She looked at him curiously.
“Go on, please,” she murmured.
“Or it may be,” he repeated, “a man’s desire to be absolutely sure of the thing he wants more than anything else in the world.”
There was a moment’s silence. As though by some curious instinct which they both shared, they glanced across the table to where Granet had become the centre of a little babble of animated conversation. Geraldine averted her eyes almost at once, and looked down at her plate. There was a shade of uneasiness in her manner.
“You sounds very serious, Hugh,” she observed.
“That is rather a failing of mine, isn’t it?” he replied. “At any rate, I am very much in earnest.”
There was another brief silence, during which Geraldine was addressed by her neighbour on the other side. Thomson, who was watching her closely, fancied that she accepted almost eagerly the opportunity of diversion. It was not until dinner was almost over that she abandoned a conversion into which she had thrown herself with spirit.
“My little suggestion,” Thomson reminded her, “remains unanswered.”
She looked down at her plate.
“I don’t think you are really in earnest,” she said.
“Am I usually a farceur?” he replied. “I think that my tendencies are rather the other way. I really mean it, Geraldine. Shall we talk about it later on this evening?”
“If you like,” she agreed simply, “but somehow I believe that I would rather wait. Look at mother’s eye, roving around the table. Give me my gloves, please, Hugh. Don’t be long.”
Thomson moved his chair next to his host’s Geraldine’s father, Admiral Sir Seymour Conyers, was a very garrulous old gentleman with fixed ideas about everything, a little deaf and exceedingly fond of conversation. He proceeded to give his prospective son-in-law a detailed lecture concerning the mismanagement of the field hospitals at the front, and having disposed of that subject, he opened a broadside attack upon the Admiralty. The rest of the men showed indications of breaking into little groups. Ralph Conyers and Granet were sitting side by side, engrossed in conversation. More than once Thomson glanced towards them.
“Wish I understood more about naval affairs,” Granet sighed. “I’m a perfect ass at any one’s job but my own. I can’t see how you can deal with submarines at all. The beggars can stay under the water as long as they like, they just pop up and show their heads, and if they don’t like the look of anything near, down they go again. I don’t see how you can get at them, any way.”
The young sailor smiled in a somewhat superior manner.
“We’ve a few ideas left still which the Germans haven’t mopped up,” he declared.
“Personally,” the Admiral observed, joining in the conversation, “I consider the submarine danger the greatest to which this country has yet been exposed. No one but a nation of pirates, of ferocious and conscienceless huns, could have inaugurated such a campaign.”
“Good for you, dad!” his son exclaimed. “They’re a rotten lot of beggars, of course, although some of them have behaved rather decently. There’s one thing,” he added, sipping his port, “there isn’t a job in the world I’d sooner take on than submarine hunting.”
“Every one to his taste,” Granet remarked good-humouredly. “Give me my own company at my back, my artillery well posted, my reserves in position, the enemy not too strongly entrenched, and our dear old Colonel’s voice shouting ‘At them, boys!’ That’s my idea of a scrap.”
There was a little murmur of sympathy. Ralph Conyers, however, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, smiled imperturbably.
“Sounds all right,” he admitted, “but for sheer excitement give me a misty morning, the bows of a forty-knot destroyer cutting the sea into diamonds, decks cleared for action, and old Dick in oilskins on the salute—’Enemy’s submarine, sir, on the port bow, sir.’”
“And what would you do then?” Granet asked.
“See page seven Admiralty instructions this afternoon,” the other replied, smiling. “We’re not taking it sitting down, I can tell you.”
The Admiral rose and pushed back his chair.
“I think,” he said, “if you are quite sure, all of you, that you will take no more port, we should join the ladies.”
They trooped out of the room together. Thomson kept close behind Ralph Conyers and Captain Granet, who were talking no more of submarines, however, but of the last ballet at the Empire. Geraldine came towards them as they entered the drawing-room.
“Hugh,” she begged, passing her arm through his, “would you mind playing bridge? The Mulliners are going on, and mother does miss her rubber so. And we can talk afterwards, if you like,” she added.
Thomson glanced across the room to where Granet was chatting with some other guests. Young Conyers for the moment was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll play, with pleasure, Geraldine,” he assented, “but I want to have a word with Ralph first.”
“He’s at the telephone,” she said. “The Admiralty rang up about something and he is talking to them. I’ll tell him, if you like, when he comes up.”
“If you’ll do that,” Thomson promised, “I won’t keep him a minute.”
The little party settled down to their game—Lady Conyers, Sir Charles Hankins,—a celebrated lawyer,—another man and Thomson. Geraldine, with Olive Moreton and Captain Granet, found a sofa in a remote corner of the room and the trio were apparently talking nonsense with great success. Presently Ralph reappeared and joined them.
“Hugh wants to speak to you,” Geraldine told him.
Ralph glanced at the little bridge-table and made a grimace.
“Hugh can wait,” he declared, as he passed his arm through Olive’s. “This is my last night on shore for heaven knows how long and I am going to take Olive off to see my photographs of the Scorpion. Old Wilcock handed them to me out of his drawer this afternoon.”
