CHAPTER IV
Looking back on them afterwards, Peter saw the months that followed as a time of waiting between two periods of stress. Not, of course, that anyone can ever stand still, for even if one does but sit by a fire and warm one's hands, things happen, and one is imperceptibly led forward. It was so in this case, but, not unnaturally, Graham hardly noticed in what way his mind was moving. He had been through a period of storm, and he had to a certain extent emerged from it. The men he had met, and above all Julie, had been responsible for the opening of his eyes to facts that he had before passed over, and it was entirely to his credit that he would not refuse to accept them and act upon them. But once he had resolved to do so things, as it were, slowed down. He went about his work in a new spirit, the spirit not of the teacher, but of the learner, and ever since his talk with Louise he thought—or tried to think—more of what love might mean to Julie than to himself. The result was a curious change in their relations, of which the girl was more immediately and continually conscious than Peter. She puzzled over it, but could not get the clue, and her quest irritated her. Peter had always been the least little bit nervous in her presence. She had known that he never knew what she would do or say next, and her knowledge had amused and carried her away. But now he was so self-possessed. Very friendly they were, and they met often—in the ward for a few sentences that meant much to each of them; down town by arrangement in a cafe, or once or twice for dinner; and once for a day in the country, though not alone; and he was always the same. Sometimes, on night duty, she would grope for an adjective to fit him, and could only think of "tender." He was that. And she hated it, or all but hated it. She did not want tenderness from him, for it seemed to her that tenderness meant that he was, as it were, standing aloof from her, considering, helping when he could. She demanded the fierce rush of passion with which he would seize and shrine her in the centre of his heart, deaf to her entreaties, careless of her pain. She would love then, she thought, and sometimes, going to the window of the ward and staring out over the harbour at the twinkling lights, she would bite her lip with the pain of it. He had thought she dismissed love lightly when she called it animal passion. Good God, if he only knew!…
Peter, for his part, did not realise so completely the change that had come over him. For one thing, he saw himself all the time, and she did not. She did not see him when he lay on his bed in a tense agony of desire for her. She did not see him when life looked like a tumbled heap of ruins to him and she smiled beyond. She all but only saw him when he was staring at the images that had been presented to him during the past months, or hearing in imagination Louise's quaintly accepted English and her quick and vivid "La pauvre petite!"
For it was Louise, curiously enough, who affected him most in these days. A friendship sprang up between them of which no one knew. Pennell and Donovan, with whom he went everywhere, did not speak of it either to him or to one another, with that real chivalry that is in most men, but if they had they would have blundered, misunderstanding. Arnold, of whom Peter saw a good deal, did not know, or, if he knew, Peter never knew that he knew. Julie, who was well aware of his friendship with the two first men, knew that he saw French girls, and, indeed, openly chaffed him about it. But under her chaff was an anxiety, typical of her. She did not know how far he went in their company, and she would have given anything to know. She guessed that, despite everything, he had had no physical relationship with any one of them, and she almost wished it might be otherwise. She knew well that if he fell to them, he would the more readily turn to her. There was a strength about him now that she dreaded.
Whatever Louise thought she kept wonderfully hidden. He took her out to dinner in quiet places, and she would take him home to coffee, and they would chat, and there was an end. She was seemingly well content. She did her business, and they would even speak of it. "I cannot come to-night, mon ami," she would say; "I am busy." She would nod to him as she passed out of the restaurant with someone else, and he would smile back at her. Nor did he ever remonstrate or urge her to change her ways. And she knew why. He had no key with which to open her cage.
Once, truly, he attempted it, and it was she who refused the glittering thing. He rarely came uninvited to her flat, for obvious reasons; but one night she heard him on the stairs as she got ready for bed. He was walking unsteadily, and she thought at first that he had been drinking. She opened to him with the carelessness her life had taught her, her costume off, and her black hair all about her shoulders. "Go in and wait, Peterr," she said; "I come."
She had slipped on a coloured silk wrap, and gone in to the sitting-room to find him pacing up and down. She smiled. "Sit down, mon ami," she said; "I will make the coffee. See, it is ready. Mais vraiment, you shall drink café noir to-night. And one leetle glass of this—is it not so?" and she took a green bottle of peppermint liqueur from the cupboard.
"Coffee, Louise," he said, "but not the other. I don't want it."
She turned and looked more closely at him then. "Non," she said, "pardon. But sit you down. Am I to have the wild beast prowling up and down in my place?"
"That's just it, Louise," he cried; "I am a wild beast to-night. I can't stand it any longer. Kiss me."
He put his arms round her, and bent her head back, studying her French and rather inscrutable eyes, her dark lashes, her mobile mouth, her long white throat. He put his hand caressingly upon it, and slid his fingers beneath the loose lace that the open wrap exposed. "Dear," he said, "I want you to-night."
"To-night, chérie?" she questioned.
"Yes, now," he said hotly. "And why not? You give to other men—why not to me, Louise?"
She freed herself with a quick gesture, and, brave heart, she laughed merrily. The devil must have started at that laugh, and the angels of God sung for joy. "Ah, non," she cried, "It is the mistake you make. I sell myself to other men. But you—you are my friend; I cannot sell myself to you."
He did not understand altogether why she quibbled; how should he have done? But lie was ashamed. He slid into the familiar chair and ran his fingers through his hair. "Forgive me, dear," he muttered. "I think I am mad to-night, but I am not drunk, as you thought, except with worrying. I feel lost, unclean, body and soul, and I thought you would help me to forget—no, more than that, help me to feel a man. Can't you, won't you?" he demanded, looking up. "I am tired of play-acting. I've a body, like other men. Let me plunge down deep to-night, Louise. It will do me good, and it doesn't matter. That girl was right after all. Oh, what a fool I am!"
Then did the girl of the streets set out to play her chosen part. She did not preach at all—how could she? Besides, neither had she any use for the Ten Commandments. But if ever Magdalene broke an alabaster-box of very precious ointment, Louise did so that night. She was worldly wise, and she did not disdain to use her wisdom. And when he had gone she got calmly into bed, and slept—not all at once, it is true, but as resolutely as she had laughed and talked. It was only when she woke in the morning that she found her pillow wet with tears.
It was a few days later that Louise took Peter to church. His ignorance of her religion greatly amused her, or so at least she pretended, and when he asked her to come out of town to lunch one morning, and she refused because it was Corpus Christi, and she wanted to go to the sung Mass, it was he who suggested that he should go with her. She looked at him queerly a moment, and then agreed. They met outside the church and went in together, as strange a pair as ever the meshes of that ancient net which gathers of all kinds had ever drawn towards the shore.
