Geraldine, a few hours later, set down the telephone receiver with a little sigh of resignation. Lady Conyers glanced up inquiringly from her book.
“Was that some one wanting to come and see you at this time of night, Geraldine?” she asked.
Geraldine yawned.
“It’s Hugh,” she explained. “He has rung up from the War Office or somewhere—says he has just got back from France and wants to see me at once. I think he might have waited till to-morrow morning. I can scarcely keep my eyes open, I am so sleepy.”
Lady Conyers glanced at the clock.
“It isn’t really so late,” she remarked, “and I dare say, if the poor man’s been travelling all day, he’d like to say good-night to you.”
Geraldine made a little grimace.
“I shall go into the morning room and wait for him,” she announced. “He’ll very likely find me asleep.”
The Admiral looked up from behind the Times.
“Where’s that nice young fellow Granet?” he asked. “Why didn’t you bring him in to dinner?”
“Well, we didn’t get back until nearly eight,” Geraldine reminded her father. “I didn’t think he’d have time to change and get back here comfortably.”
“Fine young chap, that,” Sir Seymour remarked. “The very best type of young English soldier. We could do with lots like him.”
Geraldine left the room without remark. She could hear her father rustling his paper as she disappeared.
“Can’t think why Geraldine didn’t pick up with a smart young fellow like Granet instead of an old stick like Thomson,” he grumbled. “I hate these Army Medicals, anyway.”
“Major Thomson has a charming disposition,” Lady Conyers declared warmly. “Besides, he will be very well off some day—he may even get the baronetcy.”
“Who cares about that?” her husband grunted. “Geraldine has all the family she needs, and all the money. How she came to choose Thomson from all her sweethearts, I can’t imagine.”
Geraldine, notwithstanding her fatigue, welcomed her lover very charmingly when he arrived, a few minutes later. Major Thomson was still in travelling clothes, and had the air of a man who had been working at high pressure for some time. He held her fingers tightly for a moment, without speaking. Then he led her to the sofa and seated himself beside her.
“Geraldine,” he began gravely, “has what I say any weight with you at all?”
“A good deal,” she assured him.
“You know that I do not like Captain Granet, yet you took him with you down to Portsmouth today and even allowed him to accompany you on board theScorpion.”
Geraldine started a little.
“How do you know that already?” she asked curiously.
He shook his head impatiently.
“It doesn’t matter. I heard. Why did you do it, Geraldine?”
“In the first place, because he offered to motor us down after we had missed the train. There are heaps of other reasons.”
“As, for instance?”
“Well, Olive and I preferred having an escort and Captain Granet was a most agreeable one. He took us down in a car his uncle has just given him—a sixty horse-power Panhard. I never enjoyed motoring more in my life.”
“You are all very foolish,” Thomson said slowly. “I am going to tell you something now, dear, which you may not believe, but it is for your good, and it is necessary for me to have some excuse for the request I am going to make. Granet is under suspicion at the War Office.”
“Under suspicion?” Geraldine repeated blankly.
“Nothing has been proved against him,” Thomson continued, “and I tell you frankly that in certain quarters the idea is scouted as absurd. On the other hand, he is under observation as being a possible German spy.”
Geraldine for a moment sat quite still. Then she broke into a peal of laughter. She sat up, a moment later, wiping her eyes.
“Are you really serious, Hugh?” she demanded.
“Absolutely,” he assured her, a little coldly.
She wiped her eyes once more.
“Hugh, dear,” she sighed, patting his hand, “you do so much better looking after your hospitals and your wounded than unearthing mare’s-nests like this. I don’t think that you’d be a brilliant success in the Intelligence Department. As to the War Office, well, you know what I think of them. Captain Granet a German spy, indeed!”
“Neither the War Office nor I myself,” Thomson continued, “have arrived at these suspicions without some reason. Perhaps you will look at the matter a little more seriously when I tell you that Captain Granet will not be allowed to return to the Front.”
“Not be allowed?” she repeated. “Hugh, you are not serious!”
