Vane walked along Piccadilly a prey to conflicting emotions. Dominant amongst them was a wild elation at what he had seen in Joan's eyes, but a very good second was the uncomfortable remembrance of Margaret. What did he propose to do?
He was not a cad, and the game he was playing struck him rather forcibly as being uncompromisingly near the caddish. Did he, or did he not, mean to make love to the girl he had just left at the Savoy? And if he did, to what end?
A crowd of lunchers coming out of Prince's checked him for a moment or two, and forced him into the arms of an officer and a girl who were standing, apparently waiting for a taxi. Almost unconsciously he took stock of them, even as he apologised. . . .
The girl, a pretty little thing, but utterly mediocre and uninteresting, was clinging to the officer's arm, a second lieutenant in the Tank Corps.
"Do you think we ought to take a taxi, Bill? Let's go on a 'bus. . . ."
"No damn fear," returned Bill. "Let's blow the lot while we're about it. I'm going back to-morrow. . . ."
Then Vane pushed past them, with that brief snapshot of a pair of lives photographed on his brain. And it would have effaced itself as quickly as it had come, but for the very new wedding ring he had seen on the girl's left hand--so new that to conceal it with a glove was simply not to be thought of.
Money--money--money; was there no getting away from it?
"Its value will not be measured by material things. It will leave nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. . . ." And as the words of Oscar Wilde came to his mind Vane laughed aloud.
"This is London, my lad," he soliloquised. "London in the twentieth century. We've a very nice war on where a man may develop his personality; fairy tales are out of date."
He strolled on past the Ritz--his mind still busy with the problem. Joan wanted to marry money; Joan had to marry money. At least he had gathered so. He had asked Margaret to marry him; she had said that in time she would--if he still wanted her. At least he had gathered so. Those were the major issues.
The minor and more important one--because minor ones have a way of influencing the big fellows out of all proportion to their size--was that he had asked Joan to tea.
He sighed heavily and turned up Half Moon Street. Whatever happened afterwards he had his duty as a host to consider first. He decided to go in and talk to the worthy Mrs. Green, and see if by any chance that stalwart pillar would be able to provide a tea worthy of the occasion. Mrs. Green had a way with her, which seemed to sweep through such bureaucratic absurdities as ration cards and food restrictions. Also, and perhaps it was more to the point, she had a sister in Devonshire who kept cows.
"Mrs. Green," called Vane, "come up and confer with me on a matter of great importance. . . ."
With a wild rush Binks emerged from below as if shot from a catapult--to be followed by Mrs. Green wiping her hands on her apron.
"A most important affair, Mrs. Green," continued Vane, when he had let himself into his rooms, and pacified Binks temporarily with the squeaky indiarubber dog. "Only you can save the situation. . . ."
Mrs. Green intimated by a magnificent gesture that she was fully prepared to save any situation.
"I have visitors for tea, or rather, to be correct--a visitor. A lady to comfort me--or perhaps torment me--as only your sex can." His eyes suddenly rested on Margaret's photo, and he stopped with a frown. Mrs. Green's motherly face beamed with satisfaction. Here was a Romance with a capital R, which was as dear to her kindly heart as a Mary Pickford film.
"I'm sure I hope you'll be very happy, sir," she said.
"So do I, Mrs. Green--though I've a shrewd suspicion, I shall be profoundly miserable." He resolutely turned his back on the photo. "I'm playing a little game this afternoon, most motherly of women. Incidentally it's been played before--but it never loses its charm or- its danger. . . ." He gave a short laugh. "My first card is your tea. Toast, Mrs. Green, covered with butter supplied by your sister in Devonshire. Hot toast in your priceless muffin dish--running over with butter: and wortleberry jam. . . . Can you do this great thing for me?"
Mrs. Green nodded her head. "The butter only came this morning, Mr. Vane, sir. And I've got three pounds of wortleberry jam left. . . ."
"Three pounds should be enough," said Vane after due deliberation.
"And then I've got a saffron cake," went on the worthy woman. "Fresh made before it was sent on by my sister. . . ."
"Say no more, Mrs. Green. We win--hands down--all along the line. Do you realise that fair women and brave men who venture out to tea in London to-day have to pay half a crown for a small dog biscuit?" Vane rubbed his hands together. "After your tea, and possibly during it--I shall play my second card--Binks. Now I appeal to you--Could any girl with a particle of natural feeling consent to go on living away from Binks?"