Louise led him to a central seat, and found the place for him in her Prayer-Book. The building was full, and Peter glanced about him curiously. The detachment of the worshippers impressed him immensely. There did not appear to be any proscribed procedure among them, and even when the Mass began he was one of the few who stood and knelt as the rubrics of the service directed. Louise made no attempt to do so. For the most part she knelt, and her beads trickled ceaselessly through her fingers.
Peter was, if anything, bored by the Mass, though he would not admit it to himself. It struck him as being a ratherly poorly played performance. True, the officiating ministers moved and spoke with a calm regularity which impressed him, familiar as he was with clergymen who gave out hymns and notices, and with his own solicitude at home that the singing should go well or that the choirboys should not fidget. But there was a terrible confusion with chairs, and a hideous kind of clapper that was used, apparently, to warn the boys to sit and rise. The service, moreover, as a reverential congregational act of worship such as he was used to hope for, was marred by innumerable collections, and especially by the old woman who came round even during the Sanctus to collect the rent of the chairs they occupied, and changed money or announced prices with all the zest of the market-place.
But at the close there was a procession which is worth considerable description. Six men with censers of silver lined up before the high altar, and stood there, slowly swinging the fragrant bowls at the end of their long chains. The music died down. One could hear the rhythmical, faint clangour of the metal. And then, intensely sudden, away in the west gallery, but almost as if from the battlements of heaven, pealed out silver trumpets in a fanfare. The censers flew high in time with it, and the sweet clouds of smoke, caught by the coloured sunlight of the rich painted windows, unfolded in the air of the sanctuary. Lights moved and danced, and the space before the altar filled with the white of the men and boys who should move in the procession. Again and again those trumpets rang out, and hardly had the last echoes died away than the organ thundered the Pange Lingua, as a priest in cloth of gold turned from the altar with the glittering monstrance in his hand. Even from where he stood Peter could see the white centre of the Host for Whom all this was enacted. Then the canopy, borne by four French laymen in frock-coats and white gloves, hid It from his sight; and the high gold cross, and its attendant tapers, swung round a great buttress into view.
Peter had never heard a hymn sung so before. First the organ would peal alone; then the men's voices unaided would take up the refrain; then the organ again; then the clear treble of the boys; then, like waves breaking on immemorial cliffs, organ, trumpets, boys, men, and congregation would thunder out together till the blood raced in his veins and his eyes were too dim to see.
Down the central aisle at last they came, and Peter knelt with the rest. He saw how the boys went before throwing flowers; how in pairs, as the censers were recharged, the thurifers walked backward before the three beneath the canopy, of whom one, white-haired and old, bore That in the monstrance which all adored. In music and light and colour and scent the Host went by, as It had gone for centuries in that ancient place, and Peter knew, all bewildered as he was, there, by the side of the girl, that a new vista was opening before his eyes.
It was not that he understood as yet, or scarcely so. In a few minutes all had passed them, and he rose and turned to see the end. He watched while, amid the splendour of that court, with singers and ministers and thurifers arranged before, the priest ascended to enthrone the Sacrament in the place prepared for It. With banks of flowers behind, and the glitter of electric as well as of candle light, the jewelled rays of the monstrance gleaming and the organ pealing note on note in a triumphant ecstasy, the old, bent priest placed That he carried there, and sank down before It. Then all sound of singing and of movement died away, and from that kneeling crowd one lone, thin voice, but all unshaken, cried to Heaven of the need of men. It was a short prayer and he could not understand it, but it seemed to Peter to voice his every need, and to go on and on till it reached the Throne. The "Amen" beat gently about him, and he sank his face in his hands.
But only for a second. The next he was lifted to his feet. All that had gone before was as nothing to this volume of praise that shook, it seemed to him, the very carven roof above and swept the ancient walls in waves of sound.
Adoremus in aeternum Sanctissimum Sacramentum, cried men on earth, and, as it seemed to him, the very angels of God.
But outside he collected his thoughts. "Well," he said. "I'm glad I've been, but I shan't go again."
"Why not?" demanded Louise. "It was most beautiful. I have never 'eard it better."
"Oh yes, it was," said Peter; "the music and singing were wonderful, but—forgive me if I hurt you, but I can't help saying it—I see now what our people mean when they say it is nothing less than idolatry."
"Idolatry?" queried Louise, stumblingly and bewildered. "But what do you mean?"
"Well," said Peter, "the Sacrament is, of course, a holy thing, a very holy thing, the sign and symbol of Christ Himself, but in that church sign and symbol were forgotten; the Sacrament was worshipped as if it were very God."
"Oui, oui," protested Louise vehemently, "It is. It is le bon Jesu. It is
He who is there. He passed by us among them all, as we read He went
through the crowds of Jerusalem in the holy Gospel. And there was not one
He did not see, either," she added, with a little break in her voice.
Peter all but stopped in the road. It was absurd that so simple a thing should have seemed to him new, but it is so with us all. We know in a way, but we do not understand, and then there comes the moment of illumination—sometimes.
"Jesus Himself!" he exclaimed, and broke off abruptly. He recalled a fragment of speech: "Not a dead man, not a man on the right hand of the throne of God." But "He can't be found," Langton had said. Was it so? He walked on in silence. What if Louise, with her pitiful story and her caged, earthy life, had after all found what the other had missed? He pulled himself together; it was too good to be true.
One day Louise asked him abruptly if he had been to see the girl in the house which he had visited with Pennell. He told her no, and she said—they had met by chance in the town—"Well, go you immediately, then, or you will not see her."
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Is she ill—dying?"
"Ah, non, not dying, but she is ill. They will take her to a 'ospital to-morrow. But this afternoon she will be in bed. She like to see you, I think."
Peter left her and made for the house. On his way he thought of something, and took a turning which led to the market-place of flowers. There, at a stall, he bought a big bunch of roses and some sprays of asparagus fern, and set off again. Arriving, he found the door shut. It was a dilemma, for he did not even know the girl's name, but he knocked.
A grim-faced woman opened the door and stared at him and his flowers. "I think there is a girl sick here," said Peter. "May I see her?"
The woman stared still harder, and he thought she was going to refuse him admission, but at length she gave way. "Entrez," she said. "Je pense que vous savez le chambre. Mais, le bouquet—c'est incroyable."
Peter went up the stairs and knocked at the door. A voice asked who was there, and he smiled because he could not say. The girl did not know his name, either. "A friend," he said: "May I come in?"
A note of curiosity sounded in her voice. "Oui, certainement. Entrez," she called. Peter turned the handle and entered the remembered room.