“I have never been more serious in my life,” he insisted. “I am not in a position to tell you more than the bare facts or I might disclose some evidence which even you would have to admit throws a rather peculiar light upon some of this young man’s actions. As it is, however, I can do no more than warn you, and beg you,” he went on, “to yield to my wishes in the matter of your further acquaintance with him.”
There was a moment’s rather curious silence. Geraldine seemed to be gazing through the walls of the room. Her hands were clenched in one another, her fingers nervously interlocked.
“I shall send for him to come and see me the first thing to-morrow morning,” she decided.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Thomson objected firmly.
She turned her head and looked at him. He was conscious of the antagonism which had sprung up like a wall between them. His face, however, showed no sign.
“How do you propose to prevent me?” she asked, with ominous calm.
“By reminding you of your duty to your country,” he answered. “Geraldine, dear, I did not expect to have to talk to you like this. When I tell you that responsible people in the War Office, officials whose profession it is to scent out treachery, have declared this young man suspect, I am certainly disappointed to find you embracing his cause so fervently. It is no personal matter. Believe, me,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “whatever my personal bias may be, what I am saying to you now is not actuated in the slightest by any feelings of jealousy. I have told you what I know and it is for you to make your choice as to how much or how little in the future you will see of this young man. But I do forbid you, not in my own name but for our country’s sake to breathe a single word to him of what I have said to you.”
“It comes to this, then,” she said, “that you make accusations against a man and deny him the right of being heard?”
“If you choose to put it like that, yes,” he assented. “Only I fancied that considering—considering the things between us, you might have taken my word.”
He leaned a little towards her. If she had been looking she could scarcely have failed to have been touched by the sudden softness of his dark eyes, the little note of appeal in his usually immobile face. Her eyes, however, were fixed upon the diamond ring which sparkled upon her third finger. Slowly she drew it off and handed it to him.
“Hugh,” she said, “the things you speak of do not exist any more between us. I am sorry, but I think you are narrow and suspicious. You have your own work to do. It seems to me mean to spend your time suspecting soldiers who have fought for their king and their country, of such a despicable crime.”
“Can’t you trust me a little more than that, Geraldine?” he asked wistfully.
“In what way?” she demanded. “I judge only by the facts, the things you have said to me, your accusations against Captain Granet. Why should you go out of your way to investigate cases of suspected espionage?”
“You cannot believe that I would do so unless I was convinced that it was my duty?”
“I cannot see that it is your business at all,” she told him shortly.
He rose from his place.
“I am very sorry, Geraldine,” he said. “I will keep this ring. You are quite free. But—look at me.”
Against her will she was forced to do as he bade her. Her own attitude, which had appeared to her so dignified and right, seemed suddenly weakened. She had the feeling of a peevish child.
“Geraldine,” he begged, “take at least the advice of a man who loves you. Wait.”
Even when he had opened the door she felt a sudden inclination to call him back. She heard him go down the hall, heard the front door open and close. She sat and looked in a dazed sort of way at the empty space upon her finger. Then she rose and went into the drawing-room, where her father and mother were still reading. She held out her hand.
“Mother,” she announced, “I am not engaged to Major Thomson any more.”
The Admiral laid down his newspaper.
“Damned good job, too!” he declared. “That young fellow Granet’s worth a dozen of him. Never could stick an Army Medical. Well, well! How did he take it?”
Lady Conyers watched her daughter searchingly. Then she shook her head.
“I hope you have done wisely, dear,” she said.
At a little after noon on the following day Captain Granet descended from a taxicab in the courtyard of the Milan Hotel, and, passing through the swing doors, made his way to the inquiry office. A suave, black-coated young clerk hastened to the desk.
“Can you tell me,” Granet inquired, “whether a gentlemen named Guillot is staying here?”
The young man bowed.
“Monsieur Guillot arrived last night, sir,” he announced. “He has just rung down to say that if a gentlemen called to see him he could be shown up. Here, page,” he went on, turning to a diminutive youth in the background, “show this gentleman to number 322.”
Granet followed the boy to the lift and was conducted to a room on the third floor. The door was opened by a tall, white-haired Frenchman.
