THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
valuable," returned Vane. "And one is so struck with the pugilistic attitude adopted by both parties. . . . It seems so extraordinarily helpful to the smooth running of the country afterwards." He had no occasion to like Baxter from any point of view—but apart altogether from Joan, he felt that if there was any justification in his late luncheon companion's views, men such as Baxter supplied it.
With a movement almost of distaste he turned to Joan. "I was sorry that we didn't have another game before I left Rumfold," he said lightly.
"It was so very even that last one," she returned, and Vane's knuckles showed white on the table.
"My recollection is that you won fairly easily," he murmured.
"Excuse me a moment, will you?" said Mr. Baxter to Joan. "There's a man over there I must speak to. . . ." He rose and crossed the restaurant. Joan watched him as he moved between the tables; then she looked at Vane. "Your recollections are all wrong," she said softly. The grey eyes held no hint of mockery in them now, they were sweetly serious, and once again Vane gripped the table hard. His head was beginning to swim and he felt that he would shortly make a profound fool of himself.
"Do you think you're being quite kind, grey girl," he said in a low voice which he strove to keep calm.
For a few moments she played with the spoon on her coffee cup, and suddenly with a great rush of pure joy, which well-nigh choked him, Vane saw that her hand was trembling.
"Are you?" He scarcely heard the whispered words above the noise around.
"I don't care whether I am or not." His voice was low and exultant. He looked round, and saw that Baxter was threading his way back towards them. "This afternoon, Joan, tea in my rooms." He spoke swiftly and insistently. "You've just got to meet Binks. . . ."
And then, before she could answer, he was gone. . . .
CHAPTER XII
Vane walked along Piccadilly a prey to conflicting emotions. Dominant amongst them was a wild elation at what he had seen in Joan's eyes, but a very good second was the uncomfortable remembrance of Margaret. What did he propose to do?
He was not a cad, and the game he was playing struck him rather forcibly as being uncompromisingly near the caddish. Did he, or did he not, mean to make love to the girl he had just left at the Savoy? And if he did, to what end?
A crowd of lunchers coming out of Prince's checked him for a moment or two, and forced him into the arms of an officer and a girl who were standing, apparently waiting for a taxi. Almost unconsciously he took stock of them, even as he apologised. . . .
The girl, a pretty little thing, but utterly mediocre and uninteresting, was clinging to the officer's arm, a second lieutenant in the Tank Corps.
"Do you think we ought to take a taxi, Bill? Let's go on a 'bus. . . ."
"No damn fear," returned Bill. "Let's blow the lot while we're about it. I'm going back to-morrow. . . ."
Then Vane pushed past them, with that brief snapshot of a pair of lives photographed on his brain. And it would have effaced itself as quickly as it had come, but for the very new wedding ring he had seen on the girl's left hand—so new that to conceal it with a glove was simply not to be thought of.
Money—money—money; was there no getting away from it?
"Its value will not be measured by material things. It will leave nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. . . ." And as the words of Oscar Wilde came to his mind Vane laughed aloud.
"This is London, my lad," he soliloquised. "London in the twentieth century. We've a very nice war on where a man may develop his personality; fairy tales are out of date."
He strolled on past the Ritz—his mind still busy with the problem. Joan wanted to marry money; Joan had to marry money. At least he had gathered so. He had asked Margaret to marry him; she had said that in time she would—if he still wanted her. At least he had gathered so. Those were the major issues.
The minor and more important one—because minor ones have a way of influencing the big fellows out of all proportion to their size—was that he had asked Joan to tea.
He sighed heavily and turned up Half Moon Street. Whatever happened afterwards he had his duty as a host to consider first. He decided to go in and talk to the worthy Mrs. Green, and see if by any chance that stalwart pillar would be able to provide a tea worthy of the occasion. Mrs. Green had a way with her, which seemed to sweep through such bureaucratic absurdities as ration cards and food restrictions. Also, and perhaps it was more to the point, she had a sister in Devonshire who kept cows.
"Mrs. Green," called Vane, "come up and confer with me on a matter of great importance. . . ."
With a wild rush Binks emerged from below as if shot from a catapult—to be followed by Mrs. Green wiping her hands on her apron.
"A most important affair, Mrs. Green," continued Vane, when he had let himself into his rooms, and pacified Binks temporarily with the squeaky indiarubber dog. "Only you can save the situation. . . ."
Mrs. Green intimated by a magnificent gesture that she was fully prepared to save any situation.
"I have visitors for tea, or rather, to be correct—a visitor. A lady to comfort me—or perhaps torment me—as only your sex can." His eyes suddenly rested on Margaret's photo, and he stopped with a frown. Mrs. Green's motherly face beamed with satisfaction. Here was a Romance with a capital R, which was as dear to her kindly heart as a Mary Pickford film.
"I'm sure I hope you'll be very happy, sir," she said.
"So do I, Mrs. Green—though I've a shrewd suspicion, I shall be profoundly miserable." He resolutely turned his back on the photo. "I'm playing a little game this afternoon, most motherly of women. Incidentally it's been played before—but it never loses its charm or—its danger. . . ." He gave a short laugh. "My first card is your tea. Toast, Mrs. Green, covered with butter supplied by your sister in Devonshire. Hot toast in your priceless muffin dish—running over with butter: and wortleberry jam. . . . Can you do this great thing for me?"
Mrs. Green nodded her head. "The butter only came this morning, Mr.
Vane, sir. And I've got three pounds of wortleberry jam left. . . ."
"Three pounds should be enough," said Vane after due deliberation.
"And then I've got a saffron cake," went on the worthy woman. "Fresh made before it was sent on by my sister. . . ."
"Say no more, Mrs. Green. We win—hands down—all along the line. Do you realise that fair women and brave men who venture out to tea in London to-day have to pay half a crown for a small dog biscuit?" Vane rubbed his hands together. "After your tea, and possibly during it—I shall play my second card—Binks. Now I appeal to you—Could any girl with a particle of natural feeling consent to go on living away from Binks?"
The Accursed Thing emitted a mournful hoot, as Binks, hearing his name spoken, raised his head and looked up at his master. His tail thumped the floor feverishly, and his great brown eyes glowed with a mute inquiry. "To walk, or not to walk"—that was the question. The answer was apparently in the negative, for the moment at any rate, and he again returned to the attack.
"You see my guile, Mrs. Green," said Vane. "Softened by toast, floating in Devonshire butter and covered with wortleberry jam; mellowed by saffron cake—Binks will complete the conquest. Then will come the crucial moment. No one, not even she, can part me from my dog. To have Binks—she must have me. . . . What do you think of it—as a game only, you know?"
Mrs. Green laughed. "I surely do hope you're successful, my dear," she said, and she laid a motherly hand on his arm. In moments of extreme feeling she sometimes reverted to the language of her fathers, with its soft West Country burr. . . . "When Green