"A is happy, oh, so happy!A is happy, B is not."Gilbert.
"A is happy, oh, so happy!A is happy, B is not."
Gilbert.
The words of Golden remained with her friend all the way back to Wembley Park, down the Drive of little red-roofed villas, and up the short-flagged path between the standard rose-bushes that led to her Aunt's front door.
Olwen took her latch-key from her bag and let herself in; as she did so she heard the voice of the Aunt from the sitting-room, "Is that you, dear?"
"Yes! I'll be down in a minute," she called back, and ran straight upstairs to the bedroom with the pink-curtained window that overlooked the back lawn.
She wanted to be alone for a moment or so. She had just told the Sunburst Girl that what she wanted was amusement, but what she would have liked now would have been solitude.
Why had Golden unsettled her again like this, when she had been getting along so cheerfully?
She sat down on the edge of the springy brass-railed bed drawn up against the window. It was open, and the breeze stirred in the curtain behind her head, full of uneasy thought.... As she drew the hat-pins from her head she glanced restlessly about her room, bright, girlishly pink-and-white, with the atmosphere of a room that had been lived in happily enough. Mechanically Olwen's eyes fell upon the dressing-table, upon the crystal powder-box, upon the signed photograph of Professor Howel-Jones—about the frame of which there was twisted a long piece of pink ribbon, sewn to——
Why, it was that half-forgotten Charm of her days in France!
Half scornfully she smiled now at the memories that it brought to her.
It seemed another Olwen that she remembered, poring over typewritten directions for the use of that Charm.... Fancy an Olwen who believed in that! What a simple way out of the problems of Love, to wear a mascot and to have everything happen that one could wish!
This did happen to some people, Olwen mused. To Golden van Huysen it had come without the help of any talisman. Golden possessed within her all that quality of Charm of which that "inventor" claimed to have found the secret. She was one of the lucky people who hold that secret without knowing what it is....
But as for materializing it into something that might be annexed and worn——well, thought the new and more sophisticated Olwen, what had been the success of that, so far? Half laughing now, she considered it.
That other, romantic little Olwen had (in her first enthusiasm!) written to that newspaper address for more of the Charm.
No answer had been vouchsafed to her.
Therefore her experiments had been limited to four. She had planted out her Charm upon four people: Miss Agatha Walsh, Mrs. Cartwright, little Mr. Brown, and herself.
With what results?
This older, wiser Olwen ticked them off now on her fingers.
One, Agatha Walsh—successful. She had become engaged to her Gustave and was perfectly happy.
Two, Mrs. Cartwright—unsuccessful. Absolutely nothing had happened, thought Olwen, vexedly; her friend the writer had received not one word of added attention from her Uncle, and had remained unclaimed except by that work and those boys of hers.
Three, little Mr. Brown—more than unsuccessful. Not only had he failed to attract anybody on his own account, but he had shown symptoms of becoming attracted to a girl who didn't want him.
Four, Herself—unsuccessful again. No results at all. You can't count as "results" two attacks of masculine dog-in-the-mangerishness, one box of chocolates, a few ragging remarks, and an evening of having one's hand held in a boat. No results....
That left one out of four cases in which the Charm had worked.Only one out of four people lucky in Love!Was it so the world over? One in four meant a quarter of the people in the world!... Well, perhaps that wasn't such a very poor percentage, Olwen told herself more briskly as she gave herself a little shake out of her meditations and ran downstairs to the sitting-room, where a cup of cocoa and a plate of those neutral objects known as War-biscuits had been set ready for her by the Aunt.
This Aunt was Professor Howel-Jones's youngest sister, a small demure woman of forty-five, with the air of constantly saying, "Of courseIam the failure of the family." She had been left a widow very young, and it was her pose to give out that she had never been asked to marry again. But her pretty eyes laughed, most disconcertingly, while the rest of her face remained prim. She smoked, sang Clarice Mayne's songs and forbade Olwen to call her "Aunt" anything.
"Thank you, Lizzie," said her niece, as this lady handed her over a letter that had arrived by the last post. Then, glancing at the signature, Olwen gave a little exclamation of surprise. It was over the well-known type of coincidence that brings a letter from some one almost immediately following one's own thoughts of that some one.
For the letter was signed, "Yours affectionately,Agatha Walsh."
Miss Walsh wrote from Paris, where she had just been having "Oh, such a lovely time shopping with Madame Leroux, who had taken a month away from the hotel, and had been looking up some of the relations——"
Followed an account of these relations who had evidently taken the Englishfiancéeto their bosoms; Agatha, who had been English and provincial, was rapidly becoming a good Frenchbourgeoise.
She went on, "Oh, and there is such news, Olwen. Figure to yourself that Gustave is coming to London with General Chose next week! Coming as his orderly! Just think how lovely for me! Of course I shall come over at once. I have not been in England since September! We must all meet, we and you and the Professor and dear Mrs. Cartwright, if she is in town! And won't it be like old times again! and oh, Olwen, I may even be getting married——"
This last word was so heavily underlined that Olwen had to laugh, and the Aunt asked her what she was so pleased at.
"Oh, only that therearesome very happy people in the world even now," said Olwen.
"'Some' pessimist", murmured the Aunt, whose vocabulary was not of her epoch. "Never mind, Olwen; I have just remembered something. An admirer rang you up on the telephone this afternoon, and would you ring him up at the Regent Palace Hotel as soon as you came in——?"
"What?" said Olwen, astonished. "What was his name, and why d'you think he was an admirer, Lizzie?"
"I think he admired you by the tone of his voice, in which he said, 'Miss Olwen,'" said the demure Aunt, who had a private and vicarious delight in watching all the activities of her young niece. "As for his name——what was it now? Something rather out of the way."
"I don't know," wondered Olwen. "Was it Mr. Ellerton?"