“Monsieur Guillot?” Captain Granet inquired pleasantly. “My name is Granet.”
The Frenchman ushered him in. The door was closed and carefully locked. Then Monsieur Guillot swung around and looked at his visitor with some curiosity. Granet was still wearing his uniform.
“France must live,” Granet murmured.
The Frenchman at once extended his hand.
“My friend,” he confessed, “for a moment I was surprised. It did not occur to me to see you in this guise.”
Granet smiled.
“I have been out at the Front,” he explained, “and am home wounded.”
“But an English officer?” Monsieur Guillot remarked dubiously. “I do not quite understand, then. The nature of the communication which I have come to receive is known to you?”
Granet nodded and accepted the chair which his host had offered.
“I do not think that you should be so much surprised,” he said simply. “If the war is grievous for your country, it is ruin to mine. We do not, perhaps, advertise our apprehensions in the papers. We prefer to keep them locked up in our own brain. There is one great fact always before us. Germany is unconquerable. One must find peace or perish.”
Monsieur Guillot listened with a curious look upon his face. His forefinger tapped the copy of the Times which was lying upon the table. The other nodded gravely.
“Yes,” he continued, “I know that our Press is carrying on a magnificent campaign of bluff. I know that many of the ignorant people of the country believe that this war is still being prosecuted with every hope of success. We who have been to the Front, especially those who have any source of information in Germany, know differently. The longer the war, the more ruinous the burden which your country and mine will have to bear.”
“It is my opinion also,” Monsieur Guillot declared, “and furthermore, listen. It is not our war at all, that is the cruel part of it. It is Russia’s war and yours. Yet it is we who suffer most, we, the richest part of whose country is in the hands of the foe, we whose industries are paralysed, my country from whom the life-blood is being slowly drained. You English, what do you know of the war? No enemy has set foot upon your soil, no Englishman has seen his womankind dishonoured or his home crumble into ashes. The war to you is a thing of paper, an abstraction—that same war which has turned the better half of my beloved country into a lurid corner of hell.”
“Our time has not yet come,” Granet admitted, “but before long, unless diplomacy can avert it, fate will be knocking at our doors, too. Listen. You have friends still in power, Monsieur Guillot?—friends in the Cabinet, is it not so?”
“It is indeed true,” Monsieur Guillot assented.
“You have, too,” Granet continued, “a great following throughout France. You are the man for the task I bring to you. You, if you choose, shall save your country and earn the reward she will surely bestow upon you.”
Monsieur Guillot’s cheeks were flushed a little. With long, nervous fingers he rolled a cigarette and lit it.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I listen to you eagerly, and yet I am puzzled. You wear the uniform of an English officer, but you come to me, is it not so, as an emissary of Germany?”
“In bald words that may be true,” Granet confessed, “yet I would remind you of two things. First, that the more dominant part of the personality which I have inherited comes to me from Alsatian ancestors; and secondly, that this peace for which I am striving may in the end mean salvation for England, too.”
“I hear you with relief,” Monsieur Guillot admitted. “In this transaction it is my great desire to deal with a man of honour. As such I know perceive that I can recognise you, monsieur.”
Granet bowed gravely and without any shadow of embarrassment.
“That assuredly, Monsieur Guillot,” he said. “Shall I proceed?”
“By all means.”
Granet drew a thin packet from the breast pocket of his coat. He laid it on the table between them.
“I received this,” he announced, “less than three weeks ago from the hands of the Kaiser himself.”
Monsieur Guillot gazed at his companion incredulously.
“It was very simple,” Granet continued. “I was taken prisoner near the village of Ossray. I was conducted at once to headquarters and taken by motor-car to a certain fortified place which I will not specify, but which was at that time the headquarters of the German Staff. I received this document there in the way I have told you. I was then assisted, after some very remarkable adventures, to rejoin my regiment. You can open that document, Monsieur Guillot. It is addressed to you. Guard it carefully, though, for it is signed by the Kaiser himself. I have carried it with me now for more than a fortnight in the inner sole of my shoe. As you can imagine, its discovery upon my person would have meant instant death.”
