour?""Honour! Twice round the aërodrome with the Instructor—and presently I'm to have a longer flight with Mr. Sherbrand in his monoplane.""'Mr. Sherbrand' ..." Patrine repeated rather vaguely. "Sherbrand" had somehow a ring that was familiar. Bawne explained:"He's a great friend of Father's. He's splendid. A regularly topping chap!""And you've actually flown?""I've flewed—and I mean to go on with it." He repeated the assurance more sedately: "It's the profession I have chosen. They say you've got to begin young. And my legs wobbled and the ground rocked a bit when I got down on it. But I wasn't air-sick at all.""Air-sick.... Are people...?"Bawne said from the pedestal of superior knowledge:"Oh, aren't they just, like anything! The Calais-Dover steamer-crossing's nothing to it sometimes—the Instructor told me."Patrine laughed. The latest circulating-library novel,Love in the Clouds, had omitted to mention this fact. The heroine had donned an aviator's cap and pneumatic jacket, and "leapt nimbly on board" the aëroplane in half a gale of wind. As the machine dipped and rose gracefully upon the heaving element that cradled it, Enid had experienced merely a delicious exhilaration. Then a crisp moustache had brushed her rosy ear. The voice of Hubert, attuned to deepest melody of passion, had murmured in the shell-like organ of hearing: "Little girl. At last I have you! ... Mine, mine, my bride of the swan-path!—mine for ever and aye!"Bawne continued, innocently discounting further statements on the part of the author ofLove in the Clouds:"He told me before we went up, you know. Of course, when you're flying you can't hear anything but the racket of the propeller. It goes roaring through you till your bones buzz, and the very ends of your teeth hum. So the other man has to yell at you through a trumpet, or write to you on bits of paper, unless he's switched off the engine for diving, and then you don't feel like talking—that's if you're a beginner, you know.... But man alive! it's splendid. You must try it, Pat!"She declared, laughingly:"While a single flight costs a brace of my hard-earned guineas, the sport is not for me! Why haven't I got a pal like your wonderful Mr. Sherbrand? I'm getting envious—you lucky infant, you!"It didn't hurt to be called an infant by Pat, because she never would have done it in a stranger's hearing. And it was ripping to have her here, sharing his hour of joy.He told her: "Father brought me here as a reward for making a model aëroplane. Reminds me!—I've got to tell you all about that. But it's only a toy and this is the Real Thing. There's nothing worth having in the whole world," added the unconscious philosopher "unless it's real and true!""Am I not real?" Patrine asked, squeezing his shoulder."Now you are!" He said it with an effort of candour. "But when I saw you a minute ago, I wasn't—quite sure." He glanced up at her and asked shyly: "Why are you different since you have been away in Paris?""Different, how different?" She whipped her hand from his shoulder. Her black eyebrows knitted, and her face stiffened into the strange mask that had puzzled him, under the scrutiny of his clear blue eyes. "Do I seem changed?" she queried. And Bawne answered:"A little. I was afraid at first you were somebody else, because of"—he said it shyly—"because of your hair.""My hair?" she repeated blankly, and then said awkwardly: "The air of Paris did that, darling, but it will soon be its old colour again!""Will it ever be just like it was before?" asked Bawne, looking innocently up at her, and something broke in Patrine's heart just then. She gave a sudden gasping sigh, and a sudden spate of tears rolled over her thick underlids, streamed down her pale cheeks, and fell upon her broad bosom, heaving under its thin covering of filmy white voile."Pat! You're—crying!" Bawne had never yet seen his friend weep, and he was wrung between pity and bewilderment. "Who has vexed you? Who has been hurting you?" he begged, and she answered brokenly:"No one! ... Someone.... It doesn't matter!" adding: "Would you punch him, if anyone had—done as you say?""Wouldn'tI?""My sweet!" Her arm went round his slight, square shoulders. She doted on the little amber freckles on his pure, healthy skin, the little drake's tail of silky red-brown hair at the nape of his brown neck, the half-shy, half-bold curve of his mouth as he smiled, the blue sparkle of his eye glancing sidewise up at her. She found in the pure warmth and sweetness of the slight young body leaning against her, a healing, comforting balm."Why aren't you my little brother, Bawne?" she said, hugging him closer. He answered after an instant's thought:"If my mother could be your mother too, it would be jolly! Not unless! ..."He was not going to take on Mildred for anybody. Patrine sighed pensively."That's what I used to cry for when I was a little pig-tailed girl, my sonny. More than anything I wanted to belong to Aunt Lynette. But she's so young—only thirty-three. She couldn't be my mother.""No." His eyes considered her face gravely. "Of course not. You're far too old. How old are you, Cousin Pat?""How old am I?" A shudder went through her. "Nineteen in August. And I feel about a hundred and one.""That's 'cos you're not well!" His eyes were anxious and a little pucker showed between his reddish eyebrows. "You're not going to be ill—are you?" he asked in alarm."Not I!" She murmured it caressingly in her deep, soft voice. "My pet, don't worry. Everything's all right with me!