"Oh, no; not our young Naval man who finished our last drop of whisky, by the way—no, I thought at once of him, dear, but it wasn't. It was—oh, yes! He said, 'Ask her to ring up Lieutenant Brown.'"
"What?NotLittle Mr. Brown?"
"I couldn't tell you what height he was," murmured the Aunt, but already Olwen, amused, had run out into the hall and had taken up the telephone.
(Coincidence, then, had been busying itself with another of the Les Pins party!)
After some little delay the Regent Palace found Mr. Brown.
"Hul-lo!" the familiar boy's voice sounded over the wires as cheerily as it had sounded over the waves and through the pine woods. "That you, Miss Olwen?... That's great. How are you?... That's top-hole.... Me? Oh, I'm fine, thanks. Yes; I'm up for a Board. I say, Miss Olwen, when can we for-gather?... Can I see you tomorrow?... Dinner? What are you doing?"
Olwen said, "I'm going to a party at Mrs. Cartwright's——"
"No! By Jove, are you? I say, I'm glad you mentioned it. I nearly forgot. I'm booked for Mrs. C. too. Rang her up and she asked me to roll up at seven. Can I take you along? Miss Olwen, can't I have tea with you in town somewhere first?"
"Er——" began Olwen, doubtfully. Truth to tell she had not wanted to see very much of little Mr. Brown; she had not wished to encourage his boyish sentimentality for her.
He took up quickly, "Won't you have tea with me, here, tomorrow? I've got something very particular to say to you, Miss Olwen."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Give you three guesses. I say, you know that mascot you gave me?"
"Yes?"
"Well! It's brought me luck, I reckon."
"Oh, has it? Well, what is it?"
"That's what I want to talk about tomorrow," came with a joyous giggle from the other end of the wires; evidently the speaker could scarcely wait until tomorrow's talk. "I say, can't you guess, Miss Olwen? Master's got off, this time."
"Gotwhat?"
"Off!"
"I can't quite hear what you say," called Olwen, puzzled. "Who has got what?"
"Oh, spare my blushes," begged the voice of Mr. Brown, and then brought out the announcement, "I'm engaged to be married, Miss Olwen, that's what!"
"Oh—oh!" gasped Olwen. "I'm so glad——"
"Thanks! Thought you would be! You wait till you hear all about it though. You prepare for a shock, Miss O. Tea tomorrow. Four o'clock. That suit you? I'll meet you at the door—you know, in the hall just in front of the big place where all the animals feed. Right! So long! Chin-chin!"
"Good night!" called Olwen, and rang off. Then she stood gazing at the telephone almost as if it were the small figure in khaki coming towards her out of the forest.
Engaged——Little Mr. Brown!
The Charm had worked with him, then, after all?
That made two out of four....
Well, that was a better percentage than she had thought she might hope for, thought Olwen as she turned away.
Did it mean that after allhalfthe people in the world were lucky in love?
"For your own ladies, and pale-visaged maids,Like Amazons, come tripping after drums;Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,Their needles to lances."Shakespeare.
"For your own ladies, and pale-visaged maids,Like Amazons, come tripping after drums;Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,Their needles to lances."
Shakespeare.
"I've got a table in the corner over here," said little Mr. Brown to Olwen through the buzz of talk that drowned all but the louder strains of the band in the tea-room of the Regent Palace Hotel.
It was, as ever on a Sunday afternoon, a welter of khaki and girls. The wicker chairs could not be seen for shrubberies of furs, coloured forest of millinery; there was scarcely a space on the floor clear of muffs, vanity bags, and feet; big feet in brown boots, little feet in high-heeled coloured shoes; swathed feet in hospital wrappings. It took Mr. Brown and Olwen minutes to steer their way through this labyrinth to the further corner by a window that the little campaigner had marked down and engaged just after lunch.
"Now, that's better," he said. "Nobody will come and walk over us here, and nobody can hear what I say through this racket, not that I care if they do.... Well, it's nice to see you again, Miss Olwen. I've been fairly bursting to have a good old mag with you, ever since all this happened.... What? Yes, two teas, please, Miss, if you can call 'em teas. Spelling it with an E at the end is nearer the mark nowadays; sort of reminding you of what once was tea. I've got some sugar here; pinched some out of HER cupboard yesterday—good start, wasn't it? Are you one of those people who miss lump sugar with every breath they draw, Miss Olwen?"
Olwen smiled into the pink, pug-dog face that looked pinker, more pertinacious than ever; the boy held his head even more assuredly in the air, but his blue, prominent eyes were humble as well as joyous, and the whole of him radiated amazement at Fortune as well as delight.
"Tell me about 'all this,'" Olwen begged, and little Mr. Brown zestfully drawing in his chair and letting a pleased grin crumple his cheeks, broke into his story....
Here and there Olwen interposed a question, a "Really," a "Why," a "What did she say to that?" but for the rest she listened mutely as a woman must, with the widening of her eyes, with a nod, a turn of the attentive head, while the cheerful boy's voice—a thread in that closely woven pattern of other voices all about them—ran on and on.
"It was only last Saturday it started. Imagine that! Seems ages ago to me now, so much happening.... However, to begin at the beginning. I'd been to my Board in the morning, and the silly old blighters had given me another three weeks' leave before putting me on light duty. I was in a taxi, coming away from them, because I was in a hurry, promised to meet a fellow I knew for lunch at the Troc....
"By Jove, I never even rang him up after! I've only just thought of that fellow who used to be in the Lace Department at that old show of mine, and I hadn't seen him since '14. Too bad. I'll have to write him. Anyhow I can't help it; absolutely everything seems to have gone straight out of my head.