Monsieur Guillot was engrossed in reading the few lines of the missive. When he had finished, he covered the paper with the palm of his hand and leaned forward. There was a queer light in his eyes.
“Germany will give up Alsace and Lorraine,” he said hoarsely, “and will retire within her own frontiers. She will ask for no indemnity. What is the meaning of it?”
“Simple enough,” Granet pointed out. “A great politician like you should easily realise the actual conditions which prompt such an offer. What good is territory to Germany, territory over which she must rule by force, struggling always against the accumulated hatred of years? Alsace and Lorraine have taught her her lesson. It is not French territory she wants. Russia has far more to give. Russia and England between them can pay an indemnity which will make Germany rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Form your party, Monsieur Guillot, spread your tidings in any way that seems fit to you, only until the hour comes, guard that document as you would your soul. Its possession would mean death to you as it would to me.”
Monsieur Guillot took the document and buttoned it up in his inside pocket.
“Supposing I succeed,” he said quietly, “what of your country then?”
“My country will make peace,” Granet replied.
“It will be a peace that will cost us much, but nothing more than we deserve. For generations the war has been the perfectly obvious and apparent sequence of European events. It threw its warning shadow across our path for years, and our statesmen deliberately turned their heads the other way or walked blindfolded. Not only our statesmen, mind, but our people, our English people. Our young men shirked their duty, our philosophers and essayists shirked theirs. We prated of peace and conventions, and we knew very well that we were living in times when human nature and red blood were still the controlling elements. We watched Germany arm and prepare. We turned for comfort towards our fellow sinners, America, and we prattled about conventions and arbitration, and hundred other silly abstractions. A father can watch the punishment of his child, Monsieur Guillot. Believe me, there are many other Englishmen besides me who will feel a melancholy satisfaction in the chastisement of their country, many who are more English, even, than I.”
Monsieur Guillot passed away from the personal side of the matter. Already his mind was travelling swiftly along the avenues of his own future greatness.
“This is the chance which comes to few men,” he muttered. “There is Dejane, Gardine, Debonnot, Senn, besides my own followers. My own journal, too! It is a great campaign, this which I shall start.”
Granet rose to his feet.
“After to-day I breathe more freely,” he confessed. “There have been enemies pressing closely around me, I have walked in fear. To-day I am a free man. Take care, monsieur. Take care especially whilst you are in England.”
Monsieur Guillot extended his hand.
“My young friend,” he said, “in the years to come you and I shall perhaps meet in our wonderful Paris, and if I may not tell the world so, I shall yet feel, as we look upon her greatness, that you and I together have saved France. Adieu!”
Granet made his way along the empty corridor, rang for the lift and descended into the hall. A smile was upon his lips. The torch at last was kindled! In the hall of the hotel he came across a group of assembling guests just starting for the luncheon room. A tall, familiar figure stepped for a moment on one side. His heart gave a little jump. Geraldine held out her pearl-gloved hand.
“Captain Granet,” she said, “I wanted to tell you something.”
“Yes?” he answered breathlessly.
She glanced towards where the little group of people were already on their way to the stairs.
“I must not stay for a second,” she continued, dropping her voice, “but I wanted to tell you—I am no longer engaged to Major Thomson. Goodbye!”
A rush of words trembled upon his lips but she was gone. He watched her slim, graceful figure as she passed swiftly along the vestibule and joined her friends. He even heard her little laugh as she greeted one of the men who had waited for her.
“Decidedly,” Granet said to himself triumphantly as he turned towards the door, “this is my day!”
Monsieur Guillot was a man of emotional temperament. For more than an hour after Granet had left him, he paced up and down his little room, stood before the high windows which overlooked the Thames, raised his hands above his head and gazed with flashing eyes into the future—such a future! All his life he had been a schemer, his eyes turned towards the big things, yet with himself always occupying the one glorified place in the centre of the arena. He was, in one sense of the word, a patriot, but it was the meanest and smallest sense. There was no great France for him in which his was not the commanding figure. In every dream of that wonderful future, of a more splendid and triumphant France, he saw himself on the pinnacle of fame, himself acclaimed by millions the strong great man, the liberator. France outside himself lived only as a phantasy. And now at last his chance had come. The minutes passed unnoticed as he built his way up into the future. He was shrewd and calculating, he took note of the pitfalls he must avoid. One by one he decided upon the men whom gradually and cautiously he would draw into his confidence. Finally he saw the whole scheme complete, the bomb-shell thrown, France hysterically casting laurels upon the man who had brought her unexpected peace.