—perfectly all right and O.K.! Only talk to me. Don't let me keep on thinking. Things are never so—bally rotten if you can stop brooding over them."Why did she look like that? What had somebody done to hurt her? His boyish hand clenched, the thumb well turned in over the knuckles. Instinctively Bawne knew that the Enemy, who had stamped that dreadful look of frozen misery on the face of his beloved, white as ivory or old snow in its strange setting of flaming tresses—was of his own sex.All the while, ever since Patrine had entered the gates of Panshaw's, the song of the air-screw had not been absent from her ears. The tractor of the practice-engine roared fitfully, like a tiger being prodded in its den by a spiteful keeper's meat-fork. The propellers of the double-engined passenger-buses kept up a steady droning as Fanshaw's pilots followed the pointing arms of the red, white, and blue pylons marking the limits of the air-circuit, or were silent as the machines dropped to earth within the huge white circles where a giant T indicated "Land."This was not a show day when visitors' half-crowns rattled unceasingly into the boxes at the turnstile. The rows of green-painted chairs behind the whitewashed iron railings of the spectators' enclosure were but thinly patronised by friends of people taking passenger-flights. No man with a megaphone announced events forthcoming or imminent. No white flag fell for the start, no pistol cracked signifying the conclusion of a race.Three men occupied the Judge's stand behind the Committee enclosure. One, small and dapper, in a frock-coat and topper, kept his eye on what was probably a stop-watch. Another, stout, bearded, and straw-hatted, was absorbedly gazing at the sky through a big pair of Zeiss binoculars. The third, in the uniform of a commissionaire, was an employé of the School. No one manifested any particular interest in them or their occupation. The sparse general public were not enlightened as to the reason of their presence on the Judge's stand."Talk," Patrine said, clinging to Bawne, her slender plank in moral shipwreck. "Tell me what Sir Roland and the Doctor are waiting to see. What is that thin man doing with the stop-watch and the note-book? And the fat gentleman beside him, who never leaves off staring at the sky through those big field-glasses. Nothing is billed to happen—there are no numbers up on the pylons—yet something seems to be going on!""Rather!"The boy broke into a little gurgle of excited laughter, and began to dance up and down under the arm that rested on his neck."Rather! Didn't you know? How funny! Why, man alive, we're waiting forhim!""For him?""For Mr. Sherbrand. Father's friend. The Flying Man I've told you about.""Mr.—— Where is he?" Patrine asked vaguely, looking all about her. In the tumult of her thoughts the name that had been upon a crumpled card suggested no association with that so rapturously uttered by the boy."There!" Bawne pointed upwards with another of the excited laughs. "Carrying out a hovering-test. The man with the stop-watch is timing him, and the other with the binnocs is observing him. He's French—no end of an official swell! The French Government sent him," went on the boy, with infinite relish, "to see Mr. Sherbrand test his invention. He thought they didn't catch on, but the hoverer has fetched them. If he hovers for twenty minutes, ten thousand feet up, his fortune's made!—I heard a fellow say so to the Instructor. Man alive! isn't it topping that you and I should be here to-day!"
CHAPTER XXIV
DISILLUSION
Rhona Helvellyn came stalking in, looked round, recognised Patrine, came over and dropped down beside her on the divan, full to the brim of the invariable subject, and suffering to talk.
Through the good offices of a legal pal she had got in to hear the Suffragette Trial at the Old Bailey that day. Fan Braid and Kitty Neek had been frightfully plucky. Full of grit and vim, in spite of the six weeks' hunger-strike. Began shrieking like Jimmy O! the moment they were brought into the dock by the warders and wardresses. On being rebuked by the Judge, Fan had bunked a bundle of pamphlets at the head of his lordship, catching the Clerk of the Court, who was seated immediately underneath the Bench, no end of a biff in the eye.
"And then?"
Patrine heard a strange voice from her own stiff lips asking the question.
"Then both of 'em were removed from the Dock. It was done—in time!" Rhona's light eyes danced with enjoyment. "Such a scrimmage! Such a rumpus! Took three men and a woman to tackle each of 'em. We could hear 'em giving tongue all the way down to the cells. Then they had to go on with the Trial without 'em." She chuckled. "You may guess there were a lot of us at the back of the Court waiting—just for that! Perfect wadge all together. Hell and trimmings when we started. They had to eject us before they could jog on with their gay old summing-up!"
"But in the end they got through?" The weary voice was so unlike Patrine's that she wondered why Rhona did not jump and stare at her. But Rhona was mounted on her hobby-horse, and unobservant of other things.
"Through right enough! And Fan and Kitty—" Rhona screwed up her lips into the shape of a whistle, and winked away a tear that hung on one of her fair eyelashes; "It's too brutal! Three months each, and poor little Kitty dying of lung-trouble. They only brought her back from Davos in May. That riles me!" She clenched her hands fiercely and went on, cautiously lowering her tone: "So far I've taken no active share in any Militant Demonstration. Partly because I'd be wiped off the Club books if I got spouting in public, or was mixed up in any police-court business, partly because I'm funky—there's the word! But at last I'm wound up! It was Kitty's little peaky-white face did it! ... She—she broke a blood-vessel as the warders were carrying her down to the cells."
A sob choked Rhona's voice, and a spasm of misery wrenched her. She controlled herself. She was deadly in earnest—wound up to go, as she had said. She went on, talking rapidly, in a tone that only reached the ear it had been meant for. How many such secret disclosures the Club divan had known.
"I've thought.... A regular swarm of Distinguished French and Belgian Big Pots and Little Pots—Mayors—Prefects and Deputies, Judges, Press Representatives and Inspectors-General—are engaged in Discovering England this week as ever is. It's an echo of the Entente Cordiale. Behind the badge of the International Advancement Association—I've got one!—I might drop in at one of their farewell speechifications, I believe the next's on Friday at Leamington—and heckle 'em like one o'clock! Ask 'em why women don't have the Vote in France and Belgium——"
"Don't they?"