The Accursed Thing emitted a mournful hoot, as Binks, hearing his name spoken, raised his head and looked up at his master. His tail thumped the floor feverishly, and his great brown eyes glowed with a mute inquiry. "To walk, or not to walk"--that was the question. The answer was apparently in the negative, for the moment at any rate, and he again returned to the attack.
"You see my guile, Mrs. Green," said Vane. "Softened by toast, floating in Devonshire butter and covered with wortleberry jam; mellowed by saffron cake--Binks will complete the conquest. Then will come the crucial moment. No one, not even she, can part me from my dog. To have Binks--she must have me. . . . What do you think of it--as a game only, you know?"
Mrs. Green laughed. "I surely do hope you're successful, my dear," she said, and she laid a motherly hand on his arm. In moments of extreme feeling she sometimes reverted to the language of her fathers, with its soft West Country burr. . . . "When Green come courtin' me, he just tuk me in tu his arms, and give me a great fat little kiss. . . ."
"And, by Jove, Mrs. Green, he was a damn lucky fellow to be able to do it," cried Vane, taking the kindly old hand in both his own. "If I wasn't afraid of him coming for me with a broomstick, I'd do the same myself. . . ."
She shook a reproving finger at him from the door, and her face was wreathed in smiles. "You ring when you want the tea, Mr. Vane, sir," she said, "and I'll bring it up to you. . . ."
She closed the door, and Vane heard the stairs creaking protestingly as she descended. And not for the first time did he thank his lucky stars that Fate had put him into such hands when he left Oxford. . . .
For a while he stood staring at the door with a slight frown, and then he turned to Binks.
"I wonder, young fellow my lad," he muttered. "I wonder if I'm being the most arrant blackguard!"
He wandered restlessly round the room taking odd books from one table and putting them on another, only to replace them in their original positions on the return journey. He tidied up the golf clubs and a bundle of polo sticks, and pitched the boxing gloves under a settee in the corner from which Binks promptly retrieved them. In fact, he behaved as men will behave when they're waiting for the unknown--be it the answer of a woman, or zero hour at six thirty. And at last he seemed to realise the fact. . . .
"Oh! Hell, Binks," he laughed. "I've got it bad--right where the boxer puts the sleep dope. . . . I think I'll just go and wash my hands, old boy; they strike me as being unpleasantly excited. . . ."
But when he returned Binks was still exhaling vigorously at a hole in the wainscot, behind which he fancied he had detected a sound. With the chance of a mouse on the horizon he became like Gamaliel, and cared for none of these things. . . .
A taxi drove up to the door, and Vane threw down the book he was pretending to read, and listened with his heart in his mouth. Even Binks, scenting that things were afoot, ceased to blow, and cocked his head on one side expectantly. Then he growled, a low down, purring growl, which meant that strangers were presuming to approach his domain and that he reserved his judgment. . . .
"Shut up, you fool," said Vane, as he sprang across the room to the door, which at once decided the question in Binks's mind. Here was evidently an enemy of no mean order who dared to come where angels feared to tread when he was about. He beat Vane by two yards, giving tongue in his most approved style. . . .
"Down, old man, down," cried Vane, as he opened the door--but Binks had to justify his existence. And so he barked twice at the intruder who stood outside, watching his master with a faint smile. True the second bark seemed in the nature of an apology; but damn it, one must do something. . . .
"You've come," said Vane, and with the sight of her every other thought left his head. "My dear--but it's good of you. . . ."
"Didn't you expect me?" she asked coming into the room. Still with the same faint smile, she turned to Binks. "Hullo, old fellow," she said. "You sure have got a great head on you." She bent over him, and put her hand on the browny-black patch behind his ears. . . . Binks growled; he disliked familiarity from people he did not know.
"Look out, Joan," said Vane nervously. "He's a little funny with strangers sometimes."
"Am I a stranger, old chap?" she said, taking off her glove, and letting her hand hang loosely just in front of his nose, with the back towards him. Vane nodded approvingly, though he said nothing; as a keen dog lover it pleased him intensely to see that the girl knew how to make friends with them. And not everyone--even though they know the method to use with a doubtful dog--has the nerve to use it. . . .
For a moment Binks looked at her appraisingly; then he thrust forward a cold wet nose and sniffed once at the hand in front of him. His mind was made up. Just one short, welcoming lick, and he trotted back to his hole in the wainscot. Important matters seemed to him to have been neglected far too long as it was. . . .
"Splendid," said Vane quietly. "The other member of the firm is now in love with you as well. . . ."
