THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
gentleman tapped Vane on the shoulder to emphasise this hideous thing—"he lives on rusks and soda-water."
Vane threw the end of his cigarette in the fire and laughed. "There's always a catch somewhere, isn't there, Mr. Sutton? . . . . I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to excuse my changing; I've only got this khaki with me."
Vane was standing in front of the big open hearth in the hall when Joan came down for dinner. It was the first time he had seen her in an evening dress, and as she came slowly towards him from the foot of the stairs his hands clenched behind his back, and he set his teeth. In her simple black evening frock she was lovely to the point of making any man's senses swim dizzily. And when the man happened to be in love with her, and knew, moreover, that she was in love with him, it was not to be wondered at that he put both hands to his head, with a sudden almost despairing movement.
The girl, as she reached him, saw the gesture, and her eyes grew very soft. Its interpretation was not hard to discover, even if she had not had the grim, fixed look on his face to guide her; and in an instant it swept away the resolve she had made in her room to treat him coldly. In a flash of clear self-analysis just as she reached him, she recognised the futility of any such resolve. It was with that recognition of her weakness that fear came. . . . All her carefully thought out plans seemed to be crumbling away like a house of cards; all that she wanted was to be in his arms . . . to be kissed. . . . And yet she knew that that way lay folly. . . .
"Why have you come?" she said very low. "It wasn't playing the game after what I wrote you. . . ."
Vane looked at her in silence for a moment and then he laughed. "Are you really going to talk to me, Joan, about such a thing as playing the game?"
She stood beside him with her hands stretched out towards the blazing logs. "You know how utterly weak it makes me—being near you. . . . You're just trading on it."
"Well," said Vane fiercely, "is there any man who is a man who wouldn't under the circumstances?"
"And yet," she said, turning and facing him gravely, "you know what is at stake for me." Her voice began to quiver. "You're playing with sex . . . . sex . . . . sex, and it's the most powerful weapon in the world. But its effects are the most transitory."
"You lie, Joan, and you know it," Vane gripped her arm. "It's not the most transitory."
"It is," she cried stamping her foot, "it is. Against it on the other side of the balance lie the happiness of my father and brother—Blandford—things that last. . . ."
"But what of your own happiness?" he asked grimly.
"Why do you think I shouldn't be happy?" she cried. "I've told you that it's a purely business arrangement. Henry is very nice and kind, and all that I'll be missing is a few months of the thing they call Love. . . ."
Vane took his hand from her arm, and let it fall to his side. "I'm afraid I've marked your arm," he said quietly. "I didn't know how hard I was gripping it. There is only one point which I would like to put to you. Has it occurred to you that in the business arrangement which you have outlined so delightfully, it may possibly strike Mr. Baxter—in view of his great possessions—that a son and heir is part of the contract?" As he spoke he raised his eyes to her face.
He saw her whole body stiffen as if she had been struck; he saw her bite her lip with a sudden little gasp, he saw the colour ebb from her cheeks. Then she recovered herself.
"Why, certainly," she said. "I have no doubt that that will be part of the programme. It generally is, I believe, in similar cases."
Vane's voice was very tender as he answered. "My grey girl," he whispered, "it won't do. . . . It just won't do. If I believed that what you say really expressed what you think, don't you know that I'd leave the house without waiting for dinner? But they don't. You can't look me in the eyes and tell me they do. . . ."
"I can," she answered defiantly; "that is what I think. . . ."
"Look me in the eyes, I said," interrupted Vane quietly.
Twice she tried to speak, and twice she failed. Then with a little half-strangled gasp she turned away. . . . "You brute," she said, and her voice was shaking, "you brute. . . ."
And as their host came down the stairs to join them, Vane laughed—a short, triumphant laugh. . . .
Almost at once they went in to dinner; and to Vane the meal seemed to be a succession of unknown dishes, which from time to time partially distracted his attention from the only real thing in the room—the girl sitting opposite him. And yet he flattered himself that neither his host nor hostess noticed anything remarkable about his behaviour. In fact he considered that he was a model of tact and discretion. . . .
Vane was drunk—drunk as surely as a man goes drunk on wine. He was drunk with excitement; he was mad with the madness of love. At times he felt that he must get up, and go round the table and gather his girl into his arms. He even went so far as to picture the butler's expression when he did it. Unfortunately, that was just when Mrs. Sutton had concluded a harrowing story of a dead soldier who had left a bedridden wife with thirteen children. Vane had not heard a word of the story, but the butler's face had crossed his mental horizon periodically, and he chose that moment to laugh. It was not a well-timed laugh, but he floundered out of it somehow. . . .
And then just as the soup came on—or was it the savoury?—he knew, as surely as he could see her opposite him, that his madness was affecting Joan. Telepathy, the wiseacres may call it, the sympathy of two subconscious minds. . . . What matter the pedagogues, what matter the psychological experts? It was love—glorious and wonderful in its very lack of restraint. It was the man calling the woman; it was the woman responding to the man. It was freedom, beauty, madness all rolled into one; it was the only thing in this world that matters. But all the time he was very careful not to give away the great secret. Just once or twice their eyes met, and whenever that happened he made some remark more inordinately witty than usual—or more inordinately foolish. And the girl opposite helped him, and laughed with him, while over the big mahogany table there came leaping her real message—"My dear, I'm yours. . . ." It whispered through the flowers in the big cut-glass bowl that formed the centrepiece; it echoed between the massive silver candlesticks with their pink shaded lights. At times it sounded triumphantly from every corner of the room, banishing all the commonplace surroundings with the wonder of its voice; at times it floated softly through the warm, scented air, conjuring up visions of nights on the desert with the Nile lapping softly on the hot sand, and the cries of the waterboys coming faintly through the still air.
But ever and always it was there, dominating everything, so insistent was its reality. As assuredly as if the words had been spoken did they see into one another's hearts that evening at dinner while a worthy old Sussex squire and his wife discussed the war, and housing problems, and the futility of fixing such a price on meat that it paid farmers to put their calves to the cow, instead of selling the milk. After all, the words had been spoken before, and words are of little account. There are times—not often, for artificiality and civilisation are stern taskmasters—but there are times when a man and woman become as Gods and know. What need of words between them then; a mathematician does not require to consult the multiplication table or look up the rules that govern addition and subtraction.
But the condition is dangerous—very dangerous. For the Law of the Universe has decreed that for every Action there is an equal and opposite Reaction. No account may be taken of madness—even though it be Divine. It avails not one jot when the time comes to foot the bill. By that time the madness has passed, like a dream in the night; and cold sanity is the judge before which a man must stand or fall. A few, maybe, there are who cheat the reckoning for a space; but they live in a Fools' Paradise. Sooner or later the bill is presented. It must be—for such is the Law of Things as they Are . . . . And all that a man may pray for is that he gets good value for his money.
After dinner Joan sang once or twice, and Vane, from the depths of a chair near the fire, watched her through half-closed eyes. His hostess was placidly knitting and the old gentleman was openly and unashamedly asleep. The girl had a small voice, but very sweet and pure; and, after a while Vane rose and went over to the piano. With his elbow