"Nix a bit! Not for all the fuss they make about the sex. Or—to fix the scene of my maiden effort nearer home—there's a Banquet of Archbishops, Bishops and their wives at the Mansion House to-morrow night. Music just after the flesh-pots and before the speeches or after—a select company of Concert Artistes, the gemmen in boiled shirts and the usual accompaniments; the ladies in white with black sashes and black gloves. And that's where I shall come in—in white with black trimmings. Land of Hope and Glory!—when I get up and ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to plump for Female Suffrage!—or shall it be the Lord Mayor? ... Won't my Uncle Gustavus burst the buttons off his episcopal waistcoat. You've seen him. He's Bishop of Dorminster—and they fasten 'em at the back."
"Let the Bishop keep his buttons on!" said Patrine, suddenly and savagely. "What the—devil does it matter whether women get the Vote? Would we keep it if we got it, or throw it away—oh! idiots—idiots!—to gratify some vulgar vanity, or some beastly sensual whim?"
"Gee-whillikins!" Rhona whistled shrilly in astonishment. "Why, I thought you were one of Us. Not actively militant, but a sympathiser, no end. Didn't you get our Committee in touch with Mrs. Saxham, when we'd set our hearts on having her speak at the Monster Meeting of Women we're going to have in October at the Grand Imperial Hall? She's promised to address us on Suffrage and we're all over ourselves to hear her. That last article of hers inThe National Quarterly—'The Burden of Tyre,' has collared the literary cake. People tell me who've read it that she doesn't care a hang about the Vote for Women in any other sense than that it'd open a gateway to legislation on the Sex Question of a much more drastic kind. She'd bring in a Bill to have moral offences against children dealt with by a Jury of Mothers—a lot they'd leave of the offender once they'd their claws on him!—and make it a Life Sentence every time, for the fellow who seduces a girl."
Patrine listened in stony silence. Rhona chattered on. "Of course the work she does amongst those unlucky wretches—young girls and women who've come to grief—is topping. But why waste herself rescuing prostitutes and street-walkers? Aren't any of us good enough—or bad enough to interest her? I'm going to ask her that when you introduce me—remember you've promised to!"
Patrine said in a voice jarred and harsh with anger:
"Since your declared intention is to be offensive to Mrs. Saxham, whose shoes neither you nor myself, nor any woman of our set is worthy to unlace, I take back the promise, if it was ever given!"
"What's up?" Rhona turned and stared. "I say!—but you look fearfully seedy! Worried about Margot, is that it?" She was off on another tack, carried by the light shifting breeze of her imagination. "Poor little Margot!—in spite of good advice and top-hole mascots—booked for the Nursery Handicap—and out of the running for a year!"
"Who told you—that?—about Margot?"
"Melts—the head housemaid here—had it from Kittum's maid Pauline, who dropped in to fetch away some stored luggage of her ladyship's.... They've furnished a house at Cadogan Place—Margot and her Franky-wanky. West End enough, and quite exquie inside, but not as convee as the dear old Club. But—I believe I'm boring you." Her nimble glance left Patrine's face, and darted in the direction of von Herrnung. "Who's the big, good-looking, carroty man, gobbling you up with his eyes while he's talking piffle to Cynthia and Trix? Now I remember—Ihaveheard some hints of your going over to the Common Enemy." Rhona's sharp light eyes sparkled like polished gold-stones. "Is that the reason why you've bleached your hair? What a putrid shame of you! And the Enemy's a foreigner—a German! Did he give you that gorgeous ring?"
Upon the third finger of Patrine's left hand was the magpie pearl set in platinum, gleaming to its wearer's fevered fancy, like some malignant demon's eye. Rhona caught the hand, and uttered a little squeak as Patrine wrenched it away. She—Patrine—was driven beyond endurance: her self-command was breaking. Her hair seemed to creep upon her tingling scalp. Down her spine and along the muscles of her thighs passed slow recurrent waves of physical anguish. She could have screamed aloud, torn her garments, set her teeth in her own flesh. But she mastered herself sufficiently to say:
"I won the ring over a bet in Paris. You can see for yourself I don't wear it on the engagement left. Do not despair of me. At this moment I do not particularly esteem women. But on the other hand, I absolutely abominate men!"
"Hope for you then, politically speaking," said the misanthropic Rhona. "What, are you going?"
Patrine had thrown aside her paper and risen, towering over her. She nodded without speaking, and went out of the smoking-room, crumpling the letter she had written in her strong white hand. She would not post it, she told herself as she passed through the outer lounge. She would go and look up Uncle Owen at Harley Street. She spoke a word to an agile hall-boy in the vestibule and he skipped out, and signalled a taxi-cab.
A handsome Darracq four-seater, enamelled bright yellow and fitted in ebonized steel, was waiting by the kerbstone. As the taxi manoeuvred to get round it, von Herrnung's voice said, speaking behind Patrine:
"Stop the boy, that machine will not be wanted.... I have here a car that is lent me by a friend."