The girl was sitting up in bed in her nightdress, her hair in disorder, and the room felt hot and stuffy and looked more tawdry than ever. She exclaimed at the sight of his flowers. He deposited the big bunch by the side of her, and seated himself on the edge of the bed. She had been reading a book, and he noticed it was the sort of book that Langton and he had seen so prominently in the book-shop at Abbeville.
If he had expected to find her depressed or ashamed, he was entirely mistaken. "Oh, you darling," she cried in clipped English. "Kiss me, quick, or I will forget the orders of the doctor and jump out of bed and catch you. Oh, that you should bring me the rose so beautiful! Hélas! I may not wear one this night in the café! See, are they not beautiful here?"
She pulled her nightdress open considerably more than the average evening dress is cut away and put two or three of the blooms on her white bosom, putting her head on one side to see the result. "Oui," she exclaimed, "je suis exquise! To-night I 'ave so many boys I do not know what to do! But I forget: I cannot go. Je suis malade, très malade. You knew? You are angry with me—is it not so?"
He laughed; there was nothing else to do. "No," he said; "why should I be? But I am very sorry."
She shrugged her shoulders. "It is nothing," she said. "C'est la guerre for me. I shall not be long, and when I come out you will come to see me again, will you not? And bring me more flowers? And you shall not let me 'ave the danger any more, and if I do wrong you shall smack me 'ard. Per'aps you will like that. In the books men like it much. Would you like to whip me?" she demanded, her eyes sparkling as she threw herself over in the bed and looked up at him.
Peter got up and moved away to the window. "No," he said shortly, staring out. He had a sensation of physical nausea, and it was as much as he could do to restrain himself. He realised, suddenly, that he was in the presence of the world, the flesh, and the devil's final handiwork. Only his new knowledge kept him quiet. Even she might be little to blame. He remembered all that she had said to him before, and suddenly his disgust was turned into overwhelming pity. This child before him—for she was little more than a child—had bottomed degradation. For the temporary protection and favour of a man that she guessed to be kind there was nothing in earth or in hell that she would not do. And in her already were the seeds of the disease that was all but certain to slay her.
He turned again to the bed, and knelt beside it. "Poor little girl," he said, and lightly brushed her hair. He certainly never expected the result.
She pushed him from her. "Oh, go, go!" she cried. "Quick go! You pretend, but you do not love me. Why you give me money, the flowers, if you do not want me? Go quick. Come never to see me again!"
Peter did the only thing he could do; he went. "Good-bye," he said cheerfully at the door. "I hope you will be better soon. I didn't mean to be a beast to you. Give the flowers to Lucienne if you don't want them; she will be able to wear them to-night. Cheerio. Good-bye-ee!"
"Good-bye-ee!" she echoed after him. And he closed the door on her life.
In front of the Hôtel de Ville he met Arnold, returning from the club, and the two men walked off together. In a moment of impulse he related the whole story to him. "Now," he said, "what do you make of all that?"
Arnold was very moved. It was not his way to say much, but he walked on silently for a long time. Then he said: "The Potter makes many vessels, but never one needlessly. I hold on to that. And He can remake the broken clay."
"Are you sure?" asked Peter.
"I am," said Arnold. "It's not in the Westminster Confession, nor in the Book of Common Prayer, nor, for all I know, in the Penny Catechism, but I believe it. God Almighty must be stronger than the devil, Graham."
Peter considered this. Then he shook his head. "That won't wash, Arnold," he said. "If God is stronger than the devil, so that the devil is never ultimately going to succeed, I can see no use in letting him have his fling at all. And I've more respect for the devil than to think he'd take it. It's childish to suppose the existence of two such forces at a perpetual game of cheat. Either there is no devil and there is no hell—in which case I reckon that there is no heaven either, for a heaven would not be a heaven if it were not attained, and there would be no true attainment if there were no possibility of failure—or else there are all three. And if there are all three, the devil wins out, sometimes, in the end."
"Then, God is not almighty?"
Peter shrugged his shoulders. "If I breed white mice, I don't lessen my potential power if I choose to let some loose in the garden to see if the cat will get them. Besides, in the end I could annihilate the cat if I wanted to."
"You can't think of God so," cried Arnold sharply.
"Can't I?" demanded Peter. "Well, maybe not, Arnold; I don't know that I can think of Him at all. But I can face the facts of life, and if I'm not a coward, I shan't run away from them. That's what I've been doing these days, and that's what I do not think even a man like yourself does fairly. You think, I take it, that a girl like that is damned utterly by all the canons of theology, and then, forced on by pity and tenderness, you cry out against them all that she is God's making and He will not throw her away. Is that it?"
Arnold slightly evaded an answer. "How can you save her, Graham?" he asked.
"I can't. I don't pretend I can. I've nothing to say or do. I see only one flicker of hope, and that lies in the fact that she doesn't understand what love is. No shadow of the truth has ever come her way. If now, by any chance, she could see for one instant—in fact, mind you—the face of God…. If God is Love," he added. They walked a dozen paces. "And even then she might refuse," he said.
"Whose fault would that be?" demanded the older man.
Peter answered quickly, "Whose fault? Why, all our faults—yours and mine, and the fault of men like Pennell and Donovan, as well as her own, too, as like as not. We've all helped build up the scheme of things as they are, and we are all responsible. We curse the Germans for making this damned war, and it is the war that has done most to make that girl; but they didn't make it. No Kaiser made it, and no Nietzsche. The only person who had no hand in it that I know of was Jesus Christ."
"And those who have left all and followed Him," said Arnold softly.
"Precious few," retorted Peter.
The other had nothing to say.
* * * * *
During these months Peter wrote often to Hilda, and with increasing frankness. Her replies grew shorter as his letters grew longer. It was strange, perhaps, that he should continue to write, but the explanation was not far to seek. It was by her that he gauged the extent of his separation from the old outlook, and in her that he still clung, desperately, as it were, to the past. Against reason he elevated her into a kind of test position, and if her replies gave him no encouragement, they at least served to make him feel the inevitableness and the reality of his present position. It would have been easy to get into the swim and let it carry him carelessly on—moderately easy, at any rate. But with Hilda to refer to he was forced to take notice, and it was she, therefore, that hastened the end. Just after Christmas, in a fit of temporary boldness, he told her about Louise, so that it was Louise again who was the responsible person during these months. Hilda's reply was delayed, nor had she written immediately. When he got it, it was brief but to the point. She did not doubt, she said, but that what he had written was strictly true, and she did not doubt his honour. But he must see that their relationship was impossible. She couldn't marry the man who appeared actually to like the company of such a woman, nor could she do other than feel that the end would seem to him as plain as it did to her, and that he would leave the Church, or at any rate such a ministry in it as she could share. She had told her people that she was no longer engaged in order that he should feel free, but she would ever remember the man as she had known him, whom she had loved, and whom she loved still.