"Well, I was going to lunch with this fellow, and then I thought after that I'd ring you up, Miss Olwen, and see what you were doing, and if you'd perhaps care to come with me to the Alhambra or something. If I couldn't get hold of you I was going to look up Ross, I thought, and Mrs. Cartwright.... This was where I was mapping out things that came rather different, as it happened!
"We were coming along Piccadilly towards the Circus when my taxi-man (an absolutely dud driver, as I'd noticed) barged straight into a motor-cycle and side-car that were going along at no end of a lick for Knightsbridge. He only pulled up in the very nick of time; the cycle and the rider were over and into the mud; a filthy day it was, p'raps you'll remember—drizzling and the streets like a soap-slide.
"Out I nipped, before the crowd had even begun to collect, and picked up the motor-cyclist with one hand, and started saying what I thought of the taxi-driver with the other—he was swearing away like a trooper at 'these here so and so and so and so side-cars'; and the little nipper who had been upset was cursing him to blazes, an octave higher. The voice took me by surprise, of course.... The little thing was so covered in mud that I couldn't have told you off-hand if it were a boy or girl or a retriever dog.
"A girl; yes, it was a girl, of course.
"One of those lady dispatch-riders, they call them. Cap like mine, trench-coat down to her knees, top-boots, riding-breeches ... laughing all over her little splashed face....
"Well, in about two twos I'd pushed his fare at the taxi-driver and sent him off and was assessing the damages to that motor-cycle of hers—nothing wrong at all luckily! while she wiped her face on a huge khaki handkerchief and put her cap straight. Short hair, of course, rather sticking out, curly.... I always thought I loathed short hair on a girl. Suits her A1, and it's most awfully soft and jolly to run your fingers through....
"What? Oh, no, notthen. Give us a chance. I wasn't allowed a chance to touch her hair for ages—you'll see.
"All this time I was being all over myself with apologies, and she laughing and saying it was all part of the day's work, only the taxi-man had put her back up; taxi-drivers did always seem to be women haters! She told me (standing there by the kerb) that she was just coming off anyway before her three days' leave that she gets in a month, and that she was dashing up to Harrod's before they closed, because she was on duty from eight to six ordinarily, and never got any time to do any shopping for herself.
"(Mind you, that's the only grouse she seems to have at all after doing a man's job day in, day out; no time to get her shopping done!)
"I thought to myself at once, the way one does, 'H'm, here's a nice little bit of skirt, if you could see it for mud.' Not that itworea skirt, but still. So I said, pretending to be rather fed, 'I don't suppose there's another taxi to be had for love or butter now, so I'll just push on to Harrods' on my flat feet.'
"'Oh,' she says, 'were you going to Harrods'?'
"'I am,' said I, determined to now, anyway.
"'And you're wounded, too, aren't you,' says she. 'I'll give you a lift. Hop in.'
"In I hopped into that side-car; and off we buzzed to Harrods', and we were just in time before they closed for her to buy half a dozen pair of the best quality brown silk stockings for herself. (I'd seen she was a lady, you know, and all that.) She said she hadn't a stocking left to her foot——Tiny feet she's got, Miss Olwen! Reminded me of yours, honest, they did. Same sort of hands, too. Coming out of her great gauntlets like snowdrops, growing in a drift of brown leaves——No, I didn't make that up, that's what she told me some ass of an old Colonel that she used to drive the cars for said to her once. I think it's neck, the way some of those old Johnnies with one foot in the grave go on giving the Glad to any pretty young girl that's near them....
"Well, after Harrods' shut, we went on to some place where she could get a wash and brush up, and we had a spot of lunch together. She was a real jolly little thing to go about with, I thought. We sat talking—you know the way ones does—until it was nearly tea-time.
"Tea we had out, too. She would stand me tea, said it was her shout, and because I was wounded. Seemed to think that because a fellow had been pipped once he was helpless for evermore. Generally I loathe women fussing over one for that, but she was different.... Struck one as so comic, you know, that tiny little thing with those hands and feet to be got up like any old mechanic, and to do all that hefty work in all weathers——and for her to get frightened that I might be tired!
"Well, so we went to Rumplemayer's.
"Afterwards I went with her to take her bike back to the Park. You know she's attached to the Royal Flying Corps there; yes, that's what she does now. Carries their letters and messages for them all over the show, to your people at the Honeycomb too, sometimes. Sometimes she drives out officers to the various training schools for flying, all about. Has to clean her own bike, too! Wouldn't let me give her a hand, said it didn't look well. Extraordinary, the lot she gets through!... And I used to hate girls being 'independent,' too.
"I asked her what put it into her head to do all this, and she said it was because one had to do one's bit somehow, and the harder the better, so that it sent one to bed tired enough to sleep.
"Dashed sporting little girl I thought her.
"It was dinner-time before I knew, and I asked her if she'd come out. (I had got just one pound note left on me!)
"She said, as naturally as if we always fed together, 'Shall I go up to my rooms and get into respectable clothes, or d'you mind if I came in my uniform?'
"I said, 'Oh, come along!' And we went off to a quiet little place at the back of the Palace.
"By that time, d'you know, I felt as if I'd known that little girl for years and years and years.
"She seemed just like the best little pal a man could have. We talked—oh, about any old thing. I sort of felt at home with her. So she did with me. She told me so. But it was me that did most of the talking. Only, what d'you think? We never bothered to ask each other's names. That was the funny part. I'd told her all about me being in a shop before the War——Lace, forward——and how I thought of having a shot at in Canada, p'raps, and all that sort of rot. Miles I'd yapped to her; even about my mother dying when I was a nipper....
"I wonder the girl wasn't bored stiff. I can't make out now why she wasn't. However, as I say, they might never have named this child N or M for all she was given to hear aboutthat.
"Fact was, I clean forgot about names until I took her home——she's got two rooms in one of those big old-fashioned houses in a street off Baker Street. Then, as I said good night to her on the doorstep, I said, 'Oh, by the way, who do I ask for tomorrow?'