The door-bell rang. He answered it a little impatiently. A slim, fashionably dressed young Frenchman stood there, whose face was vaguely familiar to him.
“Monsieur Guillot?” the newcomer inquired politely.
Guillot bowed. The young man handed him a card.
“I am the Baron D’Evignon,” he announced, “second secretary at the Embassy here.”
Monsieur Guillot held the card and looked at his visitor. He was very puzzled. Some dim sense of foreboding was beginning to steal in upon him.
“Be so kind as to come in, Monsieur le Baron,” he invited. “Will you not be seated and explain to me to what I am indebted for this honour? You do not, by any chance, mistake me for another? I am Monsieur Guillot, lately, alas! Of Lille.”
The Baron smiled ever so slightly as he waved away the chair.
“There is no mistake, Monsieur Guillot,” he said. “I come to you with a message from my Chief. He would be greatly honoured if you would accompany me to the Embassy. He wishes a few minutes’ conversation with you.”
“With me?” Monsieur Guillot echoed incredulously. “But there is some mistake.”
“No mistake, I assure you,” the young man insisted.
Monsieur Guillot drew back a little into the room.
“But what have I to do with the Ambassador, or with diplomatic matters of any sort?” he protested. “I am here on business, to see what can be saved from the wreck of my affairs. Monsieur the Ambassador is mistaking me for another.”
The Baron shook his head.
“There is no mistake, my dear sir,” he insisted. “We all recognise,” he added, with a bow, “the necessities which force the most famous of us to live sometimes in the shadow of anonymity. If the Chief could find little to say to Monsieur Guillot of Lille, he will, I am sure, be very interested in a short conversation with Monsieur Henri Pailleton.”
There was a brief, tense silence. The man who had called himself Guillot was transformed. The dreams which had uplifted him a few minutes ago, had passed. He was living very much in the present—an ugly and foreboding present. The veins stood out upon his forehead and upon the back of his hands, his teeth gleamed underneath his coarse, white moustache. Then he recovered himself.
“There is some mistake,” he said, “but I will come.”
In silence they left the hotel and drove to the Embassy, in silence the young man ushered his charge into the large, pleasant apartment on the ground floor of the Embassy, where the ambassador was giving instructions to two of his secretaries. He dismissed them with a little wave of his hand and bowed politely to his visitor. There was no longer any pretext on the part of Monsieur Guillot. He recognised its complete futility.
“Monsieur Pailleton,” the ambassador began, “will you take a seat? It is very kind of you to obey so quickly my summons.”
“I had no idea,” the latter remarked, “that my presence in England was known. I am here on private business.”
The ambassador bowed suavely.
“Precisely, my friend! You see, I use the epithet ‘my friend’ because at a time like this all Frenchmen must forget their differences and work together for the good and honour of their country. Is it not so, monsieur?”
“That is indeed true,” Monsieur Pailleton admitted slowly. “We may work in different ways but we work towards the same end.”
“No one has ever doubted your patriotism, Monsieur Pailleton,” the ambassador continued. “It is my privilege now to put it to the test. There is a little misunderstanding in Brazil, every particular concerning which, and the views of our Government, is contained in the little parcel of documents which you see upon this table. Put them in your pocket, Monsieur Pailleton. I am going to ask you to serve your country by leaving for Liverpool this afternoon and for Brazil to-morrow on the steamship Hermes.”
Monsieur Pailleton had been a little taken aback by the visit of the Baron. He sat now like a man temporarily stupefied. He was too amazed to find any sinister significance in this mission. He could only gasp. The ambassador’s voice, as he continued talking smoothly, seemed to reach him from a long way off.