It was in the afternoon that Peter got the letter, and he was just setting off for the hospital. When he had read it, he put on his cap and set off in the opposite direction. There was a walk along the sea-wall a few feet wide, where the wind blew strongly laden with the Channel breezes, and on the other side was a waste of sand and stone. In some places water was on both sides of the wall, and here one could feel more alone than anywhere else in the town.
Peter set off, his head in a mad whirl. He had felt that such a letter would come for weeks, but that did not, in a way, lessen the blow when it came. He had known, too, that Hilda was not to him what she had been, but he had not altogether felt that she never could be so again. Now he knew that he had gone too far to turn back. He felt, he could not help it, released in a sense, with almost a sense of exhilaration behind it, for the unknown lay before. And yet, since we are all so human, he was intensely unhappy below all this. He called to mind little scenes and bits of scenes: their first meeting; the sight of her in church as he preached; how she had looked at the dining-table in Park Lane; her walk as she came to meet him in the park. And he knew well enough how he had hurt her, and the thought maddened him. He told himself that God was a devil to treat him so; that he had tried to follow the right; and that the way had led him down towards nothing but despair. He was no nearer answering the problems that beset him. He might have been in a fool's paradise before, but what was the use of coming out to see the devil as he was and men and women as they were if he could see no more than that? The throne of his heart was empty, and there was none to fill it.
Julie?
CHAPTER V
The sea-wall ended not far from Donovan's camp of mud and cinders, and having got there, Peter thought he would go on and get a cup of tea. He crossed the railway-lines, steered through a great American rest camp, crossed the canal, and entered the camp. It was a cheerless place in winter, and the day was drawing in early with a damp fog. A great French airship was cruising around overhead and dropping down towards her resting-place in the great hangar near by. She looked cold and ghostly up aloft, the more so when her engines were shut off, and Peter thought how chilly her crew must be. He had a hankering after Donovan's cheery humour, especially as he had not seen him for some time. He crossed the camp and made for the mess-room.
It was lit and the curtains were drawn, and, at the door, he stopped dead at the sound of laughter. Then he walked quickly in. "Caught out, by Jove!" said Donovan's voice. "You're for it, Julie."
A merry party sat round the stove, taking tea. Julie and Miss Raynard were both there, with Pennell and another man from Donovan's camp. Julie wore furs and had plainly just come in, for her cheeks were glowing with exercise. Pennell was sitting next Miss Raynard, but Donovan, on a wooden camp-seat, just beyond where Julie sat in a big cushioned chair, looked out at him from almost under Julie's arm, as he bent forward. The other man was standing by the table, teapot in hand.
One thinks quickly at such a time, and Peter's mind raced. Something of the old envy and almost fear of Donovan that he had had first that day in the hospital came back to him. He had not seen the two together for so long that it struck him like a blow to hear Donovan call her by her Christian name. It flashed across his mind also that she knew that it was his day at the hospital, and that she had deliberately gone out; but it dawned on him equally quickly that he must hide all that.
"I should jolly well think so," he said, laughing. "How do you do, Miss Raynard? Donovan, can you give me some tea? I've come along the sea-wall, and picked up a regular appetite. Are you in the habit of taking tea here, Julie? I thought nurses were not allowed in camps."
She looked at him quickly, but he missed the meaning of her glance.
"Rather," she said; "I come here for tea about once a week, don't I,
Jack? No, nurses are not allowed in camps, but I always do what's not
allowed as far as possible. And this is so snug and out of the way. Mr.
Pennell, you can give me a cigarette now."
The other man offered Peter tea, which he took. "And how did the festivities go off at Christmas?" he asked.
"Oh, topping," said Julie. "Let me see, you were at the play, so I needn't talk about that; but you thought it good, didn't you?"
"Rippin'" said Peter.
"Well," said Julie, "then there was the dance on Boxing Night. We had glorious fun. Jack, here, behaved perfectly abominably. He sat out about half the dances, and I should think he kissed every pretty girl in the room. Then we went down to the nurses' quarters of the officers' hospital and made cocoa of all things, and had a few more dances on our own. They made me dance a skirt dance on the table, and as I had enough laces on this time, I did. After that—but I don't think I'll tell you what we did after that. Why didn't you come?"
Peter had been at a big Boxing Night entertainment for the troops in the Y.M.C.A. Central Hall, but he did not say so. "Oh," he said, "I had to go to another stunt, but I must say I wish I'd been at yours. May I have another cup of tea?"
The third man gave it to him again, and then, apologizing, left the room.
Donovan exchanged glances with Julie, and she nodded.
"I say, Graham," said Donovan, "I'll tell you what we've really met here for to-day. We were going to fix it up and then ask you; but as you've dropped in, we'll take it as a dispensation of Providence and let you into the know. What do you say to a really sporting dinner at the New Year?"
"Who's to be asked?" queried Peter, looking round. "Fives into a dinner won't go."
"I should think not," cried Julie gaily. "Jack, here, is taking me, aren't you?" Donovan said "I am" with great emphasis, and made as if he would kiss her, and she pushed him off, laughing, holding her muff to his face. Then she went on: "You're to take Tommy. It is Tommy's own particular desire, and you ought to feel flattered. She says your auras blend, whatever that may be; and as to Mr. Pennell, he's got a girl elsewhere whom he will ask. Three and three make six; what do you think of that?"
"Julie," said Tommy Raynard composedly, "you're the most fearful liar
I've ever met. But I trust Captain Graham knows you well enough by now."
"I do," said Peter, but a trifle grimly, though he tried not to show it—"I do. I must say I'm jolly glad Donovan will be responsible for you. It's going to be 'some' evening, I can see, and what you'll do if you get excited I don't know. Flirt with the proprietor and have his wife down on us, as like as not. In which event it's Donovan who'll have to make the explanations. But come on, what are the details?"
"Tell him, Jack," said Julie. "He's a perfect beast, and I shan't speak to him again."
Peter laughed. "Pas possible," he said. "But come on, Donovan; do as you're told."
"Well, old bird," said Donovan, "first we meet here. Got that? It's safer than any other camp, and we don't want to meet in town. We'll have tea and a chat and then clear off. We'll order dinner in a private room at the Grand, and it'll be a dinner fit for the occasion. They've got some priceless sherry there, and some old white port. Cognac fine champagne for the liqueur, and what date do you think?—1835 as I'm alive. I saw some the other day, and spoke about it. That gave me the idea of the dinner really, and I put it to the old horse that that brandy was worthy of a dinner to introduce it. He tumbled at once. Veuve Cliquot as the main wine. What about it?"