The two young people disappeared. Captain Granet and Geraldine remained upon the couch, talking in low voices. Once Thomson, when he was dummy, crossed the room and approached them. Their conversation was suddenly suspended.
“I told Ralph,” Geraldine said, looking up, “that you wanted to speak to him, but he and Olive have gone off somewhere. By-the-bye, Hugh,” she went on curiously, “you didn’t tell me that you’d called on Captain Granet this evening.”
“Well, it wasn’t a matter of vital importance, was it?” he answered, smiling. “My call, in any case, arose from an accident.”
“Major Thomson,” came a voice from the other side of the room, “it is your deal.”
Thomson returned obediently to the bridge-table. The rubber was over a few minutes later and the little party broke up. Thomson glanced around but the room was empty.
“I think, if I may,” he said, “I’ll go into the morning room and have a whisky and soda. I dare say I’ll find the Admiral there.”
He took his leave of the others and made his way to the bachelor rooms at the back of the house. He looked first into the little apartment which Geraldine claimed for her own, but found it empty. He passed on into the smoking-room and found all four of the young people gathered around the table. They were so absorbed that they did not even notice his entrance. Ralph, with a sheet of paper stretched out before him and a pencil in his hand, was apparently sketching something. By his side was Granet. The two girls with arms interlocked, were watching intently.
“You see,” Ralph Conyers explained, drawing back for a moment to look at the result of his labours, “this scheme, properly worked out, can keep a channel route such as the Folkestone to Boulogne one, for instance, perfectly safe. Those black marks are floats, and the nets—”
“One moment, Ralph,” Thomson interrupted from the background.
They all started and turned their heads. Thomson drew a step nearer and his hand fell upon the paper. There was a queer look in his face which Geraldine was beginning to recognise.
“Ralph, old fellow,�
� he said, “don’t think me too much of an interfering beggar, will you? I don’t think even to your dearest friend, not to the girl you are going to marry, to me, or to your own mother, would I finish that little drawing and description, if I were you.”
They all stared at him. Granet’s face was expressionless, the girls were bewildered, Ralph was frowning.
“Dash it all, Hugh,” he expostulated, “do have a little common sense. Here’s a fellow like Granet, a keen soldier and one of the best, doing all he can for us on land but a bit worried about our submarine danger. Why shouldn’t I try and reassure him, eh?—let him see that we’ve a few little things up our sleeves?”
“That sounds all right, Ralph,” Thomson agreed, “but you’re departing from a principle, and I wouldn’t do it. It isn’t a personal risk you’re running, or a personal secret you’re sharing with others. It may sound absurd under the present circumstances, I know, but—”
Granet laughed lightly. His arm fell upon the young sailor’s shoulder.
“Perhaps Thomson’s right, Conyers,” he intervened. “You keep your old scheme at the back of your head. We’ll know all about it when the history of the war’s written. There’s always the thousand to one chance, you know. I might get brain fever in a German hospital and begin to babble. Tear it up, old fellow.”
There was a moment’s silence. Geraldine turned to Thomson.
“Hugh,” she protested, “don’t you think you’re carrying principle almost too far? It’s so fearfully interesting for us when Ralph’s at sea, and we wait day by day for news from him, to understand a little what he’s doing.”
“I think you’re a horrid nuisance, Major Thomson,” Olive grumbled. “We’d just reached the exciting part.”
“I am sorry,” Thomson said, “but I think, Ralph, you had better do what Captain Granet suggested.”
The young man shrugged his shoulders, his face was a little sulky. He took the plan up and tore it into pieces.
“If you weren’t my prospective brother-in-law, you know, Thomson,” he exclaimed, “I should call your interference damned cheek! After all, you know, you’re only a civilian, and you can’t be expected to understand these things.”
Thomson was silent for a moment. He read in the others’ faces their sympathy with the young sailor’s complaint. He moved towards the door.
“I am sorry,” he said simply. “Good night, everybody!”
They all wished him good-night—nobody stirred. He walked slowing into the front hall, waited for a moment and then accepted his coat and hat from a servant. Lady Conyers waved to him from the staircase.
“Where’s Geraldine?” she asked.
Thomson turned away.
“They are all in the smoking-room, Lady Conyers,” he said. “Good night!”
CHAPTER VIII
Table of Contents
In a way, their meeting the next morning was fortuitous enough, yet it had also its significance for both of them. Geraldine’s greeting was almost studiously formal.
“You are not going to scold me for my memory, are you?” Captain Granet asked, looking down at her with a faintly humorous uplifting of the eyebrows. “I must have exercise, you know.”
“I don’t even remember telling you that I came into the Park in the mornings,” Geraldine replied.
“You didn’t—that is to say you didn’t mention the Park particularly,” he admitted. “You told me you always took these five dogs out for a walk directly after breakfast, and for the rest I used my intelligence.”
“I might have gone into Regent’s Park or St. James’ Park,” she reminded him.
“In which case,” he observed, “I should have walked up and down until I had had enough of it, and then gone away in a bad temper.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she laughed. “I decline absolutely to believe that you had a single thought of me when you turned in here. Do you mind if I say that I prefer not to believe it?”