“It may be a little contrary to your wishes, my friend,” the latter proceeded, “to find yourself so far from the throb of our great struggle, yet in these days we serve best who obey. It is the wish of those who stand for France that you should take that packet and board that steamer.”
Monsieur Pailleton began in some measure to recover himself. He was still, however, bewildered.
“Monsieur,” he protested, “I do not understand. This mission to Brazil of which you speak—it can have no great importance. Cannot it be entrusted to some other messenger?”
“Alas! No, my dear sir,” was the uncompromising reply. “It is you—Monsieur Pailleton—whom the President desires to travel to Brazil.”
The light was breaking in upon Pailleton. He clenched his fists.
“I am to be got out of the way!” he exclaimed. “The President fears me politically, he fears my following!”
The ambassador drew himself a little more upright, a stiff unbending figure. His words seemed suddenly to become charged with more weight.
“Monsieur Pailleton,” he said, “the only thing that France fears is treachery!”
Pailleton gripped at the back of his chair. The room for a moment swam before his eyes.
“Is this an insult, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur?” he demanded.
“Take it as an insult if in your heart there is no shadow of treachery towards the France that is today, towards the cause of the Allies as it is to-day,” was the stern answer.
“I refuse to accept this extraordinary mission,” Pailleton declared, rising to his feet. “You can send whom you will to Brazil. I have greater affairs before me.”
The ambassador shrugged his shoulders.
“I shall not press you,” he said. “I shall only put before you the alternative. You are at this present moment upon French soil. If you refuse this mission which has been offered to you, I shall detain you here until I have the means of sending you under escort to France.”
“Detain me? On what charge?” Pailleton exclaimed angrily.
“On the charge of treason,” was the quiet reply. “I shall have you stripped and searched in this room. I shall have your luggage and your room searched at the Milan Hotel. And now, Monsieur Pailleton?”
Once more the man was bewildered. This time, however, it was bewilderment of a different sort. He thought for a moment steadfastly. Who was there who could have betrayed him?
“What is the nature of this document, monsieur, which you expect to find amongst my belongings?” he demanded.
“An authorised offer of peace from Germany to the French people,” the ambassador answered slowly. “It is the second attempt which has been made. The first was torn into fragments before the face of the person who had the effrontery to present it. The second, Monsieur Pailleton, is in your possession. You may keep it if you will. In Brazil you will find it of little use.”
Monsieur Pailleton folded his arms.
“I am a Frenchman,” he proclaimed. “What I may do, I do for France.”
“You refuse my mission, then?”
“I refuse it.”
The ambassador struck a bell upon his table. One of his secretaries promptly appeared.
“Send Colonel Defarge to me at once,” his chief ordered.
There was a brief pause. The ambassador was busy writing at his table. Pailleton, who was breathing heavily, said nothing. Presently an officer in French uniform entered.
“Monsieur le Colonel,” the ambassador said, stretching out his hand towards Pailleton, “you will accept the charge of this man, whom you will consider under arrest. I take the full responsibility for this proceeding. You will conduct him to your rooms here and you will search him. Any document found in his possession you will bring to me. When you have finished, let me know and I will give you an authority to proceed to his apartments in the Milan Hotel. You understand?”
“Certainly, my chief.”
The officer saluted and moved to Pailleton.
“You will come quietly, monsieur, is it not so?” he asked.
Pailleton waved him away. He turned to the ambassador.
“Monsieur,” he decided, “I will go to Brazil.”
The Admiralty report that they received last night a message from Commander Conyers of the destroyerScorpion,announcing that he has destroyed German submarines U 22 and 27, with all hands.
“Well, I’m damned!” the Admiral exclaimed, as he laid down the newspaper a few mornings later. “Ralph’s done it this time, and no mistake.”
Geraldine looked over his shoulder, her cheeks aglow.
“I knew at seven o’clock,” she declared. “Harris brought me the paper up. They are all so excited about it in the kitchen. You’d just gone out in the Park.”
“I want to know how it was done,” the Admiral speculated. “Can’t have been ramming if he bagged two of them, and they surely never came to the surface voluntarily, with a destroyer about.”