She looked at Vane in silence, and suddenly she shivered slightly. "I think," she said, "that we had better talk about rather less dangerous topics. . . ." She glanced round her, and then went to the window and stood looking out into the bright sunlight. "What topping rooms you've got," she said after a moment.
"They aren't bad, are they?" remarked Vane briefly. "What do you say to some tea? My devoted landlady is preparing a repast which millionaires would squander their fortunes for. Her sister happens to live in Devonshire. . . ."
"So you were expecting me?" she cried, turning round and facing him.
"I was," answered Vane.
She laughed shortly. "Well--what do you think of dyspepsia and Vichy?"
"I've been trying not to think of him ever since lunch," he answered grimly. She came slowly towards him, and suddenly Vane caught both her hands. "Joan, Joan," he cried, and his voice was a little hoarse, "my dear, you can't. . . . You just can't. . . ."
"What great brain was it who said something really crushing about that word 'Can't?'" she said lightly.
"Then you just mustn't." His grip almost hurt her, but she made no effort to take away her hands.
"The trouble, my very dear friend, seems to me to be that--I just must." Gently she disengaged her hands, and at that moment Mrs. Green arrived with the tea.
"The dearest and kindest woman in London," said Vane with a smile to Joan. "Since the days of my callow youth Mrs. Green has watched over me like a mother. . . ."
"I expect he wanted some watching too, Mrs. Green," cried Joan.
Mrs. Green laughed, and set down the tea. "Show me the young gentleman that doesn't, Miss," she said, "and I'll show you one that's no manner of use to anybody. . . ."
She arranged the plates and cups and then with a final--"You'll ring if you want more butter, sir"--she left the room.
"Think of it, Joan," said Vane. "Ring if you want more butter! Is it a phrase from a dead language?" He pulled up a chair. . . . "Will you preside, please, and decant the juice?"
The girl sat down and smiled at him over the teapot. "A big, fat tea," she murmured, "with lots of scones and Devonshire cream. . . ."
"I thought you suggested talking about rather less dangerous topics," said Vane quietly. Their eyes met, and suddenly Vane leaned forward. "Tell me, grey girl," he said, "did you really mean it when you said the last game was very nearly even?"
For a moment she did not answer, and then she looked at him quite frankly. "Yes," she said; "I really meant it. I tell you quite honestly that I had meant to punish you; I had meant to flirt with you -teach you a lesson--and give you a fall. I thought you wanted it. . . . And then. . . ."
"Yes," said Vane eagerly. . . . "What then?"
"Why--I think I changed my mind," said the girl. "I didn't know you were such a dear. . . . I'm sorry," she added after a moment.
"But why be sorry?" he cried. "It's just the most wonderful thing in the world. I did deserve it--I've had the fall. . . . And oh! my dear, to think you're crashed as well. . . . Or at any rate slid a bit." He corrected himself with a smile.
But there was no answering smile on the girl's face. She just stared out of the window, and then with a sort of explosive violence she turned on Vane. "Why did you do it?" she stormed. "Why . . . why . . .?" For a while they looked at one another, and then she laughed suddenly. "For Heaven's sake, let's be sensible. . . . The toast is getting cold, my dear man. . . ."
"I can't believe it," said Vane gravely. "We've done nothing to deserve such a punishment as that. . . ."
And so for a while they talked of trivial things--of plays, and books, and people. But every now and then would fall a silence, and their eyes would meet--and hold. Just for a moment or two; just for long enough to make them both realise the futility of the game they were playing. Then they would both speak at once, and contribute some gem of sparkling wit, which would have shamed even the writer of mottoes in crackers. . . .
A tentative paw on Joan's knee made her look down. Binks--tired of his abortive blasts at an unresponsive hole--desired refreshment, and from time immemorial tea had been the one meal at which he was allowed to beg. He condescended to eat two slices of saffron cake, and then Vane presented the slop basin to Joan.
"He likes his tea," he informed her, "with plenty of milk and sugar. Also you must stir it with your finger to see that it isn't too hot. He'll never forgive you if it burns his nose."
"You really are the most exacting household," laughed Joan, putting the bowl down on the floor.
"We are," said Vane gravely. "I hope you feel equal to coping with us. . . ."
She was watching Binks as he stood beside her drinking his tea, and gave no sign of having heard his remark.
"You know," he continued after a while, "your introduction to Binks at such an early stage in the proceedings has rather spoilt the masterly programme I had outlined in my mind. First you were to be charmed and softened by Mrs. Green's wonderful tea. Secondly, you were to see Binks; be formally introduced. You were to fall in love with him on sight, so to speak; vow that you could never be parted from such a perfect dog again. And then, thirdly. . . ."