She turned and saw him, standing hat in hand. His tone was pleasant, and he was smiling. He went on:
"He—my friend—is a Secretary of our German Embassy. He has three automobiles—why should he not lend me one?" He replaced his hat and pulled a curved gold cigar-case out of the breast-pocket of his waistcoat asking: "I may light a zigarre after these stupid cigarettes I have been smoking? It will not be unpleasant tognädiges Fräulein?"
His courtesy insulted. His smile was an outrage. She controlled the trembling of her lips with difficulty. Whether he observed or not was uncertain, he seemed to busy himself solely with the selection and kindling of his cigar.
"Pardon that I get in first, as I shall be driving!" he said, and threw away the smoking vesta, pushed back the hall-boy who was wrestling with the door-handle, got in and took his place at the steering-wheel, beckoning to Patrine.
"Thanks, but I cannot.... I am going to Berkeley Square."
"I will drop you at Berkeley Square." He met her eyes hardily. "You will not refuse me this pleasure, when I have not seen you since—" The slight significant pause stabbed as it had been meant to. He saw her wince, and finished: "Since two days. Will you not get in?"
She took the seat beside him. He stretched his arm across her knees and shut the door neatly. She leaned back to avoid his touch, and he smiled, feeling her shudder. Her eyes were on his gloved left hand as he drew it back.
He manipulated the electrical starter and the yellow Darracq moved up and out of Short Street. Patrine stared before her, sitting rigid in her place. Not once did her glance visithim. But every skilful movement of his hands upon the steering-wheel, every creak of the springy leather cushion under his great body, every tightening of his mouth or twitch of his thick red eyebrows, were photographed upon her brain.
He was irreproachably got up in thin, loose grey tweed morning clothes, cut by a West End tailor, and his feather-weight grey felt hat testified to the make of Scott. His knitted silk tie, a combination of electric blue and vivid yellow, was a discordant note. Patrine was certain it must have been the work of some other woman in Berlin. The heavy flat gold ring through which the ends were drawn was set with a ruby and two diamonds, another false note that jarred her painfully. But he was looking strong and well and in admirable condition. His blue eyes were bright, his red hair and his tightly-rolled moustache glittered in the sunshine, there was a bloom of perfect health upon his florid skin.
If Patrine did not look at von Herrnung, his eyes were less abstemious with regard to her. Under cover of their short red eyelashes, they scrutinised her from time to time. There was unbridled curiosity in their regard, and also a retrospective vanity, admiration, and resentment as well. She rode the high horse. She was hellishly sure of herself. Sure of von Herrnung, it might be. This passed in his mind as he said to her:
"Do you know that this car has had the honour to carry the Emperor of Germany? WhenSeine Majestätpaid a visit to England in the year 1907, he used it every day."
Patrine returned indifferently:
"It seems to go smoothly."
Von Herrnung said, as the car obeyed every motion of his practised hands upon the steering-wheel:
"It is a wonderful traveller. It has been fitted with a Heinz motor, three times more powerful to its weight than any other known petrol-engine. Some journeys, I can tell you, it has had with the All Highest. Travelling incognito, driven always by a—certain young Prussian officer; then of Engineers—attached to the Personal Staff specially for this work."
"I daresay you mean yourself?"
"That is a clever piece of guessing; I congratulate you,gnädiges Fräulein. Well, it is now no secret. I do not object to admit having been the youngLeutnantin the case. So now you know how I gained myflairfor English scenery and my violent penchant for English beauty. A weakness of which I am rather proud, since it is one the Emperor shares."
The final sentence might have conveyed a jeer. But Patrine was not listening. She called to her companion: "You are driving in the wrong direction for Berkeley Square, but it does not matter. Please put me down just here at the corner of Harley Street. I can leave this letter at a house there instead of putting it in the pillar-post."
"You are not getting out,gnädiges Fräulein. You are coming with me to Hendon. I have there a little business which will occupy an hour." He added with a familiarity that stung, looking at the tense white profile and the black brows knitted in anger: "You are yourself to blame that I cannot part with you. You are really as magnificent by day as by evening—with your so-gloriously-coloured hair. May I also congratulate you on the effective costume? Black and white are our Prussian colours. I take that as a personal compliment."
"Take it as you like, it will not make it one."
"Sehr gutig. I do not need telling. When I want things I take them. It is a habit of mine."
He spoke sheer, brutal truth. Oh God! what of Patrine's had he not coveted and taken, only two horrible days ago. "So," he went on, "you will have to post your letter. I will stop at aPostammtand drop it in for you. You see, I am greedy of your society. At any moment I may be recalled to Germany. One must catch the Bird of Happiness and hold it while one can. Now tell me, is not that a pretty speech?"
"Extremely, but it does not alter the situation. I have a particular appointment. I cannot go to Hendon with you."
"I have already told you that we are going there.Grosse Gott!" His tone was savage. "How is it that you are so confoundedly stubborn? Do you think such behaviour sensible—or wise?"
"I am certainly wiser than I was two days ago."
He slewed his head round to look at her with a greedy curiosity. He saw the lines of face and figure grow rigid, and her bare hands clench themselves together in her lap.
He glanced at her ringed hand, then transferred his regard to his own left hand, the glove upon which he had retained at the Club. The soft dressedsuédebulged as though a bandage were concealed underneath. She averted her eyes hastily as though she shunned some ugly, sickening, spectacle. He said:
"I see that you honour me by wearing my mascot. The magpie pearl most excellently becomes your beautiful hand, my dear!"