Peter balanced himself on the back of his chair and blew out cigarette-smoke.
"What time are you ordering the ambulances?" he demanded.
"The beds, you mean," cried Julie, entirely forgetting her last words.
"That's what I say. I shall never be able to walk to a taxi even."
"I'll carry you," said Donovan.
"You won't be able, not after such a night; besides, I don't believe you could, anyhow. You're getting flabby from lack of exercise."
"Am I?" cried Donovan. "Let's see, anyway."
He darted at her, slipped an arm under her skirts and another under her arms, and lifted her bodily from the chair.
"Jack," she shrieked, "put me down! Oh, you beast! Tommy, help, help!
Peter, make him put me down and I'll forgive you all you've said."
Tommy Raynard sprang up, laughing, and ran after Donovan, who could not escape her. She threw an arm round his neck and bent his head backwards. "I shall drop her," he shouted. Peter leaped forward, and Julie landed in his arms.
For a second she lay still, and Peter stared down at her. With her quick intuition she read something new in his eyes, and instantly looked away, scrambling out and standing there flushed and breathing hard, her hands at her hair. "You perfect brute!" she said to Donovan, laughing. "I'll pay you out, see if I don't. All my hair's coming down."
"Capital!" said Donovan. "I've never seen it down, and I'd love to. Here, let me help."
He darted at her; she dodged behind Peter; he adroitly put out a foot, and Donovan collapsed into the big chair.
Julie clapped her hands and rushed at him, seizing a cushion, and the two struggled there till Tommy Raynard pulled Julie forcibly away.
"Julie," she said, "this is a positive bear-garden. You must behave."
"And I," said Pennell, who had not moved, "would like to know a little more about the dinner." He spoke so dryly that they all laughed, and order was restored. Donovan, however, refused to get out of the big chair, and Julie deliberately sat on his knee, smiling provocatively at him.
Peter felt savage and bitter. Like a man, he was easily deceived, and he had been taken by surprise at a bad moment. But he did his best to hide it, and merely threw any remnants of caution he had left at all to the winds.
"I suppose this is the best we can hope for, Captain Graham," said Miss Raynard placidly. "Perhaps now you'll give us your views. Captain Donovan never gets beyond the drinks, but I agree with Mr. Pennell we want something substantial."
"I'm blest if I don't think you all confoundedly ungrateful," said Donovan. "I worked that fine champagne for you beautifully. Anyone would think you could walk in and order it any day. If we get it at all, it'll be due to me and my blarney. Not but what it does deserve a good introduction," he added. "I don't suppose there's another bottle in the town."
Tommy sighed. "He's off again, or he will be," she said. "Do be quick,
Captain Graham."
"Well," said Peter. "I suggest, first, that you leave the ordering of the room to me, and the decorations. I've most time, and I'd like to choose the flowers. And the smokes and crackers. And I'll worry round and get some menu-cards, and have 'em printed in style. And, if you like, I'll interview the chef and see what he can give us. It's not much use our discussing details without him."
"'A Daniel come to judgment,'" said Pennell. "Padre, I didn't know you had it in you."
"A Solomon," said Julie mischievously.
"A Peter Graham," said Miss Raynard. "I always knew he had more sense in his little finger than all the rest of you in your heads."
Donovan sighed from the depths of the chair. "Graham," he said, "for
Heaven's sake remember those…"
Julie clapped her hand over his mouth. He kissed it. She withdrew it with a scream.
"…Drinks," finished Donovan. "The chef must suggest accordin'."
"Well," said Pennell, "I reckon that's settled satisfactorily. I'll get out my invitation. In fact, I think, if I may be excused, I'll go and do it now." He got up and reached for his cap.
They all laughed. "We'll see to it that there's mistletoe," cried Julie.
"Ah, thanks!" said Pennell; "that will be jolly, though some people I know seem to get on well enough without it. So long. See you later, padre."
He avoided Julie's flung cushion and stepped through the door. Miss
Raynard got up. "We ought to get a move on too, my dear," she said to
Julie.
"Oh, not yet," protested Donovan. "Let's have some bridge. There are just four of us."
"You can never have played bridge with Julie, Captain Donovan," said Miss Raynard. "She usually flings the cards at you half way through the rubber. And she never counts. The other night she played a diamond instead of a heart, when hearts were trumps, and she had the last and all the rest of the tricks in her hand."
"Ah, well," said Donovan, "women are like that. They often mistake diamonds for hearts."
"Jack," said Julie, "you're really clever. How do you do it? I had no idea. Does it hurt? But don't do it again; you might break something. Peter, you've been praised this evening, but you'd never think of that."
"He would not," said Miss Raynard…. "Come on, Julie."
Peter hesitated a second. Then he said: "You're going my way. May I see you home?"
"Thanks," said Miss Raynard, and they all made a move.
"It's deuced dark," said Donovan. "Here, let me. I'll go first with a candle so that you shan't miss the duck-boards."
He passed out, Tommy Raynard after him. Peter stood back to let Julie pass, and as she did so she said: "You're very glum and very polite to-night, Solomon. What's the matter?"
"Am I?" said Peter; "I didn't know it. And in any case Donovan is all right, isn't he?"
He could have bitten his tongue out the next minute. She looked at him and then began to laugh silently, and, still laughing, went out before him. Peter followed miserably. At the gate Donovan said good-bye, and the three set out for the hospital. Miss Raynard walked between Peter and Julie, and did most of the talking, but the ground was rough and the path narrow, and it was not until they got on to the dock road that much could be said.
"This is the best Christmas I've ever had," declared Miss Raynard. "I'm feeling positively done up. There was something on every afternoon and evening last week, and then Julie sits on my bed till daybreak, more or less, and smokes cigarettes. We've a bottle of benedictine, too, and it always goes to her head. The other night she did a Salome dance on the strength of it."
"It was really fine," said Julie. "You ought to have seen me."
"Till the towel slipped off: not then, I hope," said Tommy dryly.
"I don't suppose he'd have minded—would you, Peter?"
"Not a bit," said Peter cheerfully—"on the contrary."
"I don't know if you two are aware that you are positively indecent," said Tommy. "Let's change the subject. What's your news, Captain Graham?"
Peter smiled in the dark to himself. "Well," he said, "not much, but I'm hoping for leave soon. I've pushed in for it, and our Adjutant told me this morning he thought it would go through."
"Lucky man! I've got to wait three months. But yours ought to be about now, Julie."
