The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
half sullenly, as he took a seat somewhat further removed from temptation.
"My dear Derek, it would take more than a mere European war to make some leopards I know of change their spots."
In spite of himself Vane laughed. "Well, dash it, Margaret, there was a distinct flavour of the pre-war about you last night."
She closed her eyes, and her hands clenched. "Oh! don't, Derek; don't, please. As long as I live I shall never forget it. It was too horrible." She turned away from him shuddering.
"Dear—I'm sorry." He leaned forward and took her hand. "I didn't realise quite what it must mean to you. You see it was that poor boy who was dying in the bed opposite mine that made me jumpy . . . frightened . . . God knows what! The smash up of the raid itself left me almost cold by comparison. . . . I suppose it was the other way round with you. . . . It's just a question of what one is used to—anyway, don't let's talk about it."
For a while they sat in silence, and then Vane spoke again. "You know
I'm crossing to-morrow, I suppose?"
"Yes." Margaret nodded. "I didn't think you'd stop long."
"Are you sorry I'm going?"
"Of course I am," she answered simply. "You know that. . . . But I think perhaps it's just as well."
"Just as well!" repeated Vane. "Why?"
"Because . . . oh! because of a lot of things. You'd interfere with my work for one."
"How dreadful," said Vane with mock gravity. "You'd mix the medicines and all that, I suppose." Then he turned to her impulsively. "Margaret, my dear, what does it matter? This work of yours won't go on for ever. And after the War, what then?"
"That's just it," she said slowly. "What then?"
"Well, as a preliminary suggestion—why not marry me?"
She laughed—a low, rippling laugh.
"Do you remember what you said to me in the tea shop yesterday about not having seen a girl for six months?"
"What on earth has that got to do with it?" said Vane frowning. "I'm not a child or a callow boy. Do you suppose at my age I don't know my own mind? Why, my dear girl. . . ." Her eyes met his, and the words died away on his lips.
"Don't, dear, don't. You're insulting both our intelligences." With a slight laugh she leaned over and rested her hand on his. "You know perfectly well what I mean."
Vane grunted non-committally. He undoubtedly did know what she meant, but at that moment it was annoying to find she knew it too. . . .
"Listen, Derek; I want to put things before you as I see them." With her elbows on her knee, and her chin cupped in the palms of her hand, she was staring across the stretch of tumbled, grass-grown hillocks.
"We know one another too well not to be perfectly frank. How much of last night was just—what shall I say—nervous tension? Supposing some other girl had been in my place?"
Impetuously he started to speak, but once again the words died away on his lips as he saw the half-tender, half-humorous look in her eyes.
"Dear," she went on after a moment. "I don't want to hurt you. I know you think you're in love with me to-day; but will you to-morrow? You see, Derek, this war has given a different value to things. . . . Whether one likes it or not, it's made one more serious. It hasn't destroyed our capacity for pleasure, but it's altered the things we take pleasure in. My idea of a good time, after it's over, will never be the same as it was before."
Vane nodded his head thoughtfully. "I'm not certain, dear, that that's anything to worry about."
"Of course it isn't—I know that. But don't you see, Derek, where that leads us to? One can't afford to fool with things once they have become serious. . . . And to kiss a man, as I kissed you last night, seems to mean very much more to me than it did once upon a time. That's why I want to make sure. . . ." She hesitated, and then, seeming to make up her mind, she turned and faced him. "I would find it easier now to live with a man I really loved—if that were the only way—than to be kissed by two or three at a dance whom I didn't care about. Do you understand?"
"My dear, I understand perfectly," answered Vane. "The one is big—the other is petty. And when we live through an age of big things we grow ourselves."
"I gave you that as a sort of example of what I feel, Derek," Margaret continued after a time. "I don't suppose there is anything novel in it, but I want you so frightfully to understand what I am going to say. You have asked me to marry you—to take the biggest step which any woman can take. I tell you quite frankly that I want to say 'Yes.' I think all along that I've loved you, though I've flirted with other men. . . . I was a fool five years ago. . . ."
He looked at her quickly. "Tell me; I want to know."
"I found out about that girl you were keeping."
Vane started slightly. "Good Lord! But how?"
"Does it matter, old man?" Margaret turned to him with a smile. "A chance remark by Billy Travers, if you want to know. And then I asked a few questions, and put two and two together. It seemed a deliberate slight to me. It seemed so sordid. You see I didn't understand—then."
"And now? Do you understand now?" He leaned towards her eagerly.
"Should I have said to you what I have if I didn't?" She held out her hand to him, and with a quick movement he put it to his lips. "I've grown, you see . . . got a little nearer the true value of things. I've passed out of the promiscuous kissing stage, as I told you. . . . And I think I realise rather more than I did what men are. . . . One doesn't make them up out of books now. All this has taught one to understand a man's temptations—to forgive him when he fails." Then a little irrelevantly—"They seem so petty, don't they—now?"
Vane gently dropped the hand he was holding, and his face as he looked at her was inscrutable. Into his mind there had flashed Lear's question: "And goes thy heart with this?" Then irritably he banished it. . . . God bless her! She was all heart: of course she was.
"Will you tell me where exactly you have arrived at?" he asked quietly.
"At the certainty that there lies in front of you and me work to be done. I don't know what that work will prove to be—but, Derek, we've got to find out. It may be that we shall do it together. It may be that my work is just to be with you. And it may be that it isn't that you won't want me. Ah! yes, dear," as he made a quick, impatient movement. "There is always the possibility. I want you to go and find out, Derek, and I want you to make sure that you really want me—that it isn't just six months in Flanders. Also," she added after a pause, "I want to be quite sure about myself." For a while Vane stared out to sea in silence.
"Supposing," he said slowly, "the work in front of me is back to Flanders again, as it probably will be. And supposing I'm not so lucky next time. What then?"
She turned and faced him. "Why then, dear, Fate will have decided for us, won't she?"
"A deuced unsatisfactory decision," grumbled Vane. "Margaret, I don't want to worry you; I don't want to force myself on you . . . but won't you give me some sort of a promise?"
She shook her head. "I'll give you no promise at all, Derek. You've got to find yourself, and I've got to find myself; and when we've both done that we shall know how we stand to one another. Until then . . . well just give it a miss in baulk, old man."
Vane regarded her curiously. "If last night and this afternoon had happened before the war, I wonder what your decision would have been?"
"Does it matter?" she answered gently. "Before the war is just a different age." For a while she was silent; then she drew a deep breath. "Don't you feel it as I feel it?" she whispered. "The bigness of it, the wonder of it. Underneath all the horror, underlying all the vileness—the splendour of it all. The glory of human endurance. . . . People wondered that I could stand it—I with my idealism. But it seems to me that out of the sordid brutality an ideal has been born which is almost the greatest the world has ever