He accepted the reproof gracefully.
“Well, since we do happen to have met,” he suggested, “might I walk with you a little way? You see,” he went on, “it’s rather dull hobbling along here all alone.”
“Of course you may, if you like,” she assented, glancing sympathetically at his stick. “How is your leg getting on?”
“It’s better—getting on finely. So far as my leg is concerned, I believe I shall be fit to go out again within ten days. It’s my arm that bothers me a little. One of the nerves, the doctor said, must be wrong. I can only just lift it. You’ve no idea,” he went on, “how a game leg and a trussed-up arm interfere with the little round of one’s daily life. I can’t ride, can’t play golf or billiards, and for an unintelligent chap like me,” he wound up with a sigh, “there aren’t a great many other ways of passing the time.”
“Why do you call yourself unintelligent?” she protested. “You couldn’t have got through your soldiering so well if you had been.”
“Oh! I know all the soldier stuff,” he admitted, “know my job, that is to say, all right, and of course I am moderately good at languages, but that finishes me. I haven’t any brains like your friend Thomson, for instance.”
“Major Thomson is very clever, I believe,” she said a little coldly.
“And a little censorious, I am afraid,” Granet added with a slight grimace. “I suppose he thinks I am a garrulous sort of ass but I really can’t see why he needed to go for your brother last night just because he was gratifying a very reasonable curiosity on my part. It isn’t as though I wasn’t in the Service. The Army and the Navy are the same thing, any way, and we are always glad to give a Navy man a hint as to how we are getting on.”
“I really couldn’t quite understand Major Thomson myself,” she agreed.
“May I ask—do you mind?” he began,—“have you been engaged to him long?”
She looked away for a moment. Her tone, when she replied, was meant to convey some slight annoyance at the question.
“About three months.”
Captain Granet kicked a pebble away from the path in front of him with his sound foot.
“I should think he must be a very good surgeon,” he remarked in a measured tone. “Looks as though he had lots of nerve, and that sort of thing. To tell you the truth, though, he rather frightens me. I don’t think that he has much sympathy with my type.”
She became a little more indulgent and smiled faintly as she looked at him.
“I wonder what your type is?” she asked reflectively.
“Fairly obvious, I am afraid,” he confessed, with a sigh. “I love my soldiering, of course, and I am ashamed to think how keen I have been on games, and should be still if I had the chance. Outside that I don’t read much, I am not musical, and I am very much predisposed to let the future look after itself. There are thousands just like me,” he continued thoughtfully. “We don’t do any particular harm in the world but I don’t suppose we do much good.”
“Don’t be silly,” she protested. “For one thing, it is splendid to be a capable soldier. You are just what the country wants to-day. But apart from that I am quite sure that you have brains.”
“Have I?” he murmured. “Perhaps it’s the incentive I lack.”
They were silent for a few moments. Then they began to talk more lightly. They discussed dogs and horses, their mutual friends, and their engagements for the next few days. They did not once refer to Thomson. Presently Geraldine paused to speak to some friends. Granet leaned upon his stick in the background and watched her. She was wearing a plain tailor made suit and a becoming little hat, from underneath which little wisps of golden hair had somehow detached themselves in a fascinating disorder. There was a delicate pink colour in her cheeks, the movements and lines of her body were all splendidly free and graceful. As she talked to her friends her eyes for the moment seemed to have lost their seriousness. Her youth had reasserted itself—her youth and splendid physical health. He watched her eagerly, and some shadow seemed to pass fro
m his own face—the shadow of his suffering or his pain. He, too, seemed to grow younger. The simplest and yet the most wonderful joy in life was thrilling him. At last she bade farewell to her friends and came smiling towards him.
“I am so sorry to have kept you all this time!” she exclaimed. “Lady Anne has just told me the time and I am horrified. I meant to walk here for an hour and we have been here for two. Stop that taxi for me, please. I cannot spare the time even to walk home.”
He handed her into the cab and whistled for the dogs, who all scrambled in after her.
“Thanks to much for looking after a helpless cripple,” he said pleasantly, as they shook hands. “You mustn’t grudge the time. Doing your duty to the country, you know.”
He tactfully avoided any mention of a future meeting and was rewarded with a little wave of her hand from the window of the cab. He himself left the Park at the same time, strolled along Piccadilly as far as Sackville Street and let himself into his rooms. His servant came forward to meet him from the inner room, and took his cap and stick.
“Any telephone messages, Jarvis?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Granet moved towards the easy-chair. On the way he stopped. The door of one of the cupboards in the sideboard was half open. He frowned.
“Haven’t I told you, Jarvis, that I wish those cupboards kept locked?” he asked a little curtly.
The man was staring towards the sideboard in some surprise.
“I am very sorry, sir,” he said. “I certainly believed that I locked it last night.”
Granet opened it wide and looked inside. His first glance was careless enough, then his expression changed. He stared incredulously at the small array of bottles and turned swiftly around.
“Have you moved anything from here?”
“Certainly not, sir,” was the prompt reply.
Granet closed the cupboard slowly. Then he walked to the window for a moment, his hands behind his back.
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