"I think it ought," said Julie shortly. Then: "What about the menu-cards,
Peter? Would you like me to help you choose them?"
"Would you?" said he eagerly. "To-morrow?"
"I'm on duty at five o'clock, but I can get off for an hour in the afternoon. Could you come, Tommy?"
"No. Sorry; but I must write letters. I haven't written one for ages."
"Nor have I," said Julie, "but I don't mean to. I hate letters. Well, what about it, Peter?"
"I should think we had better try that stationer's in the Rue Thiers," he said. "If that won't do, the Nouvelles Galeries might. What do you think?"
"Let's try the Galeries first. We could meet there. Say at three, eh? I want to get some baby-ribbon, too."
Tommy sighed audibly. "She's off again," she said.
"Thank God, here's the hospital! Good-night, Captain Graham. You mustn't cross the Rubicon to-night."
"You oughtn't to swear before him," said Julie in mock severity. "And what in the world is the Rubicon?"
"Materially, to-night, it's the railway-line between his camp and the hospital," said Tommy Raynard. "What else it is I'll leave him to decide."
She held out her hand, and Peter saw a quizzical look on her face. He turned rather hopelessly to Julie. "I say," he said, "didn't you know it was my afternoon at the hospital?"
"Yes," said Julie, "and I knew you didn't come. At least, I couldn't see you in any of the wards."
"Oh," he exclaimed, "I thought you'd been out all the afternoon. I'm sorry. I am a damned fool, Julie!"
She laughed in the darkness. "I've known worse, Peter," she said, and was gone.
* * * * *
Next day Julie was in her most provocative of moods. Peter, eminently respectable in his best tunic, waited ten minutes for her outside the Nouvelles Galeries, and, like most men in his condition, considered that she was never coming, and that he was the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. When she did come, she was not apparently aware that she was late. She ran her eyes over him, and gave a pretended gasp of surprise. "You're looking wonderful, Padre Graham," she said. "Really, you're hard to live up to. I never know what to expect or how to behave. Those black buttons terrorise me. Come on."
She insisted on getting her ribbon first, and turned over everything there was to be seen at that counter. The French girl who served them was highly amused.
"Isn't that chic?" Julie demanded of Peter, holding up a lacy camisole and deliberately putting it to her shoulders. "Wouldn't you love to see me in it?"
"I would," he said, without the ghost of a smile.
"Well, you never will, of course," she said. "I shall never marry or be given in marriage, and in any case, in that uniform, you've nothing whatever to hope for…. Yes, I'll take that ribbon, thank you, ma'm'selle. Peter, I suppose you can't carry it for me. Your pocket? Not a bad idea; but let me put it in."
Peter stood while she undid his breast-pocket and stuffed it inside.
"Anything more?" demanded the French saleswoman interrogatively.
"Not to-day, merci," said Julie. "You see, Peter, you couldn't carry undies for me, even in your pocket; it wouldn't be respectable. Do come on. You will keep us here the entire day."
They passed the smoking department, and she stopped suddenly. "Peter," she said, "I'm going to give you a pipe. Those chocolates you gave me at Christmas were too delicious for anything. What sort do you like? A briar? Let me see if it blows nicely." She put it to her lips. "I swear I shall start a pipe soon, in my old age. By the way, I don't believe you have any idea how old I am—have you, Peter? Guess."
She was quick to note the return to his old manner. He was nervous with her, not sure of himself, and so not sure of her either. And she traded on it. At the stationery department she made eyes at a couple of officers, and insisted on examining Kirschner picture-postcards, some of which she would not show him. "You can't possibly be seen looking at them with those badges up," she whispered. "Dear me, if only Donovan were here! He wouldn't mind, and I don't know which packet I like best. These have got very little on, Peter—very little, but I'm not sure that they are not more decent than those. It's much worse than a camisole, you know…."
Peter was horribly conscious that the men were smiling at her. "Julie," he said desperately, "do be sensible, just for a minute. We must get those menu-cards."
"Well, you go and find the books," she said merrily. "I told you you ought not to watch me buy these. I'll take the best care of myself," and she looked past him towards the men.
Peter gave it up. "Julie," he said savagely, "if you make eyes any more,
I'll kiss you here and now—I swear I will."
Julie laughed her little nearly silent chuckle, and looked at him. "I believe you would, Peter," she said, "and I certainly mustn't risk that. I'll be good. Are those the books? Fetch me a chair, then, and I'll look through them."
He bent over her as she turned the leaves. She wore a little toque that had some relation to a nurse's uniform, but was distinctive of Julie. Her fringe of brown hair lay along her forehead, and the thick masses of the rest of it tempted him almost beyond endurance. "How will that do?" she demanded, her eyes dancing. "Oh, do look at the cards and not at me! You're a terrible person to bring shopping, Peter!"
The card selected, she had a bright idea. "What about candle-shades?" she queried. "We can't trust the hotel. I want some with violets on them: I love violets."
"Do you?" he said eagerly. "That's just what I wanted to know. Yes, it's a fine idea; let's go and get them."
Outside, she gave a sigh of relief, and looked at the little gold wrist-watch on her arm. "We've time," she said. "Take me to tea."
"You must know it's not possible," he said. "They're enforcing the order, and one can't get tea anywhere."
She shook her head at him. "I think, Peter," she said, "you'll never learn the ropes. Follow me."
Not literally, but metaphorically, he followed her. She led him to a big confectioner's with two doors and several windows, in each of which was a big notice of the new law forbidding teas or the purchase of chocolates. Inside, she walked up to a girl who was standing by a counter, and who greeted her with a smile. "It is cold outside," she said. "May I have a warm by the fire?"
"Certainly, mademoiselle," said the girl. "And monsieur also. Will it please you to come round here?"
They went behind the counter and in at a little door. There was a fire in the grate of the small kitchen, and a kettle singing on the hob. Julie sat down on a chair at the wooden table and looked round with satisfaction.
"Why, it's all ready for us!" she exclaimed. "Chocolate cakes, Suzanne, please, and hot buttered scones. I'll butter them, if you bring the scones."
They came, and she went to the fire, splitting them open and spreading the butter lavishly. "I love France," she said. "All laws are made to be broken, which is all that laws are good for, don't you think?"
"Yes," he said deliberately, glancing at the closed door, and bent and kissed her neck. She looked up imperiously. "Again," she said; and he kissed her on the lips. At that she jumped up with a quick return to the old manner: "Peter! For a parson you are the outside edge. Go and sit down over there and recollect yourself. To begin with, if we're found, here, there'll be a row, and if you're caught kissing me, who knows what will happen?"