"She said, 'Coming tomorrow?'
"I said, 'Well, you told me it was your three days' leave, and I thought p'raps you'd come for a walk'——thinking to myself that I might be able to raise another quid or so for meals from some man at the Regent Palace, which I was.
"'Oh,' she said, with a little sort of laugh. 'Rightoh. And I haven't told you, of course, my name's Robinson,' she said as she went into the house; big dark hall, it seemed to swallow her up.
"I said, 'Brown's mine,' and off I went——and I couldn't simply get the little thing out of my head all night, and what a jolly little chum she was. Don't laugh at me, Miss Olwen; no, I know you're not really laughing, but I am, I can tell you. 'They laugh last who laugh laughs,' as that chap says at the Hippodrome.
"Next morning I was round at that house so early that I hadn't the nerve to ring the bell. I had to patrol the street for another half an hour before I rang.
"'Miss Robinson?' says I to the old girl who opened the door, but before she could answer I could hear the little girl herself singing out over the banisters, 'Hullo, I think I know that voice! Come up, Mr. Brown——'
"I legged it up to the first floor. Her sitting-room door was open; well, in I went, and there I got a nasty one."
Here Mr. Brown stopped to draw a breath, to finish his cooling tea, and to offer a cigarette to Olwen, listening with all her ears. There is no audience to a love-story so intent and so satisfactory as the girl to whom one has been attracted. Curiosity as to her supplanter burns in the breast of the woman whether or no she had been attracted to the man; curiosity made of varied elements—sympathy is one, and competition is one, and the undying yearning to compare notes is another....
Little Mr. Brown went on.
"Well, it was a pretty room, full of sun in the morning. Pretty coloured curtains and cushions about; and lots of flowers and that yellow bobbly thingummybob scented stuff—mimosa. And then.... Her in the middle of it all——all different....
"I stopped dead and stared at her, never even saying good morning. Miss Olwen, I can tell you it was a shock to me.
"Last night, you see, I'd left her looking like a saucy little tomboy in that khaki working kit of hers with a cap the same as my own on her head and a black-and-white badge of the R. F. C. on her shoulder, and those brown riding bags....
"This morning here she stood all in a dead-black frock, with a widow's hat on and a long black veil streaming away from her little face.
"I stared, I tell you. I saw the situation absobloominglutely changed, in one.
"'Good Lord,' I said, 'you've been married?'
"She opened her eyes at me and said, 'Why shouldn't I?'
"I looked at her, such a little woman in her girl's clothes, but taller than she seemed in t'other rig-out, and I said, 'I didn't know you were married. I thought you were a kid of a girl. A widow. You didn't tell me.'
"'You didn't ask me,' she says. 'You might have seen I wore a wedding-ring. Men never do seem to notice rings—or anything else, I can't think why.'
"I stood there like a silly ass and said, 'I never thought of you being married. I s'pose I only looked at your face——'
"And I suppose I'd been magging so hard all yesterday about myself that I hadn't given the girl a chance to put her life history across me!
"She told me then, all quickly as I stood there, that she'd been married last year to her cousin, just before he went out. He was in the Flying Corps. He crashed in France just three months after they'd been married. Then she joined this Women's Legion. (You know they're jolly particular who they let into it, Miss Olwen: have to have no end of refs. frompadresand lawyers and people.) She threw herself into her job.... She'd been working like a nigger ever since....
"All I could think to say was 'Well, this knocks me out.'
"She laughed and asked me why it should make any difference, her being Mrs. Robinson instead of Miss? She asked me if I didn't like her in those things she'd got on? She said, 'Most people think it's rather becoming, all this black.'
"It made her little face look like a wild rose coming out of a coal-bucket, but what could I say to her? I tell you I was so flummoxed I stood there like a stuck pig—I don't know what I said next; honest, I don't.
"So then she offered me cigarettes, and I took one in a sort of dream, and felt all over myself for matches. Couldn't find any.
"Only, then——
"D'you know what I found, Miss Olwen? Blessed if I didn't stick my fingers into my belt pocket here, and feel something soft. I brought it out. It was that little mascot of yours. She asked me quickly what it was.
"'Oh,' I said, 'something a girl put there once, to bring me luck,' and I stuck it back again.
"'Oh,' she said. I saw her looking at that pocket.
"Then she said, 'What about going for that walk we've heard so much about?'
"'Right you are,' I says, pulling myself together. 'I'm ready if you are, Mrs. Robinson.'
"Then she said, 'No; I'm not quite. I shall have to keep you five minutes, not longer.'
"She popped through a door at the other end of the room and left me gazing at a big photograph in a silver frame on her table with violets in front of it. 'Yours, JIM,' on it. Him, of course. Fine-looking chap in R. F. C. uniform. I didn't wonder she'd taken him. Anyhow, he'd had a short life and a merry; a topping time! Marryingher, and then getting shot down in action before he knew he was for it. I was envying him when the door opened and in she came again——
"By Jove, she had done a quick change in five minutes and no mistake!
"She'd got out of the widow's weeds again and into khaki the same as yesterday, except that there was nothing on her curls, and she'd put on a short skirt and little brown brogues and a pair of those silk stockings she bought yesterday; and she came straight up to me and said quietly, 'Now, look here——why were you all upset when you came in? What's put you out? My being a widow?'
"'No,' I said, straight. 'It wasn't just that, but never mind.'
"'Yes, let's have it out,' she said, and I looked at her standing there in her khaki, but somehow I only saw her in a frock again, and I thought to myself all in a rush, 'All right, you asked to have it out, and you shall,' and so I just blurted out, 'It was seeing you, and knowing all in a minute how much I wanted you myself—and remembering.'