"His appearance is all that I could desire," she interrupted irrelevantly; "but I beg to point out that he is an excessively dirty feeder. . . ."
Vane stood up and looked at the offender. "You mean the shower of tea drops that goes backwards on to the carpet," he said reflectively. "'Twas ever thus with Binks."
"And the tea leaves adhering to his beard." She pointed an accusing finger at the unrepentant sinner.
"You should have poured it through that sieve affair," said Vane. "Your own manners as a hostess are not all they might be. However, Binks and I are prepared to overlook it for once, and so we will pass on to the thirdly. . . ."
He handed her the cigarette box, and with a faint smile hovering round her lips, she looked up at him.
"Is your thirdly safe?" she asked.
"Mrs. Green thought it wonderful. A suitable climax to a dramatic situation."
"You've had a rehearsal, have you?"
"Just a preliminary canter to see I hadn't forgotten anything."
"And she approved?"
"She suggested an alternative that, I am rather inclined to think, might be better," he answered. "It's certainly simpler. . . ."
Again she smiled faintly. "I'm not certain that Mrs. Green's simpler alternative strikes me as being much safer than your thirdly," she murmured. "Incidentally, am I failing again in my obvious duties? It seems to me that Binks sort of expects something. . . ." Another fusillade of tail thumps greeted the end of the sentence.
"Great Scott!" cried Vane, "I should rather think you were. However, I don't think you could very well have known; it's outside the usual etiquette book." He handed her the indiarubber dog. "A feint towards the window, one towards the door--and then throw."
A quivering, ecstatic body, a short, staccato bark--and Binks had caught his enemy. He bit once; he bit again--and then, a little puzzled, he dropped it. Impossible to conceive that it was really dead at last--and yet, it no longer hooted. Binks looked up at his master for information on the subject, and Vane scratched his head.
"That sure is the devil, old son," he remarked. "Have you killed it for keeps. Bring it here. . . ." Binks laid it obediently at Vane's feet. "It should squeak," he explained to Joan as he picked it up, "mournfully and hideously."
She came and stood beside him and together they regarded it gravely, while Binks, in a state of feverish anticipation, looked from one to the other.
"Get on with it," he tail-wagged at them furiously; "get on with it, for Heaven's sake! Don't stand there looking at one another. . . ."
"I think," his master was speaking in a voice that shook, "I think the metal squeak has fallen inside the animal's tummy. . . ."
"You ought to have been a vet," answered the girl, and her voice was very low. "Give it to me; my finger is smaller."
She took the toy from Vane's hand and bent over it.
"Thank goodness somebody takes an intelligent interest in matters of import," thought Binks--and then with a dull, unsqueaking thud his enemy fell at his feet.
"My dear--my dear!" His master's voice came low and tense and pretence was over. With hungry arms Vane caught the girl to him, and she did not resist. He kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips, while she lay passively against him. Then she wound her arms round his neck, and gave him back kiss for kiss.
At last she pushed him away. "Ah! don't, don't," she whispered. "You make it so hard, Derek--so awfully hard. . . ."
"Not on your life," he cried exultingly. "It's easy that I've made it, my darling, so awfully easy. . . ."
Mechanically she patted her hair into shape, and then she stooped and picked up the toy.
"We're forgetting Binks," she said quietly. She managed to get the circular metal whistle out of the inside of the toy, and fixed it in its appointed hole, while Vane, with a glorious joy surging through him, leaned against the mantelpiece and watched her in silence. Not until the squeaking contest was again going at full blast in a corner did he speak.
"That was Mrs. Green's simpler alternative," he said reflectively. "Truly her wisdom is great."
In silence Joan went towards the window. For a while she looked out with unseeing eyes, and then she sank into a big easy chair with her back towards Vane. A thousand conflicting emotions were rioting through her brain; the old battle of heart against head was being waged. She was so acutely alive to his presence just behind her; so vitally conscious of his nearness. Her whole body was crying aloud for the touch of his hands on her again--and then, a vision of Blandford came before her. God! what did it matter--Blandford, or her father, or anything? There was nothing in the world which could make up for--what was it he had called it?--the biggest thing in Life.
Suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders; she felt them stealing down her arms. She felt herself lifted up towards him, and with a little gasp of utter surrender she turned and looked at him with shining eyes.
"Derek, my darling," she whispered. "Que je t'adore. . . ."