They had reached Regents Park Square and were turning into the Broad Walk. She plucked the ring from her bare finger, and held it out to him, saying in a low tone:
"Please take it back!"
"I am to take it back? ... You are in earnest?"
She repeated her words, holding out the bauble. He released his gloved left hand from the steering-wheel to take it. His eyes were on the road ahead and his face was hard as pink stone. But she heard him give a little sigh of relief as he slipped the ring into an inside coat-pocket. He said, as though to excuse the sigh:
"It was given me in April, when I made my raid on Paris from Hanover, landing myAlbatrosonce only during two days' flight. The weather was magnificent. My engine gave no trouble. That is why I call the ring my mascot, you understand. Now that it has been worn by you, it is more precious than when I first received it. Whenever I look at it, it will speak to me of you."
"Don't let it!"
"Why should it not speak of you? Isis! My heart's Queen!"
"I have told you—don't revolt me with—piffle of that kind. And don't touch me, unless you want me to jump out of the car!"
A voice that he barely knew had issued from the face she turned on him—a face all violet shadows and haggard drawn lines, under the burning splendour of the dead beech-leaf hair. She vibrated like an electrified wire, and round her pale pinched mouth and about her blue-veined temples were little points of moisture, fine and glittering as diamond-dust.
"Am I to understand that my touch is unpleasant to you? That you are angry with me? That you do not love me any more?"
"Love...."
She laughed out harshly, hugely disconcerting him.
"Lady Wathe said at that Grand Prix night dinner in Paris that you were without a sense of humour. But you must have a grain or so—to talk of love to me!"
She turned her face away, and the exquisite beauty of her small white ear appealed to him provokingly. He ground his teeth. He could have thrown his arm about her, and crushed the tall, full, womanly figure against him. How superb she was in her mood of hate. The strapped-up wound in his left hand was throbbing and smarting, just as when she had writhed her head free from his furious kisses and bitten him to the bone.
He had made her pay richly for her bite. He hugged himself as he remembered.... Now the sting of desire was renewed in him and he eyed her with greediness. Presently he stooped and said in her ear, coaxingly:
"Let us be friends! Dine with me at the Rocroy to-night. We will have a box at the Alhambra, and sup again at the Upas. Say you will come, loved one! Will you not, Patrine?"
"No!"
"No? But I think you mean Yes! Do you not?"
"I have said No! Is that not enough?"
"You are mad!" he blustered at her—"mad as a March hare!"
She answered him:
"I have been mad, but I am sane now and I stay so."
He said scoffingly:
"You may not always remain as you are now!"
If he launched a poisoned dart, its meaning glanced aside from her.
"Shall you not write to me when I am back in Germany? Not one line? Not one single word? Yet I have a few little notes from you that I particularly value...."
"Make the most of them. I shall write no more." And suddenly her hate and loathing of him reached boiling point and ran over. "My God! Can't you understand that I ask nothing better than never to see nor hear of you again!"
"Grossartig! You are hellishly conciliatory." His voice was thick and shook with anger. His smile mocked and the look in his eyes was hateful as he pursued in a tone that was now quite gentle and purring: "Just think a bit, my dear! Because—to burn one's boats behind one—that is not prudent at all!"
She did not answer, and he drove on to Hendon, planning fresh assaults upon this unconquerable woman's pride.
CHAPTER XXV
THREE MEN IN A CAR
When the yellow Darracq car turned in under the archway that advertised Fanshaw's Flying School in three-foot capitals, the name revived no associations in the mind of Patrine. She had never visited the aërodrome upon an afternoon in the mid-week, when as in the present instance practice and instruction were being carried on. The cafés, no longer crowded by smart people, were thinly patronised by bronzed young men in overalls, not innocent of lubricating medium, thirstily drinking ginger swizzle or sucking iced-lemon squashes through yellow straws. Business-looking middle-aged men discussed the market-prices of steels and timbers, dope and fabrics, over bitter beer and ham-sandwiches, while experimenting amateurs, male and female, discussed in loud, relieved voices the experiences of the premier flight. These, having been previously warned not to experiment upon a crowded system, were now ravenously putting in the solid, three-course lunches they had foregone.
It was a perfect July day, hot and blue and green and golden. To the nor'-west, you glimpsed the elms and oaks and beeches of Boreham Wood, westward the chestnuts of Bushey and Stanmore in fullest summer foliage. The hawthorns of New Barnet were already browning in the sun. Hill and common were plumy with the brake-fern. Heather and ling were purpling into bloom.
Still looking westwards, you snatched a glimpse of Windsor. Eastwards, a diamond set in emeralds, was the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Across the whitish-grey scarp of Highgate and the verdant shoulder of heathy Hampstead you saw the dun-coloured haze that is the breath of London, the huge, black, formidable and formless monster, as, sprawling on her ancient River, she keeps her envied place in the Sun.
At the café end of Fanshaw's enclosure the Frogged Roumanian String Orchestra were playing the "Dance Rhapsody" of Delius. From a rival establishment came the brazen strains of a German band in a death-wrestle with ragtime. Behind a straggling crowd of visitors, where the cars that had brought them were parked in a double row, von Herrnung stopped the yellow Darracq, leaned across Patrine's unwilling knees and opened the car-door.