"'Remembering what?' she says as sharp as a needle.
"And I said, 'My dear, I haven't abean.'
"And I grabbed up my hat and gloves and I think I would have said 'Good-bye' and bolted.
"But she just looked at me so that I couldn't.
"Then she looked away and said, 'If beans are all that matter——!' and then she picked a couple of violets out of the vase by that photograph, and tucked them into her jacket, and, just like a kid, said, 'Jim always loved me to have a good time. Jim would like me to have everything I liked, Iknowhe would——'
"And here's where the room seemed to go round and round until it steadied down with me holding her tight....
"Well, then, Miss Olwen——well, then, there we were; engaged! Or practically then," amended little Mr. Brown, his pink face deepening in hue. "It was hours after that that I began to grasp how little it mattered about my not having anything but debts to ask any girl to marry me on; why, great Scott, d'you know who she is? Her Uncle, her hubby's father, is old Jack Robinson of Robinson and Mott; he's got the biggest aeroplane-body business in the Midlands, and he, this Jim of hers——well, she's got all he was to have. He arranged it so. She was to marry again if she liked, and whom she liked. And——Well, she's a girl who might have her pick; apart from the money. Then there's all her money as well; and yet——yet——"
He paused for words just as the band at the other end of the tea-room got the upper hand of the buzz of talk and sent a lilt of insistent melody through the air above the parties.
"Fancy you fancying me" was the tune.
"Fancy you fancying me,I can fancy anybody fancying you,But fancy you fancying me."
"Fancy you fancying me,I can fancy anybody fancying you,But fancy you fancying me."
"Incidental music; jolly appropriate," laughed little Mr. Brown, happily. "What that girl could possibly see in your humble beats me. I expect most people who meet us thinks she's balmy——"
But Olwen, smiling and interested and sympathetically murmuring, was thinking again (secretly) of the Charm.
"A dinner of herbs where Love is."Proverbs.
"A dinner of herbs where Love is."
Proverbs.
"If there is one thing that bores a man," gave out Captain Ross, in a voice like the clashing together of Tube lift-gates—a tone that he had adopted all that evening, since nothing seemed to be going right, "if there is one thing that bores a man stiff, it's when some woman starts in to 'Love' him."
He paused to glance across the table at Olwen, gaily chattering with Mr. Ellerton.
"It don't matter what woman," pursued the young Staff-officer inexorably. "Anywoman. If he's keen before, that chokes him dead off. He's not out for any of this Love-with-a-capital-L business that women are such nuts on. Once he's done the chasing, he's gotten all he wants out of it, I guess. Man's a hunter, Mrs. Cartwright."
"I know," cooed his hostess. Inwardly she exclaimed, "Dear Ass!... But is he going on like this for the whole of my party?"
Up to then Captain Ross had only spoken to her and to the other young Scotsman whom he had brought with him. At Olwen he had simply glowered. At Miss van Huysen on the other side he had not looked.
"What's Love?" he continued, still to Mrs. Cartwright. "It's an amusement. That's what it ought to be. An Episode. It's the Women who insist on spoiling it; taking it seriously. Nothing in this world is worth taking seriously; barring a man's job.... What's woman? The Plaything of Man. And what's Marriage?"
It was, as he pronounced it, a word of one syllable.
"Marriage," he answered his own question, "is an idea that the sensible man looks at from every angle, and then cuts right out until he can't find anything better to do. If he is really a sensible man, he invariably can find it."
"Ah," uttered Mrs. Cartwright with the little appreciative laugh of one who hears for the first time an original thought brilliantly phrased.
But she wanted to be soothing; she was fond of Captain Ross. One does not sob out one's weakness on a man's shoulder once and think of him as a stranger thereafter. She had asked him to forget. She never forgot....
A pity he'd come in this absurd mood, she thought.
Her party, at her flat in Westminster, had arrived at the stage of the feast when tongues were loosed and the young guests were gossiping and chirruping in merry twos and threes.
Little Mr. Brown was beamingly loquacious in spite of the absence of his khakiedfiancée, kept out of town that evening on late duty. Between Mr. Brown and the fresh-faced naval boy, Mr. Ellerton sat little Olwen Howel-Jones, enjoying herself without disguise and looking her very best. She was a girl who had "days"; this was one of them. Never had her glossy black hair "gone up" so well, or her face lighted up so vividly; never, against her pale skin, had her laughing mouth bloomed in such a carnation-red. Never had any dress suited her so well as that flapper's frock of succory-blue with touches of cream, and dull pink. It was the frock Mrs. Cartwright had worn once on Biscay beach; she had pressed it upon Olwen as she said good-bye at Les Pins, telling her it was a young girl's colour after all. There Olwen sat in it now, laughing and being talked to by two young men at once and looking a picture in it....
It was from this picture that Captain Ross's dark eyes looked so pertinaciously away, as with new sardonic energy he informed Mrs. Cartwright that by the time a man had learnt to handle women he'd learnt that their place in his life was not all that important that he wanted to handle them at all.
Mrs. Cartwright passed him the Sauterne.
"Thank goodness that there is at least enough todrink," she reflected with a quick whimsical glance about the well-cleared dishes on her supper-table that had held:
1. Remains of chicken, with an intolerable deal of rice and curry to a very little fowl.2. Allotment potatoes.3. A pound of Normandy butter bought that morning in Boulogne and brought over in Sergeant Tronchet's haversack.4. Pease-pudding.5. Beetroot....6. Green salad.
1. Remains of chicken, with an intolerable deal of rice and curry to a very little fowl.
2. Allotment potatoes.
3. A pound of Normandy butter bought that morning in Boulogne and brought over in Sergeant Tronchet's haversack.
4. Pease-pudding.
5. Beetroot....
6. Green salad.
Well, they'd seemed to enjoy what there was.
