The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
objectors—but they couldn't stand them. . . ." He rattled on affably, but Vane paid no heed. He was busy trying to think under what possible pretext he could have been sent down to deal with Boche prisoners. And being a man of discernment it is more than likely he would have evolved something quite good, but for the sudden and unexpected arrival of old Mr. Sutton himself. . . .
"Good Heavens! What are you doing here, my dear boy?" he cried, striding across the room, and shaking Vane's hand like a pump handle.
"How'd you do, sir," murmured Vane. "I—er—have come down to inquire about these confounded conscientious prisoners—Boche objectors—you know the blighters. Question of standardising their rations, don't you know. . . . Sort of a committee affair. . . ."
Vane avoided the eye of the commercial traveller, and steered rapidly for safer ground. "I was thinking of coming out to call on Mrs. Sutton to-morrow."
"To-morrow," snorted the kindly old man. "You'll do nothing of the sort, my boy. You'll come back with me now—this minute. Merciful thing I happened to drop in. Got the car outside and everything. How long is this job, whatever it is—going to take you?"
"Three or four days," said Vane hoping that he was disguising any untoward pleasure at the suggestion.
"And can you do it equally well from Melton?" demanded Mr. Sutton. "I can send you in every morning in the car."
Vane banished the vision of breakers ahead, and decided that he could do the job admirably from Melton.
"Then come right along and put your bag in the car." The old gentleman, with his hand on Vane's arm, rushed him out of the smoking-room, leaving the commercial traveller pondering deeply as to whether he had silently acquiesced in a new variation of the confidence trick. . . .
"We've got Joan Devereux staying with us," said Mr. Sutton, as the chauffeur piled the rugs over them. "You know her, don't you?"
"We have met," answered Vane briefly.
"Just engaged to that fellow Baxter. Pots of money." The car turned out on to the London road, and the old man rambled on without noticing Vane's abstraction. "Deuced good thing too—between ourselves. Sir James—her father, you know—was in a very queer street. . . . Land, my boy, is the devil these days. Don't touch it; don't have anything to do with it. You'll burn your fingers if you do. . . . Of course, Blandford is a beautiful place, and all that, but, 'pon my soul, I'm not certain that he wouldn't have been wiser to sell it. Not certain we all wouldn't be wiser to sell, and go and live in furnished rooms at Margate. . . . Only if we all did, it would become the thing to do, and we'd soon get turned out of there by successful swindlers. They follow one round, confound 'em—trying to pretend they talk the same language."
"When is Miss Devereux going to be married?" asked Vane as the old man paused for breath.
"Very soon. . . . Fortnight or three weeks. Quite a quiet affair, you know; Baxter is dead against any big function. Besides, he has to run over to France so often, and so unexpectedly, that it might have to be postponed a day or two at the last moment. Makes it awkward if half London has been asked."
The car swung through the gates and rolled up the drive to the house. The brown tints of autumn were just beginning to show on the trees, and an occasional fall of dead leaves came fluttering down as they passed underneath. Then, all too quickly for Vane, they were at the house, and the chauffeur was holding open the door of the car. Now that he was actually there—now that another minute would bring him face to face with Joan—he had become unaccountably nervous.
He followed Mr. Sutton slowly up the steps, and spent an unnecessarily long time taking off his coat. He felt rather like a boy who had been looking forward intensely to his first party, and is stricken with shyness just as he enters the drawing-room.
"Come in, come in, my boy, and get warm." Mr. Sutton threw open a door. "Mary, my dear, who do you think I found in Lewes? Young Derek Vane—I've brought him along. . . ."
Vane followed him into the room as he was speaking, and only he noticed that Joan half rose from her chair, and then sank back again, while a wave of colour flooded her cheeks, and then receded, leaving them deathly white. With every pulse in his body hammering, but outwardly quite composed, Vane shook hands with Mrs. Sutton.
"So kind of your husband," he murmured. "He found me propping up the hotel smoking-room, and rescued me from such a dreadful operation. . . ."
Mrs. Sutton beamed on him. "But it's delightful, Captain Vane. I'm so glad you could come. Let me see—you know Miss Devereux, don't you?"
Vane turned to Joan, and for the moment their eyes met. "I think I have that pleasure," he said in a low voice. "I believe I have to congratulate you, Miss Devereux, on your approaching marriage."
He heard Joan give a gasp, and barely caught her whispered answer: "My
God! why have you come?"
He turned round and saw that both the old people were occupied for a moment. "Why, just to congratulate you, dear lady . . . just to congratulate you." His eyes burned into hers, and his voice was shaking. "Why else, Joan, why else?"
Then Mrs. Sutton began to talk, and the conversation became general.
"It's about these German prisoners; they're giving a bit of trouble," Vane said in answer to her question. "And so we've formed a sort of board to investigate their food and general conditions . . . and—er—I am one of the board."
"How very interesting," said the old lady. "Have you been on it for long?"
"No—not long. In fact," said Vane looking fixedly at Joan, "I only got my orders last night. . . ." With the faintest flicker of a smile he watched the tell-tale colour come and go.
Then she turned on him, and her expression was a little baffling. "And have you any special qualification, Captain Vane, for dealing with such an intricate subject?"
"Intricate?" He raised his eyebrows. "I should have thought it was very simple. Just a matter of common sense, and making . . . er . . . these men—well—get their sense of proportion."
"You mean making them get your sense of proportion?"
"In some cases there can be only one," said Vane gravely.
"And that one is your own. These—German prisoners you said, didn't you?—these German prisoners may think it their duty to disagree with your views. Doubtless from patriotic motives. . . ."
"That would be a great pity," said Vane. "It would then be up to me to make them see the error of their ways."
"And if you fail?" asked the girl.
"Somehow I don't think I shall," he answered slowly. "But if I do—the trouble of which I spoke will not diminish. It will increase. . . ."
"We pander too much to these swine," grumbled Mr. Sutton. "It makes me sick when I hear of the way our boys are treated by the brutes. A damn good flogging twice a day—you'll pardon my language, is what they want."
"Yes—drastic measures can be quite successful at times," said Vane, with a slight smile. "Unfortunately in our present advanced state of civilisation public opinion is against flogging. It prefers violence against the person to be done mentally rather than physically. . . . And it seems so short-sighted, doesn't it? The latter is transitory, while the other is permanent. . . ."
Joan rose and looked at him quietly. "How delightful to meet a man who regards anything as permanent these days. I should have thought we were living in an age of ever-changing values. . . ."
"You're quite wrong, Miss Devereux," said Vane. "Quite, quite wrong. The little things may change—the froth on the top of the pool, which everyone sees and knows about; but the big fundamental things are always the same. . . ."
"And what are your big fundamental things?" she demanded.
Vane looked at her for a few moments before he answered her lightly. "Things on which there can be no disagreement even though they are my own views. Love and the pleasure of congenial work, and health. . . . Just