As Patrine was getting out, a large hand in a white leather glove was thrust forwards for her assistance. The owner of the hand was a square-faced, fair-haired, soldierly-looking servant of the somewhat hybrid type that has replaced the carriage-groom. He wore a dark blue livery overcoat with silver braid upon collar, belt, and shoulder-straps, black knee-boots, and a white topped cap with silver braid, a shiny black peak and an enamel front badge in black, white, and red. Looking past Patrine, he saluted in military fashion and spoke to von Herrnung in German, of which language Patrine possessed a smattering:
"Will theHerr Hauptmannspeak to theHerrschaft? Upon business.Er ist sehr wichtig."
Von Herrnung, at the first sound of the messenger's voice, had stiffened to rigidity. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction pointed out by the big hand in the white glove, and answered:
"Say to theHerrschaftthat I come!"
The groom vanished. Von Herrnung jumped out of the yellow Darracq and went quickly over to the machine that had been indicated, a large, superbly-finished F.I.A.T. touring-car of the landau-limousine type, enamelled dark blue with a narrow silver line of finish. The top was open. A white-capped chauffeur in dark blue and silver livery sat immovable at the steering-wheel, and three men, only one of whom was plainly visible to Patrine, occupied the roomy body of the car.
The visible man, sitting in the forward seat with his back to the motor, his baldness topped, in deference to the weather, with a white felt Newmarket, was a long-bodied, broad-shouldered personage, certainly over seventy; clean-shaven, with staring eyes of light grey tinged with bilious yellow, and skin of a prevailing yellow-grey doughiness, with a huge wart in the middle of the cheekbone on the side next to Patrine. His clothes were of yellowish-grey like his eyes and skin, his linen had a yellow line in it and a huge, crumpled vest of buff nankeen threw into relief a flaming crimson satin necktie confined within bounds by a flat jewelled ring. He had the air of an old actor of character parts, or of a libertine monk who has foregone the cord and cowled habit. Of the two men sitting facing him little could be seen beyond the peak of a gold-banded white yachting-cap pulled rather low over a bronzed and rather aquiline profile with an upward-turned moustache and slightly-grizzled beard of reddish-brown, and a Homburg straw with a broad black ribbon and a slouched brim, overshadowing the face of the man who sat on White Cap's left hand. An astute and cunning face, his; long and sallow, with narrow, blinking eyes, a drooping nose, and a drooping black moustache. With this its owner played constantly, twisting and pulling it with a delicate white hand that wore a diamond solitaire. He never looked up, when addressed by either of his companions, but raised his eyes to the speaker, and pivoted, without lifting his head.
Von Herrnung's friends were nothing to Patrine, and von Herrnung's person was by now intolerable, yet her eyes unwillingly followed the tall, soldierly figure as he drew himself up, clicked his heels and uncovered. A brown hand went up to the peak of the white yachting-cap, the wearers of the straw Homburg and the felt Newmarket slightly raised their hats. Von Herrnung did not speak first, he waited bareheaded to be spoken to. When the door of the big blue car was opened by the servant at an imperious signal from the sallow man, von Herrnung got inside, and sat down beside the personage with the wart on his cheek,—leaning forwards deferentially to be addressed by the bearded wearer of the white yachting-cap, who made great play with a brown right hand that sported a heavy gold curb-chain watch-bracelet. Once the hand clenched and shook in vivacious threat or warning, very close to von Herrnung's handsome nose. That made Patrine laugh, and instantly she was angry with herself for laughing. She put up her long-sticked sunshade, turned her back upon the blue F.I.A.T. car and moved away towards the part of the enclosure where the visitors sat or promenaded, drawing eyes as she went with her spangled silver headgear twinkling in the sunshine, and its black cock's plume waving over her strangely coloured hair.
So changed, so changed. She was sensible of an alteration even in her gait and gestures. A sickness of the soul weighed on her body as though she walked in invisible fetters of lead. The free space, the fresh air, seemed to yield no physical stimulus. She had bitten deep into the apple of Knowledge, and found bitterness and ashes at the core.
CHAPTER XXVI
A PAIR OF PALS
Among a dozen pairs of masculine eyes that followed the gallant womanly figure, crowned by the plumed hat of silver spangles and displayed in the frank unreticence of fashion by the semi-transparent sheath of glistening white, a pair very blue, very shiningly alert and interested, drew nearer until the elongated shadow of a small boy in Scout's uniform mingled upon the sunlit turf with the longer shadow of Patrine.
His thumping heart had said to him: "You know her!" It was Pat and yet not Pat. Her tall, rounded figure. Her walk. The same face—and another woman's hair. The white gown and the long stole of black cock's feathers he had seen before, and the hat had previously fascinated him. He had asked Pat if it were not made of the twinkly stuff with which they covered the Bobby-dazzlers on Christmas trees? She had cried "Yes!" and assured him that she would always hereafter call it her "Bobby-dazzler chapper." ... And his Cousin Irma, whom Bawne secretly abominated, had said it was too bad to talk costermonger slang to the child. "The child." ... A man must be ready to pardon an insult from the unpunchable female. But Bawne found himself wishing that Cousin Irma had been a boy.
He loved Pat. You had to love a person who could keep secrets as faithfully as Dad or Mother, and play tennis and hockey better than a great many grown-up fellows. Bowl you out at cricket, too, middle bail, before you could wink. She could cycle all day without getting knocked up, and swim a mile, easily. For these reasons Bawne knew he loved her. But he loved her most for the reasons that he did not understand.
"Pat!"