"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright, here catching a remark from over the table. "A penny fromyou, Mr. Brown!" And she pushed over to him a money-box with the Blue Cross upon it, known as "The Fine-box."
This claimed a penny from whomsoever entering Mrs. Cartwright's abode should make any allusion to a subject which she declared was now inadmissibly boring: namely, food. One met quite intelligent people who became hopelessly tedious about "recipes," "how they managed," and so on. Rations had to be; and catering, food-cards, and substitute foods. But why intensify the Unspeakable by unnecessary speaking about it? Hence this box.
She took Mr. Brown's penny (a fine for some cheese anecdote or other), rattled the box, and glanced, as usual without seeming to do so, at her other guests.
Next to young Ellerton sat a niece of her own; a pretty girl in grey and scarlet nursing kit; the red- and blueartilleristeuniform of Gustave Tronchet next; delighting the eyes of hisfiancéeopposite.
Agatha Walsh had taken off years, Mrs. Cartwright thought, since they had parted at Les Pins. In place of the "old-maid" look, she was acquiring that of the young and prosperous woman—her smile seeming not yet entirely her own, and she had a new gesture or two modelled on those of Madame Leroux, her aunt-to-be. Also, her speech was altered. Some one must have rallied her on her "English" habit of beginning every sentence with "Oh"——Mrs. Cartwright missed it as she caught fragments of Miss Walsh's talk to Jack Awdas, who sat on her left.
"Now couldyoutell me, Mr. Awdas, the really best sort of man's wrist watch?... I want to get a reallyspecialone for Gustave—it is his 'fête' on Thursday ... not time to engrave anything, I'm afraid.... Ah, yes, if you could come with me on Monday, you and Miss van Huysen, to help choose! That would be so amiable of you—nice, I mean. So stupid of me. Ikeepputting in the French words for things always, now!
"Ah, a bracelet-watch like yours, that would be perfect....
"Was there acadeau de fiançailles—let's see, what do you call it in English, an engagement present?"
And she put her carefully dressed head on one side as she inspected the watch that Jack Awdas, smiling, held out towards her. Jack was silent this evening, Mrs. Cartwright had noticed already, as she noticed every detail, still, of the young flyer's looks and manner.... He was in some happy abstraction, she saw, worlds away from the brightly-lighted table thronged with these young people chattering over their grapes and oranges....
There was a light behind those horizon-blue eyes of his even when they were not turned upon the sweetheart at his other side. There was an undernote of something new and joyous in the tone of his voice as he spoke to her.
("Whatd'youthink about it, girl?")
From the Sunburst Girl, as ever, a radiance seemed to emanate that was more than the effulgence of her white-and-golden dress. But she, too, was quieter than usual as she sat; now giving a little friendly smile to her hostess across Captain Ross and his dogmas, now leaning to the right and putting in a word about the matter of the engagement present.
("But, Bird-boy, if Miss Walshwantsit in platinum——!")
Now turning her wide eyes affectionately upon the girl friend opposite to her. Olwen was not flirting with the young sailor who talked so much and had so little to say beyond his "Bai Joves" and "Ha's"; she was only blooming in what Mr. Brown had already called "the sunshine of his smile"; she was also caught in and made beautiful by some of that happiness that flowed in a current about the table under the pink inverted parasol of lights, flowed from Golden and her Jack....
Golden and Jack.... What pretty lover's secrets was between them now?
Still watching them covertly, Mrs. Cartwright could only wonder why, since it was possible for young human beings to be grown so big and beautiful—why in the name of a thousand pities did Nature turn out so many samples of the stunted, the plain, the commonplace? Must this well-matched pair stand for the exception rather than the rule? She watched them, and that scene of physical perfection which had so nearly brought Claudia Cartwright to shipwreck over a boy-lover was no longer her torment, but her comfort.
She had wept all her tears; she had tossed sleeplessly through all her hours of fierce rebellion; she had gone through the most agonizing ordeal of her woman's life. But thank God it was over now....
It was over! and her eyes travelled now to that which is a woman's only balm for such wounds as hers had been.
He sat, the master of the house, with a school-fellow between himself and Agatha Walsh. This school-fellow was sixteen, a year older but three inches shorter than young Keith Cartwright. Keith was already well over six foot. Coltish at present, with great wrists shooting ever too quickly beyond his cuffs, and feet that seemed four sizes too large for his ankles, but wait until he began to fill out! thought Claudia proudly. Her rightness of bone, her limbs, her suppleness had gone to her boys; Reggie, on a visit in the country, was just as good, but it was her elder son who seemed the child of her soul as well as of her body. He had her tastes, her impatiences. Her own ardour would presently be breaking into flame in his heart. She felt (as even the mute-bird mothers feel) that she at least would not fail to understand him. She smiled across the table into his face, pink and free of care, with its clear eyes, thick lashes (those were from his father's side), and the fruit-like, perfect oval that does not outlast twenty-five. She, the mother, faded; but she had set in these young plants and they were budding.
Keith's voice (or rather voices, for he himself never knew in what octave his words might break forth) came roughly but affectionately across the table to his mother.
"I say, mums! What about coffee——" so far in the bass, and now a treble squeak of "if you don't mind. Harrison says he's got to get back home, and I wanted to put on these new records"—relapse into the bass, "for him first?... Rightoh...."
They had coffee before they adjourned to the sitting-room. It was a low-ceilinged, soothing place with soft brown walls, low cushiony seats, a richly-glowing Persian rug, some brass, and a few pictures. Mrs. Cartwright's standing-desk at which she worked had been wheeled away into a corner near an old oak coffer. Its place was usurped by the tall stand of a gramophone. About this the young people clustered, talking "records" ...
"I say, have you got that topping thing of George Graves's——?"