He obeyed gaily. "Chaff away, Julie," he said, "but I shan't wear black buttons at the dinner. You'll have to look out that night."
She put the scones on the table, and sat down. "And if I don't?" she queried. Peter said nothing. He had suddenly thought of something. He looked at her, and for the first time she would not meet his eyes.
It was thought better on New Year's Eve that they should go separately to
Donovan's camp, so Peter and Pennell set out for it alone. By the canal
Pennell left his friend to go and meet Elsie Harding, the third girl.
Peter went on alone, and found Donovan, giving some orders in the camp.
He stood with him till they saw the other four, who had met on the
tow-path, coming in together.
"He's a dark horse," called Julie, almost before they had come up, "and so's she. Fancy Elsie being the third! I didn't know they knew each other. We're a Colonial party to-night, Jack—all except Peter, that is, for Mr. Pennell is more Canadian than English. We'll teach them. By the way, I can't go on saying 'Mr. Pennell' all night. What shall I call him, Elsie?"
Peter saw that the new-comer wore an Australian brooch, and caught the unmistakable but charming accent in her reply. "He's 'Trevor' to me, and he can be to you, if you like, Julie," she said.
Tommy sighed audibly. "They're beginning early," she said; "but I suppose the rest of us had better follow the general example—eh, Peter?"
In the anteroom, where tea was ready, Peter saw that Elsie was likely to play Julie a good second. She was tall, taller than Pennell himself, and dark skinned, with black hair and full red lips, and rather bigly built. It appeared that her great gift was a set of double joints that allowed her to play the contortionist with great effect. "You should just see her in tights," said Julie. "Trevor, why didn't you say whom you were bringing, and I'd have made her put them on. Then we could have had an exhibition, but, as it is, I suppose we can't."
"I didn't know you knew her," he said.
"You never have time to talk of other people when you're together, I suppose," she retorted. "Well, I've no doubt you make the most of your opportunities, and you're very wise. But to-night you've got to behave, more or less—at least, till after the coffee. Otherwise all our preparations will be wasted—won't they, Peter?"
After tea they set off together for the tram-car that ran into town. It was Julie who had decided this. She said she liked to see the people, and the cars were so perfectly absurd, which was true. Also, that it would be too early to enjoy taxis, the which was very like her. So they walked in a body to the terminus, where a crowd of Tommies and French workmen and factory girls were waiting. The night was cloudy and a little damp, but it had the effect of adding mystery to the otherwise ugly street, and to the great ships under repair in the dockyards close by. The lights of the tram appeared at length round the corner, an engine-car and two trailers. There was a bolt for them. They were packed on the steps, and the men had to use elbows freely to get the whole party in, but the soldiers and the workmen were in excellent humour, and the French girls openly admiring of Julie. In the result, then, they were all hunched up in the end of a "first" compartment, and Peter found himself with his back to the glass door, Julie on his right, Elsie on his left.
"Every rib I have is broken," said the former.
"The natural or the artificial?" demanded Elsie. "Personally, I think I broke a few of other people's."
They started, and the rattling of the ramshackle cars stopped conversation. Julie drew Peter's attention to a little scene on the platform outside, and he looked through the glass to see a big French linesman with his girl. The man had got her into a corner, and then, coolly putting his arms out on either side to the hand-rail and to the knob of their door, he was facing his amorata, indifferent to the world. Peter looked at the girl's coarse face. She was a factory hand, bareheaded, and her sleeves were rolled up at her elbows. For all that, she was neat, as a Frenchwoman invariably is. The girl caught his gaze, and smiled. The linesman followed the direction of her eyes and glanced friendly at Peter too. Then he saw Julie. A look of admiration came over his face, and he put one hand comically to his heart. The girl slapped it in a pretended fury, and Julie doubled up with laughter in her corner. Peter bent over her. "'Everybody's doing it, doing it, doing it,'" he quoted merrily.
The tram stopped, in the square before the Hôtel de Ville. There was a great air of festivity and bustle about as they stepped out, for the New Year is a great time in France. Lights twinkled in the misty dark; taxis sprinted across the open spaces; and people greeted each other gaily by the brightly-lit shops. Somehow or another the whole thing went to Peter's head like wine. The world was good and merry, he thought exultantly, and he, after all, a citizen of it. He caught Julie's arm, "Come on," he called to the others. "I know the way," And to her: "Isn't it topping? Do you feel gloriously exhilarated? I don't know why, Julie, but I could do anything to-night."
She slipped her fingers down into his hand. "I'm so glad," she said. "So could I."
They whirled across the road, the others after them, round the little park in the centre of the square, and down an empty side-street. Peter had reconnoitred all approaches, he said, and this was the best way. Begging him to give her time to breathe, Tommy came along with Donovan, and it suddenly struck Peter that the latter seemed happy enough. He pressed Julie's hand: "Donovan's dropped into step with Tommy very easily," he said. "Do you mind?"
She laughed happily and glanced back. "You're as blind as a bat, Peter, when all's said and done," she said; "but oh, my dear, I can't play with you to-night. There's only one person I want to walk with Peter."
Peter all but shouted. He drew her to him, and for once Julie was honestly alarmed.
"Not now, you mad boy!" she exclaimed, but her eyes were enough for him.
"All right," he laughed at her; "wait a bit. There's time yet."
In the little entrance-hail the maître d'hôtel greeted them. They were the party of importance that night. He ushered them upstairs and opened a door. The mademoiselles might make the toilette there. Another door: they would eat here.
The men deposited their caps and sticks and coats on pegs outside, and the girls, who had had to come in uniform also, were ready as soon as they. They went in together. Elsie gave a little whistle of surprise.
Peter had certainly done well. Holly and mistletoe were round the walls, and a big bunch of the latter was placed in such a way that it would hang over the party as they sat afterwards by the fire. In the centre a silver bowl held glorious roses, white and red, and at each girl's place was a bunch of Parma violets and a few sprigs of flowering mimosa. Bon-bons were spread over the white cloth. Julie's candle-shades looked perfect, and so did the menu-cards.
"I trust that monsieur is satisfied," said the maître d'hôtel, bowing towards the man who had had the dealings with him. He got his answer, but not from Peter, and, being a Frenchman, smiled, bowed again, and discreetly left the room; for Elsie, turning to Peter cried: "Did you do it—even the wattle?" and kissed him heartily. He kissed her back, and caught hold of Julie. "Tit for tat," he said to her under his breath, holding her arms; "do you remember our first taxi?" Then, louder: "Julie is responsible for most of it," and he kissed her too.
They sorted themselves out at last, and the dinner, that two of them at least who were there that night were never to forget, began. They were uproariously merry, and the two girls who waited came and went wreathed in smiles.