He had screwed up his courage to touch his crusher felt and speak the name, but the tall lady with the electrifying hair did not seem to hear. Her long eyes looked at him in a blind way without seeing him. He had never kissed this frozen, stranger's face.
"I thought you knew me! I most awfully beg your pardon!" he stammered, in scarlet anguish, and the dull eyes suddenly came to life, and the stiff lips smiled:
"It's Bawne. My sweet, I'm glad! How did you come here?"
"Dad brought me because he'd promised," the boy said joyously as they shook hands.
"Where is Uncle Owen?"
"Over there." Bawne pointed to two men talking apart beyond the straggling line of spectators, and Patrine recognised the great frame and scholarly stoop of the Doctor, standing with his side-face towards her, a half-consumed cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his stick, a weighty ivory-topped Malacca, loosely gripped in both hands behind his back.
"And the man he is talking to? Why—of course! It's Sir Roland—how is it I didn't recognise him?"
"The Chief Scout!" Bawne's tone was one of incredulous wonder. "But you couldn't have forgottenhim! It—isn't possible!"
Nor even to a stranger did he appear a personality to be easily forgotten, the bright-eyed, falcon-beaked, middle-aged man, whose feather-weight crusher felt was worn at an inimitable angle, and whose slight, active figure set off his well-cut morning suit of thin blue serge in a way to arouse envy in a military dandy of twenty-five.
"You see," Bawne explained, "hewas talking business with Father, so I just took myself out of the way." He added: "They hadn't told me to, but they might have forgotten. And so"—the big word came out of the childish mouth quaintly—"I acted on my initiative—you understand?"
"I understand." The formal handshake once over, their fingers had not separated. She held in her large, strong, womanly palm the hand that was little, and hard, and boyish. It squeezed her fingers, and the squeeze was an apology. It said:
"I'd like you to have kissed me if there hadn't been lots of people looking. For, of course, you know I love you, Pat!"
"And I love you, Bawne. We'll always love each other, whatever happens," said the answering pressure. Her spoken utterance was:
"So these are your holidays! ... How did you leave them all at Charterhouse? And—are you still tremendous pals with young Roddy Wrynche?"
He said, with a naive, adorable gravity:
"Boys don't squabble like girls—and Wrynche is a frightfully decent fellow. We passed together from Shell into Under Fourth, and we've promised always to stand by each other!"
"Good egg! And now, how is it you're here? Has Uncle Owen given in at last about the flying?"
"Really and truly! Man alive!"—Bawne's characteristic expletive—"I've been up to-day in the air-'bus and—wasn't it first-class!"
"Honour?"
"Honour! Twice round the aërodrome with the Instructor—and presently I'm to have a longer flight with Mr. Sherbrand in his monoplane."
"'Mr. Sherbrand' ..." Patrine repeated rather vaguely. "Sherbrand" had somehow a ring that was familiar. Bawne explained:
"He's a great friend of Father's. He's splendid. A regularly topping chap!"
"And you've actually flown?"
"I've flewed—and I mean to go on with it." He repeated the assurance more sedately: "It's the profession I have chosen. They say you've got to begin young. And my legs wobbled and the ground rocked a bit when I got down on it. But I wasn't air-sick at all."
"Air-sick.... Are people...?"
Bawne said from the pedestal of superior knowledge:
"Oh, aren't they just, like anything! The Calais-Dover steamer-crossing's nothing to it sometimes—the Instructor told me."
Patrine laughed. The latest circulating-library novel,Love in the Clouds, had omitted to mention this fact. The heroine had donned an aviator's cap and pneumatic jacket, and "leapt nimbly on board" the aëroplane in half a gale of wind. As the machine dipped and rose gracefully upon the heaving element that cradled it, Enid had experienced merely a delicious exhilaration. Then a crisp moustache had brushed her rosy ear. The voice of Hubert, attuned to deepest melody of passion, had murmured in the shell-like organ of hearing: "Little girl. At last I have you! ... Mine, mine, my bride of the swan-path!—mine for ever and aye!"
Bawne continued, innocently discounting further statements on the part of the author ofLove in the Clouds:
"He told me before we went up, you know. Of course, when you're flying you can't hear anything but the racket of the propeller. It goes roaring through you till your bones buzz, and the very ends of your teeth hum. So the other man has to yell at you through a trumpet, or write to you on bits of paper, unless he's switched off the engine for diving, and then you don't feel like talking—that's if you're a beginner, you know.... But man alive! it's splendid. You must try it, Pat!"
She declared, laughingly:
"While a single flight costs a brace of my hard-earned guineas, the sport is not for me! Why haven't I got a pal like your wonderful Mr. Sherbrand? I'm getting envious—you lucky infant, you!"
It didn't hurt to be called an infant by Pat, because she never would have done it in a stranger's hearing. And it was ripping to have her here, sharing his hour of joy.
He told her: "Father brought me here as a reward for making a model aëroplane. Reminds me!—I've got to tell you all about that. But it's only a toy and this is the Real Thing. There's nothing worth having in the whole world," added the unconscious philosopher "unless it's real and true!"
"Am I not real?" Patrine asked, squeezing his shoulder.
"Now you are!" He said it with an effort of candour. "But when I saw you a minute ago, I wasn't—quite sure." He glanced up at her and asked shyly: "Why are you different since you have been away in Paris?"