And then of her own accord, she kissed him on the lips. . . .
It was Binks's expression, about a quarter of an hour later, which recalled them to earth again. With an air of pained disgust he regarded them stolidly for a few minutes. Then he had a good scratch on both sides of his neck, after which he yawned. He did not actually say "Pooh," but he looked it, and they both laughed.
"Dear man," she whispered, "wouldn't it be just too wonderful if it could always be just you and me and Binks? . . ."
"And why shouldn't it be, lady?" he answered, and his arm went round her waist. "Why shouldn't it be? We'll just sometimes have to see some horrible outsider, I suppose, and perhaps you or somebody will have to order food every year or so. . . . But except for that--why, we'll just slip down the stream all on our own, and there won't be a little bit of difficulty about keeping your eyes in the boat, grey girl. . . ."
She smiled--a quick, fleeting smile; and then she sighed.
"Life's hell, Derek--just hell, sometimes. And the little bits of Heaven make the hell worse."
"Life's pretty much what we make it ourselves, dear," said Vane gravely.
"It isn't," she cried fiercely. "We're what life makes us. . . ."
Vane bent over and started pulling one of Binks's ears.
"You hear that, old man," he said. "The lady is a base materialist, while I--your funny old master--am sprouting wings and growing a halo as a visionary." Vane looked sideways at the girl. "He manages to make his own life, Joan. He'd be as happy with me in a garret as he would in a palace. . . . Probably happier, because he'd mean more to me--fill a bigger part of my life."
Suddenly he stood up and shook both his fists in the air. "Damn it," he cried, "and why can't we cheat 'em, Joan? Cheat all those grinning imps, and seize the Blue Bird and never let it go?"
"Because," she answered slowly, "if you handle the Blue Bird roughly or snatch at it and put it in a cage, it just pines away and dies. And then the imps grin and chuckle worse than ever. . . ."
She rose and put her hands on his shoulders. "It's here now, my dear. I can hear it fluttering so gently near the window. . . . And that noise from the streets is really the fairy chorus. . . ."
A motor car honked discordantly and Vane grinned.
"That's a stout-hearted little fellow with a good pair of lungs on him." She smiled back at him, and then she pushed him gently backwards and forwards with her hands.
"Of course he's got good lungs," she said. "He toots like that whenever anybody falls in love, and twice when they get married, and three times when. . . ."
Vane's breath came in a great gasp, and he pushed her away almost roughly.
"Don't--for God's sake, don't, Joan. . . ."
"My dear," she cried, catching his arm, "forgive me. The Blue Bird's not gone, Derek--it's still there. Don't frighten it--oh! don't. We won't snatch at it, won't even think of making any plans for caging it -we'll just assume it's going to stop. . . . I believe it will then. . . . And afterwards--why what does afterwards matter? Let's be happy while we may, and--perhaps, who knows--we will cheat those grinning imps after all. . . ."
"Right," cried Vane, catching her hands, "right, right, right. What shall we do, my dear, to celebrate the presence of our blue visitor? . . ."
For a moment she thought, and then her eyes lit up. "You're still on leave, aren't you?"
"Even so, lady."
"Then to-morrow we will take a car. . . ."
"My car," interrupted Vane. "And I've got ten gallons of petrol."
"Glorious. We'll take your car, and will start ever so early, and go to the river. Sonning, I think--to that ripping pub where the roses are. And then we'll go on the river for the whole day, and take Binks, and an invisible cage for the Blue Bird. . . . We'll take our food, and a bone for Binks and the squeaky dog. Then in the evening we'll have dinner at the White Hart, and Binks shall have a napkin and sit up at table. And then after dinner we'll come home. My dear, but it's going to be Heaven." She was in his arms and her eyes were shining like stars. "There's only one rule. All through the whole day--no one, not even Binks--is allowed to think about the day after."
Vane regarded her with mock gravity. "Not even if we're arrested for joy riding?" he demanded.
"But the mascot will prevent that, silly boy," she cried. "Why would we be taking that cage for otherwise?"
"I see," said Vane. "It's the most idyllic picture I've ever even thought of. There's only one thing. I feel I must speak about it and get it over." He looked so serious that for a moment her face clouded. "Do not forget--I entreat of you, do not forget--your meat coupon." And then with the laughter that civilisation has decreed shall not be heard often, save on the lips of children, a man and a girl forgot everything save themselves. The world of men and matters rolled on and passed them by, and maybe a year of Hell is fair exchange for that brief space. . . .