Geraldine glanced around the room to be sure that they were alone.
“Don’t you remember when Olive and I were at Portsmouth?” she said. “Ralph has been absolutely dumb about it but he did just give us a hint that he had a little surprise in store for the submarines. There was something on deck, covered all up and watched by a sentry, and just before we sat down to lunch, you know, we were turned off and had to go to the ‘Ship’. Ralph wouldn’t tell us a word about it but I’m sure he’s got some new contrivance on theScorpionfor fighting the submarines.”
“There may be something in it,” the Admiral admitted cheerfully. “I noticed the Morning Post naval man the other day made a very guarded reference to some secret means of dealing with these vermin.”
Lady Conyers sailed into the room, a telegram in her hand.
“A wireless from Ralph,” she announced. “Listen.”
Have sunk two of the brutes. More to come. Love.Ralph.
They pored over the telegram and the newspaper until the breakfast was cold. The Admiral was like a boy again.
“If we can get rid of these curses of the sea,” he said, settling down at last to his bacon and eggs, “and get those Germans to come out, the war will be over months before any one expected. I shall go down to the Admiralty after breakfast and see if they’ve got anything to tell. Ralph gave me a hint about the net scheme but he never even mentioned anything else.”
The telephone rang in the next room and a servant summoned Geraldine.
“Captain Granet wishes to speak to Miss Conyers,” he announced.
Geraldine left her place at once and hastened into the library. She took up the receiver.
“Is that you, Captain Granet?” she asked.
“I felt that I must ring you up,” he declared, “to congratulate you, Miss Conyers, upon your brother’s exploit. I have had half a dozen soldier fellows in already this morning to talk about it, and we’re simply mad with curiosity. Do you think we shall be told soon how it was done?”
“Father’s going down to the Admiralty to try and find out,” Geraldine replied. “Ralph doesn’t say a word except that he sunk them. We’ve had a wireless from him this morning.”
“It really doesn’t matter much, does it,” Granet went on, “so long as we get rid of the brutes. I was perfectly certain, when we were down at Portsmouth, that your brother had something up his sleeve. Does give one a thrill, doesn’t it, when one’s ashore and doing nothing, to read of things like this?”
“You’ll soon be at work again,” she told him encouragingly.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “They talk about giving me a home job and I don’t think I could stick it. Are you walking in the Park this morning, Miss Conyers?”
She hesitated for a moment.
“No, I am playing golf at Ranelagh.”
“Might I call this afternoon?”
“If you like,” she assented. “After four o’clock, though, because I am staying out to lunch.”
“Thank you so much,” he replied gratefully.
She set down the receiver again and went back to the breakfast-room.
“Captain Granet just wanted to congratulate us all,” she announced, “and to know if he could come in to tea this afternoon.”
“Better ask him to dinner, my dear,” the Admiral suggested hospitably. “He’s a fine young fellow, Granet. Very thoughtful of him to ring us up.”
Lady Conyers made no comment. Geraldine was bending over her plate. The Admiral rose to his feet. He was much too excited to pursue the conversation.
“I shall walk down to the Admiralty and see if I can get hold of old Wilcock,” he continued. “If he won’t tell me anything, I’ll wring the old beggar’s neck.”
The Admiral left the house a few minutes later and Lady Conyers walked arm in arm with her daughter into the pleasant little morning-room which looked out upon the Square. The former paused for a moment to look at Thomson’s photograph, which stood upon one of the side tables. Then she closed the door.
“Geraldine,” she said, “I am not very happy about you and Hugh.”
“Why not, mother?” the girl asked, looking out of the window.
“Perhaps because I like Hugh,” Lady Conyers went on quietly, “perhaps, too, because I am not sure that you have done wisely. You haven’t given me any reason yet, have you, for breaking your engagement?”
Geraldine was silent for a moment. Then she came back and sat on the rug at her mother’s feet. She kept her face, however, a little turned away.