"Different, how different?" She whipped her hand from his shoulder. Her black eyebrows knitted, and her face stiffened into the strange mask that had puzzled him, under the scrutiny of his clear blue eyes. "Do I seem changed?" she queried. And Bawne answered:
"A little. I was afraid at first you were somebody else, because of"—he said it shyly—"because of your hair."
"My hair?" she repeated blankly, and then said awkwardly: "The air of Paris did that, darling, but it will soon be its old colour again!"
"Will it ever be just like it was before?" asked Bawne, looking innocently up at her, and something broke in Patrine's heart just then. She gave a sudden gasping sigh, and a sudden spate of tears rolled over her thick underlids, streamed down her pale cheeks, and fell upon her broad bosom, heaving under its thin covering of filmy white voile.
"Pat! You're—crying!" Bawne had never yet seen his friend weep, and he was wrung between pity and bewilderment. "Who has vexed you? Who has been hurting you?" he begged, and she answered brokenly:
"No one! ... Someone.... It doesn't matter!" adding: "Would you punch him, if anyone had—done as you say?"
"Wouldn'tI?"
"My sweet!" Her arm went round his slight, square shoulders. She doted on the little amber freckles on his pure, healthy skin, the little drake's tail of silky red-brown hair at the nape of his brown neck, the half-shy, half-bold curve of his mouth as he smiled, the blue sparkle of his eye glancing sidewise up at her. She found in the pure warmth and sweetness of the slight young body leaning against her, a healing, comforting balm.
"Why aren't you my little brother, Bawne?" she said, hugging him closer. He answered after an instant's thought:
"If my mother could be your mother too, it would be jolly! Not unless! ..."
He was not going to take on Mildred for anybody. Patrine sighed pensively.
"That's what I used to cry for when I was a little pig-tailed girl, my sonny. More than anything I wanted to belong to Aunt Lynette. But she's so young—only thirty-three. She couldn't be my mother."
"No." His eyes considered her face gravely. "Of course not. You're far too old. How old are you, Cousin Pat?"
"How old am I?" A shudder went through her. "Nineteen in August. And I feel about a hundred and one."
"That's 'cos you're not well!" His eyes were anxious and a little pucker showed between his reddish eyebrows. "You're not going to be ill—are you?" he asked in alarm.
"Not I!" She murmured it caressingly in her deep, soft voice. "My pet, don't worry. Everything's all right with me!—perfectly all right and O.K.! Only talk to me. Don't let me keep on thinking. Things are never so—bally rotten if you can stop brooding over them."
Why did she look like that? What had somebody done to hurt her? His boyish hand clenched, the thumb well turned in over the knuckles. Instinctively Bawne knew that the Enemy, who had stamped that dreadful look of frozen misery on the face of his beloved, white as ivory or old snow in its strange setting of flaming tresses—was of his own sex.
All the while, ever since Patrine had entered the gates of Panshaw's, the song of the air-screw had not been absent from her ears. The tractor of the practice-engine roared fitfully, like a tiger being prodded in its den by a spiteful keeper's meat-fork. The propellers of the double-engined passenger-buses kept up a steady droning as Fanshaw's pilots followed the pointing arms of the red, white, and blue pylons marking the limits of the air-circuit, or were silent as the machines dropped to earth within the huge white circles where a giant T indicated "Land."
This was not a show day when visitors' half-crowns rattled unceasingly into the boxes at the turnstile. The rows of green-painted chairs behind the whitewashed iron railings of the spectators' enclosure were but thinly patronised by friends of people taking passenger-flights. No man with a megaphone announced events forthcoming or imminent. No white flag fell for the start, no pistol cracked signifying the conclusion of a race.
Three men occupied the Judge's stand behind the Committee enclosure. One, small and dapper, in a frock-coat and topper, kept his eye on what was probably a stop-watch. Another, stout, bearded, and straw-hatted, was absorbedly gazing at the sky through a big pair of Zeiss binoculars. The third, in the uniform of a commissionaire, was an employé of the School. No one manifested any particular interest in them or their occupation. The sparse general public were not enlightened as to the reason of their presence on the Judge's stand.
"Talk," Patrine said, clinging to Bawne, her slender plank in moral shipwreck. "Tell me what Sir Roland and the Doctor are waiting to see. What is that thin man doing with the stop-watch and the note-book? And the fat gentleman beside him, who never leaves off staring at the sky through those big field-glasses. Nothing is billed to happen—there are no numbers up on the pylons—yet something seems to be going on!"
"Rather!"
The boy broke into a little gurgle of excited laughter, and began to dance up and down under the arm that rested on his neck.
"Rather! Didn't you know? How funny! Why, man alive, we're waiting forhim!"
"For him?"
"For Mr. Sherbrand. Father's friend. The Flying Man I've told you about."
"Mr.—— Where is he?" Patrine asked vaguely, looking all about her. In the tumult of her thoughts the name that had been upon a crumpled card suggested no association with that so rapturously uttered by the boy.
"There!" Bawne pointed upwards with another of the excited laughs. "Carrying out a hovering-test. The man with the stop-watch is timing him, and the other with the binnocs is observing him. He's French—no end of an official swell! The French Government sent him," went on the boy, with infinite relish, "to see Mr. Sherbrand test his invention. He thought they didn't catch on, but the hoverer has fetched them. If he hovers for twenty minutes, ten thousand feet up, his fortune's made!—I heard a fellow say so to the Instructor. Man alive! isn't it topping that you and I should be here to-day!"