With the champagne came a discussion over the cork. "Give it to me" cried
Julie; "I want to wear it for luck."
"So do I," said Elsie; "we must toss for it."
Julie agreed, and they spun a coin solemnly.
"It's mine," cried Elsie, and pounced for it.
Julie snatched it away, "No, you don't," she said. "A man must put it in, or there's no luck in it. Here you are, Trevor."
Pennell took it, laughing, and pushed back his chair. The others stood up and craned over to see. Elsie drew up her skirt and Trevor pushed it down her stocking amid screams of laughter, and the rattle of chaff.
"No higher or I faint," said Tommy.
Trevor stood up, a little flushed. "Here," said Peter, filling his glass with what was left in the bottle, "drink this, Pen. You sure want it."
"It's your turn next," said Trevor, "and, by Jove, the bottle's empty!
Encore le vin," he called.
"Good idea. It's Julie's next cork, and Graham's the man to do it." said
Jack Donovan. "And then it'll be your turn, Tommy."
"And yours," she said, glancing at him.
"Bet you won't dare," said Elsie.
"Who won't?" retorted Julie.
"Peter, of course."
"My dear, you don't know Peter. Here you are, Peter; let's show them."
She tossed the cork to him and stood up coolly, put up her foot on the edge of the table, and lifted her skirt. Peter pushed the cork into its traditional place amid cheers, but he hardly heard. His fingers had touched her skin, and he had seen the look in her eyes. No wine could have intoxicated him so. He raised his glass. "Toasts!" he shouted.
They took him up and everyone rose to their feet.
"'Here's to all those that I love;
Here's to all those that love me;
Here's to all those that love them that love those
That love those that love them that love me!'"
he chanted.
"Julie's turn," cried Elsie.
"No," she said; "they know all my toasts."
"Not all," said Donovan; "there was one you never finished—something about Blighty."
"Rhymes with nighty," put in Tommy coolly; "don't you remember, Julie?"
It seemed to Peter that he and Julie stood there looking at each other for seconds, but probably no one but Tommy noticed. "Take it as read," cried Peter boisterously, and emptied his glass. His example was infectious, and they all followed suit, but Donovan remarked across the table to him:
"You spoiled a humorous situation, old dear."
Dinner over, they pushed the table against the wall, and pulled chairs round the fire. Dessert, crackers, chocolates and cigarettes were piled on a small table, and the famous liqueur came in with the coffee. They filled the little glasses. "This is a great occasion," said Donovan; "let's celebrate it properly. Julie, give us a dance first."
She sprang up at once. "Right-o," she said. "Clear the table."
They pushed everything to one side, and Peter held out his hand. Just touching his fingers, she leaped up, and next minute circled there in a whirl of skirts. A piano stood in a corner of the room, and Elsie ran to it. Looking over her shoulder, she caught the pace, and the notes rang out merrily.
Julie was the very spirit of devilment and fun. So light that she seemed hardly to touch the table, she danced as if born to it. It was such an incarnation of grace and music that a little silence fell on them all. To Peter she appeared to dance to him. He could not take his eyes off her; he cared nothing what others thought or saw. There was a mist before him and thunder in his ears. He saw only her flushed, childlike face and sparkling brown eyes, and a wave of her loosened hair that slipped across them….
The music ceased. Panting for breath, she leaped down amid a chorus of "Bravo's!" and held out her hand for the liqueur-glass. Peter put it in her fingers, and he was trembling more than she, and spilt a little of it. "Well, here's the best," she cried, and raised the glass. Then, with a gay laugh, she put her moistened fingers to his mouth and he kissed them, the spirit on his lips.
And now Elsie must show herself off. They sat down to watch her, and a more insidious feeling crept over Peter as he did so. The girl bent her body this way and that; arched herself over and looked at them between her feet; twisted herself awry and made faces at them. They laughed, but there was a new note in the laughter. An intense look had come into Pennell's face, and Donovan was lolling back, his head on one side, smiling evilly.
She finished and straightened herself, and they had more of the liqueur.
Then Tommy, as usual, remembered herself. "Girls," she said, "we must go.
It's fearfully late."
Donovan sat up. "What about taxis?" he demanded.
Peter went to the door. "They'll fetch them," he said. "I've made an arrangement."
He went a little unsteadily to find the maître d'hôtel, and a boy was despatched, while he settled the bill. They were tramping down the stairs as he came out of the little office. Julie leading and laughing uproariously at some joke. Donovan and Tommy were the steadiest, and they came down together. It seemed to Peter that it was natural for them to do so.
Pennell and Elsie got into one taxi. She leaned out of the window and waved her hand. "We're the luckiest," she called; "we've the farthest to go. Good-night everyone, and thanks ever so much."
A second taxi came up. "Jump in, Julie," said Tommy.
She got in, and Peter put his hand on the door. "I've settled everything,
Donovan," he said. "See you to-morrow. Good-night, Tommy."
"Good-night," she called back, and he got in. And next minute he was alone with Julie.
In the closed and darkened taxi he put his arm round her and drew her to him. "Oh, my darling," he murmured. "Julie, do you love me as I love you? I can't live without you." He covered her face with hot kisses, and she kissed him back.
"Julie," he said at length, breathlessly, "listen. My leave's come. I knew this morning. Couldn't you possibly be in England when I am? I saw you first on the boat coming over—remember? And you're due again."
"When do you go?" she queried.
"Fourteenth," he answered.
She considered. "I couldn't get off by then," she said, "but I might the twenty-first or thereabouts. I'm due, as you say, and I think it could be managed."
"Would you?" he demanded, and hung on her words.
She turned her face up to him, and even in the dark he could see her glowing eyes. "It would be heaven, Peter," she whispered.
He kissed her passionately.
"I could meet you in town easily," he said.
"Not the leave-boat train," she replied; "it's not safe. Anyone might be there. But I'll run down for a day or two to some friends in Sussex, and then come up to visit more in town. I know very few people, of course, and all my relations are in South Africa. No one would know to whom I went, and if I didn't go to them, Peter, why nobody would know either."
"Splendid!" he answered, the blood pounding in his temples. "I'll make all the arrangements. Shall I take a flat, or shall we go to an hotel? An hotel's more fun, perhaps, and we can have a suite."
She leaned over against him and caught his hand to her breast, with a little intake of breath.
"I'll leave it all to you, my darling," she whispered.
The taxi swung into the clearing before the hospital. "Peter," said
Julie, "Tommy's so sharp; I believe she'll suspect something."
"I don't care a damn for anyone!" said Peter fiercely; "let her. I only want you."