“It’s so hard to put it into words, mother,” she said thoughtfully, “only Hugh never seemed to give me any of his confidence. Of course, his is very dull work, looking after hospitals and that sort of thing, but still, I’d have liked to try and take an interest in it. He must have seen exciting things in France, but it is only by the merest chance that one ever realises that he has been even near the Front. He is so silent, so secretive.”
Lady Conyers took up her knitting.
“Some men are like that, dear,” she remarked. “It is just temperamental. Perhaps you haven’t encouraged him to talk.”
“But I have,” Geraldine insisted. “I have asked him no end of questions, but before he has answered any of them properly, I find him trying to change the conversation.”
“Men don’t like talking about the war, you know,” Lady Conyers went on. “There was that nice Major Tyndale who was back from the Front the other day with a V. C. and goodness knows what. Not a word would he say about any one of the fights, and he is cheery enough in a general way, isn’t he, and fond of talking?”
“Even then,” Geraldine protested, “Hugh’s work is different. I can understand why he doesn’t like to talk a lot about the wounded and that sort of thing, but he must have had some interesting adventures.”
“I don’t think,” Lady Conyers said, “the very nicest men talk about their adventures.”
Geraldine made a little grimace.
“Hugh doesn’t talk about anything,” she complained. “He goes about looking as though he had the cares of the world upon his shoulders, and then he has the—well, the cheek, I call it, to lecture me about Captain Granet. He does talk about Captain Granet in the most absurd manner, you know, mother.”
“He may have his reasons,” Lady Conyers observed.
Geraldine turned her head and looked at her mother.
“Now what reasons could he have for not liking Captain Granet and suspecting him of all manner of ridiculous things?” she asked. “Did you ever know a more harmless, ingenuous, delightful young man in your life?”
“Perhaps it is because you find him all these things,” Lady Conyers suggested, “that Hugh doesn’t like him.”
“Of course, if he is going to be jealous about nothing at all—”
“Is it nothing at all?”
Lady Conyers raised her head from her knitting and looked across at her daughter. A little flush of colour had suddenly streamed into Geraldine’s face. She drew back as though she had been sitting too near the fire.
“Of course it is,” she declared. “I have only known Captain Granet for a very short time. I like him, of course—every one must like him who knows him—but that’s all.”
“Do you know,” Lady Conyers said, a moment later, “I almost hope that it is all.”
“And why, mother?”
“Because I consider Hugh is a great judge of character. Because we have known Hugh since he was a boy, and we have known Captain Granet for about a week.”
Geraldine rose to her feet.
“You don’t like Captain Granet, mother.”
“I do not dislike him,” Lady Conyers replied thoughtfully. “I do not see how any one could.”
“Hugh does. He hinted things about him—that he wasn’t honest—and then forbade me to tell him. I think Hugh was mean.”
Lady Conyers glanced at the clock.
“You had better go and get ready, dear, if you have promised to be at Ranelagh at half-past ten,” she said. “Will you just remember this?”
“I’ll remember anything you say, mother,” Geraldine promised.
“You’re just a little impulsive, dear, at times, although you seem so thoughtful,” Lady Conyers continued. “Don’t rush at any conclusion about these two men. Sometimes I have fancied that there is a great well of feeling behind Hugh’s silence. And more than that—that there is something in his life of which just now he cannot speak, which is keeping him living in great places. His abstractions are not ordinary ones, you know. It’s just an idea of mine, but the other day—well, something happened which I thought rather queer. I saw a closed car turn into St. James’s Park and, evidently according to orders, the chauffeur drove very slowly. There were two men inside, talking very earnestly. One of them was Hugh; the other was—well, the most important man at the War Office, who seldom, as you know, speaks to any one.”
“You mean to say that he was alone, talking confidentially with Hugh?” Geraldine exclaimed incredulously.
“He was, dear,” her mother assented, “and it made me think. That’s all. I have a fancy that some day when the time comes that Hugh is free to talk, he will be able to interest you—well, quite as much as Captain Granet.... Now then, dear, hurry. There’s the car at the door for you and you haven’t your hat on.”
Geraldine went upstairs a little thoughtfully. As she drew on her gloves, she looked down at the empty space upon her third finger. For a moment there was almost a lump in her throat.