"Not a talking one; Miss Walsh wanted somethingpretty——"
"Well, what about 'The Naughty Sporty Girl,' Miss Olwen?"
"Bai Jove, did you hear him in——?"
"Heaps of room to dance, if——"
"Look out, please," said Keith Cartwright, lugging at a heavy flat packet; and presently he put on a loud "selection" from some revue.
It was under cover of this music that Captain Ross who had been carrying on with his Scots friend a conversation that seemed to consist of variations on the letter R, suddenly left him in the middle of a question as to the "Pairrrrrrrrrrsonnel" at the Honeycomb, and came up to Awdas, who was making his way to a vacant place on the arm of the couch whereon Golden was sitting.
With some force, Captain Ross gripped him by the upper arm. In the tone of one who has been for hours storing up some accumulated grievance, he muttered, "Say, Jack. I've got to have a word with you.Now," he added, peremptorily, "Come out here, will you?"
"Here's to the Wings of Love,May they never moult a feather."Toast.
"Here's to the Wings of Love,May they never moult a feather."
Toast.
Almost roughly he dragged Jack Awdas into the little entrance lobby, where, under a couple of mounted ibex heads, a carved oak chest was piled up with khaki caps, gloves, and British warms. The red silk-shaded hanging-lamp glowed down on the two young men reflected in a convex mirror on the other wall; Captain Ross's black head was therein enlarged until his figure had the proportions of a tadpole; his face showed the expression of a deeply-injured man, of one whom his friend had "let in" for something uncalled-for and gratuitous.
"See here," he began abruptly. "I've got to tell you. There's something I know that I don't know if I'm supposed to know."
Jack Awdas gave his husky boy's laugh.
"Well, dash it, there are a few things that a Captain on the staff is supposed to know after all. 'Wearing red things round his hat, he's employed at this and——'"
"Don't rag, Jack. This thing's aboutyou." Then, almost violently, "I saw you this morning."
That red light glowed on a change in the fair one of the two faces as the young flying officer looked down upon his friend, "I say, d'you mean——?"
"Yep. I saw you."
Awdas, still startled, broke into another laugh. "Sorry, Ross. I didn't mean to steal a march upon you, you know. But look here, old thing, how the devil did you see me? You weren't there. Nobody was, ex——"
"I was in my office. Saw you all right from the window there."
"The deuce you did!... I say, if you let it get known about the Honeycomb, that you've got a view like that, you'll have some of the Mandarins snaffling that office of yours for themselves."
Captain Ross did not smile as he returned curtly, "There must be a dozen of our windows looking, straight out on to the entrance to the Adelphi Chapel."
Then a broad grin overspread Jack Awdas's fair face. "Well, is that all, old thing?" he asked, tucking his handkerchief up his sleeve and making as though he would turn back to the door, through which there rollicked, but subdued, the strains of "Me and My Girl" put on very quickly. "Weren't you going to congratulate me, Ross?"
Ross growled, "I guess a fellow doesn't want to put his foot into it by throwing about congratulations for a secret marriage——"
"Secret? Good Lord, nothing secret about it," the other young officer took up quickly, as he sat down for a moment on the edge of that heaped-up chest. "Look here! We haven't told anybody about it because there simply hasn't been time yet. When we came here tonight we were going to tell you. We wouldn't put off Mrs. Cartwright; we were going to come as if nothing had happened, and then make a wedding party of it; tell you all, first thing. But how've I been able to get a word in? First there was our gallant ally the Sergeant that everybody had to make a fuss over in French, and then there was young Brown and his widow,thatannouncement! and then there was you——"
"Me?"
"Yes, you yarning away about what women were and what they weren't, and if so why not. There hasn't been time to get a word in, man. Secret?" He laughed joyously. "Why, I expect Golden's just telling Mrs. Cartwright all about it now." The bridegroom crossed his long legs and grinned up into the unresponsive face of this bachelor standing before him. "Yes; this morning! I didn't see what there was to wait for ... here, have one of mine. Golden thought it was a bit quick, but then so she did when I wanted to be engaged to her, after three whole blooming days. Thought it wassudden! That's——why, it's nearly four months ago. Anyway I said to myself yesterday, 'This engagement's been dragging on long enough; looks like lasting for ever'——so I got the license right away, wired for my mother, broke it to Golden's governor, who has always been very decent, and——Well, they were the only guests as far as I knew, never guessing that you and the rest of the Honeycomb were gazing from the windows at my girl in her veil and orange-blossoms. So now will you congratulate me on my marriage?"
The face of the finest judge of marriage in Europe was a study.
For weeks past now, from the windows of cell 0638 at the Honeycomb, Captain Fergus Ross had been accustomed to glance up from his desk and to observe through the window various taxis, cars, or broughams drive up to the door of the Adelphi Chapel.
He had seen young people and their friends alight in ceremonial kit. He had watched them go in; and he had seen young couples presently come out again, sometimes under arches of swords, sometimes under those of crutches and walking-sticks, sometimes in a simple shower of confetti. No doubt these sights had confirmed him in his misogynistic broodings.
This very morning he had attracted the attention of his colleague, Major Leefe, to the window, and, pointing down upon a hurrying young figure in khaki with a sword, had announced with a grim and pitying smile, "There goes another good man to his doom."
Even as he pronounced the last word (which he did as though it were the German for "stupid"), he observed the hurrying figure below to raise its head for a moment as it looked quickly around.
He had recognized Jack Awdas.
Five minutes afterwards he had seen Golden in all her bridal glory, step out of a taxi with Mr. van Huysen.
You could have knocked Captain Ross down with a feather.
What was everybody coming to? he had pondered irritably ever since.Allhis friends....
"I congrrratulate——" he began stiffly, but at that very moment a clamour broke out above the music in the room they had left.
"Where is he?"
