THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
she said quietly. "Dear old Aunt Jane—I remember sitting up with her most of one night, trying to comfort her, when her pug dog went lame on one foot."
Vane laughed, and as they came to a turn in the path, they looked back.
The old lady was already dozing gently—at peace with all the world.
CHAPTER X
"If you say one word to me this afternoon which might even be remotely twisted into being serious," said Joan, "I shall upset you in the middle of the lake."
An inspection of the general lines of the boat prevented Vane from taking the threat too seriously; with anything approaching luck a party of four could have crossed the Atlantic in it. Innumerable cushions scattered promiscuously served to make it comfortable, and as the girl spoke Vane from his seat in the stern was helping to push the boat from the boat-house.
"You terrify me, lady," he murmured. "What shall I talk to you about?"
The girl was pulling lazily at the oars, and slowly they drifted out into the sunshine. "So she who must be obeyed is Margaret Trent, is she?"
"The evidence seems a trifle slight," said Vane. "But as I rather gather you're an insistent sort of person, I will plead guilty at once, to save bother."
"You think I generally get my own way, do you?"
"I do," answered Vane. "Don't you?"
The girl ignored the question. "What is she like? I've often heard dad speak about Mr. Trent; and I think she came once to Blandford, when I was away."
"I gather that you were being finished." Vane started filling his pipe.
"At least she said so in a letter I got this morning."
Joan looked at him for a moment. "Did you write to her about me?"
"I don't think she even knows you're at home," said Vane shortly, "much less that I've met you."
"Would you mind her knowing?" persisted the girl.
"Why on earth should I?" demanded Vane with a look of blank surprise.
She took a few strokes, and then rested on her oars again. "There are people," she said calmly, "who consider I'm the limit—a nasty, fast hussy. . . ."
"What appalling affectation on your part," jeered Vane lighting his pipe. "What do you do to keep up your reputation—sell flags in Leicester Square on flag days?" The girl's attention seemed to be concentrated on a patch of reeds where a water-hen was becoming vociferous. "Or do you pursue the line taken up by a woman I met last time I was on leave? She was a Wraf or a Wren or something of that kind, and at the time she was in mufti. But to show how up to date she was she had assimilated the jargon, so to speak, of the mechanics she worked with. It almost gave me a shock when she said to me in a confidential aside at a mutual friend's house, 'Have you ever sat down to a more perfectly bloody tea?'"
"I think," said Joan with her eyes still fixed on the reeds, "that that is beastly. It's not smart, and it does not attract men . . ."
"You're perfectly right there," returned Vane, grimly. "However, arising out of that remark, is your whole object in life to attract men?"
"Of course it is. It's the sole object of nine women out of ten. Why ask such absurd questions?"
"I sit rebuked," murmured Vane. "But to return—in what way do your charitable friends consider you the limit?"
"I happen to be natural," said Joan, "and at times that's very dangerous. I'm not the sort of natural, you know, that loves cows and a country life, and gives the chickens their hard-boiled eggs, or whatever they eat, at five in the morning."
"But you like Blandford," said Vane incautiously.
"Blandford!" A passionate look came into her face, as her eyes looking over his head rested on the old house. "Blandford is just part of me. It's different. Besides, the cow man hasn't been called up," she added inconsequently. "He's sixty-three."
"A most tactful proceeding," said Vane, skating away from thin ice.
"I'm natural in another way," she went on after a short silence. "If I want to do a thing—I generally do it. For instance, if I want to go and talk to a man in his rooms, I do so. Why shouldn't I? If I want to dance a skirt dance in a London ballroom, I do it. But some people seem to think it's fast. I made quite a lot of money once dancing at a restaurant with a man, you know—in between the tables. Of course we wore masks, because it might have embarrassed some of the diners to recognise me." The oars had dropped unheeded from her hands, and she leaned forward, looking at Vane with mocking eyes. "I just loved it."
"I'll bet you did," laughed Vane. "What made you give it up?"
"A difference of opinion between myself and some of the male diners, which threatened to become chronic," she returned dreamily. "That's a thing, my seeker after information, which the war hasn't changed, anyway."
For a while he made no answer, but lay back against the cushions, puffing at his pipe. Occasionally she pulled two or three gentle strokes with the oars, but for the most part she sat motionless with her eyes brooding dreamily over the lazy beauty of the water.
"You're a funny mixture, Joan," he said at length. "Devilish funny. . . ." And as he spoke a fat old carp rose almost under the boat and took an unwary fly. "The sort of mixture, you know, that drives a man insane. . . ."
She was looking at the widening ripples caused by the fish and she smiled slightly. Then she shrugged her shoulders. "I am what I am. . . . And just as with that fly, fate comes along suddenly, doesn't it, and pouf . . . it's all over! All its little worries settled for ever in a carp's tummy. If only one's own troubles could be settled quite as expeditiously. . . ."
He looked at her curiously. "It helps sometimes, Joan, to shoot your mouth, as our friends across the water say. I'm here to listen, if it's any comfort. . . ."
She turned and faced him thoughtfully. "There's something about you, Derek, that I rather like." It was the first time that she had called him by his Christian name, and Vane felt a little pleasurable thrill run through him. But outwardly he gave no sign.
"That is not a bad beginning, then," he said quietly. "If you're energetic enough let's get the boat under that weeping willow. I'm thinking we might tie her up, and there's room for an army corps in the stern here. . . ."
The boat brushed through the drooping branches, and Vane stepped into the bow to make fast. Then he turned round, and stood for a while watching the girl as she made herself comfortable amongst the cushions. . . . "There was once upon a time," he prompted, "a man. . . ."
"Possessed," said Joan, "of great wealth. Gold and silver and precious stones were his for the asking. . . ."
"It's to be assumed that the fortunate maiden who was destined to become his wife would join in the chorus with average success," commented Vane judicially.
"The assumption is perfectly correct. Is not the leading lady worthy of her hire?" She leaned back in her cushions and looked up at Vane through half-closed eyes. "In the fulness of time," she went on dreamily, "it came to pass that the man possessed of great wealth began to sit up and take notice. 'Behold,' he said to himself, 'I have all that my heart desireth, saving only one thing. My material possessions grow and increase daily, and, as long as people who ought to know better continue to kill each other, even so long will they continue growing.' I don't think I mentioned, did I, that there was a perfectly 'orrible war on round the corner during the period under consideration?"
"These little details—though trifling—should not be omitted," remarked Vane severely. "It is the duty of all story tellers to get their atmosphere correct. . . ." He sat down facing her and started to refill his pipe. . . . "What was this one thing he lacked?"
"Don't interrupt. It is the duty of all listeners to control their