"Fetch him in——"
"Fancy bolting like that——" came the muffled cries.
The door was flung suddenly open as Brown, Ellerton, the Highlander, Sergeant Tronchet and the Master of the House burst suddenly into the lobby.
"Here he is!"
"Now, you rascal——"
"Dark horse, what?"
"Come in, you dog——"
"Ah,farceur! Félicita——"
"Bai Jove, trying to hush it up——"
"Mr. Awdas, I say. Mr. Awdas——"
"Ah, would you——"
"Monsieur de l'Audace!"
"Priceless!"
Among them they almost carried Jack's Herculean young form back into the sitting-room.
Captain Ross followed.
The golden head of the Sunburst Girl towered above the heads of Olwen and of Miss Walsh as they pressed upon her their enthusiastic good wishes. Laughing, flushed, sparkling, she was giving her version of that dilatory courtship of Jack's; while Mrs. Cartwright in the corner by that desk of hers, was hunting in somecacheof hers for something (to wit, the last drop of Bubbly she possessed).
"Here's more surprises about your English ways," the American bride was laughing. "Here's this Bird-boy of mine——well, you all know the quick and sudden start of our engagement! There was father and I thinking maybe it wouldn't matter so much provided we had a sensible time to get to know one another in after say a year! Then yesterday Jack gets suddenly scared that we'll both be grey and rheumatic fossils if we aren't married half an hour from then.... Say, Olwen? What could I say? I don't know how he does it—it's mesmerism or a charm, I guess, for when once Jack takes it into his head——"
Here the laughter and cheering of the men broke out. The Master of the House was seen to be advancing, carrying at the full length of his young arms a tray of glasses. Mrs. Cartwright rose from the chest, smilingly holding a gold-topped bottle in either hand.
"Who's going to open these?"
Already Mr. Brown had whisked a skirt of his tunic under his arm and was slipping his sapper's knife from its swivel. "Stand from under!" sang out the little second lieutenant as pop! went a cork. "Right! I'll fill 'em, Mrs. C. I'm the next starter for the matrimonial stakes, after the giddy bridegroom. Out o' the way, Ross! Don't take up the earth.... Invited out to supper, and staying to wedding-breakfast, eh?... Here's yours, Miss Olwen; a bridesmaid, are you?... No, you don't, Ellerton;I'mbooked for best man.... I'm going to have one from everybody....Afteryou've finished with my feet, Ross——"
Captain Ross, glaring above his glass at the group about that tall and resplendent bridal pair, found his bad temper of the day culminating in a very curious decision.
He was going to leave directly he'd finished this glass of champagne in which they toasted the young Awdases. And he was going to take with him, Olwen Howel-Jones. He was going to see her home. He was; not that gibbering idiot Brown, who was engaged anyway, nor that hopeless ass Ellerton, that Naval outfitter's dummy; no fear. Most certainly not. As for that fellow Jack, what the Hades did he mean by looking as if he were the only man on God's earth whose wedding-night it had ever been or ever could be? Was Jack Awdas the first young fool who'd ever managed to get himself marked down and married by a girl?... The whole party seemed to be one confounded whirl of tomfoolery.... Well, he, Ross, was leaving, and taking that chit home. (It was high time.) Drive her all the way, too; because he'd got something to say to her. Straight away he'd say to her, "Now, see here, damn it, there's going to be no more ofthis, there's been enough of it, and I won't have it."
Just that was what he intended to say, and——
At this instant the Master of the House, in the treble one of his voices, called, "I say, Captain Ross, please—they're asking foryou."
The telephone-bell had rung a moment before, and Keith had run out of the room to answer it.
The telephone was just outside; Captain Ross went to it....
In a minute or so he returned. He was seen to draw his hostess aside, to murmur something to her. Mrs. Cartwright nodded quickly. Then he went up for the second time that evening to catch hold, with his one remaining hand, of the arm of Jack Awdas. The young flying officer gave a jerk of his fair head; a whisper to Golden, another to his hostess.... Before the rest of the group had realized that they were going, those two, Ross and Awdas, were out of the flat, down the one flight of steps and out into the clear moonlight above Westminster.
Then, composedly and carelessly, Mrs. Cartwright slipped her arm through Golden's, and turned to her other guests.
"I'm so sorry to be inhospitable, dear people, but I think it would be better if you went, now!" she announced, smilingly. "There's heaps of time. You see Captain Ross gets the warning from the Honeycomb half an hour before any of us, and they've just rung him up to say——"
"Raid on!" ejaculated Keith's highest squeak.
"Probably, he thinks," said his mother with a shrug. "Tiresome people these Huns are;nosense of fitness. Well—finish your bubbly and off with you."
There was a scurrying of the women-folk to get their wraps from Mrs. Cartwright's bedroom; a chorus of comment half exasperated, half amused. Raids were less of a terror by night than a source of deep boredom to Londoners by this time.... They had all been in them before; they knew (with luck) just what would happen from the first whistling signals of the "Take cover" to the "All clear."
"Botherthem," exclaimed little Olwen, disgusted. "In the middle of the party foryou, Golden!"
The men, coated and capped, thronged the tiny lobby, waiting.... Mr. Brown and Captain Ross's friend would escort Mrs. Cartwright's niece to her hotel. Young Mr. Ellerton was all eagerness to see Miss Howel-Jones all the way home again. Agatha's sergeant had secured a taxi to take hisfiancéeVictoria-wards; they offered a lift to Golden, imagining that the young bride would now return to her father's house in Grosvenor Gardens. But in the midst of the little bustle of departure Mrs. Cartwright had given a gentle clasp to the American girl's arm.
"Don't go," she said softly. "I am going to put you up, Golden. You are to stay with me. He told me he wanted you to stay with me tonight——"
As she finished speaking, the first warning maroon went off with a bang.