Mufti Part 29

"We pander too much to these swine," grumbled Mr. Sutton. "It makes me sick when I hear of the way our boys are treated by the brutes. A d.a.m.n good flogging twice a day--you'll pardon my language, is what they want."

"Yes--drastic measures can be quite successful at times," said Vane, with a slight smile. "Unfortunately in our present advanced state of civilisation public opinion is against flogging. It prefers violence against the person to be done mentally rather than physically. . . .

And it seems so short-sighted, doesn't it? The latter is transitory, while the other is permanent. . . ."

Joan rose and looked at him quietly. "How delightful to meet a man who regards anything as permanent these days. I should have thought we were living in an age of ever-changing values. . . ."

"You're quite wrong, Miss Devereux," said Vane. "Quite, quite wrong.

The little things may change--the froth on the top of the pool, which everyone sees and knows about; but the big fundamental things are always the same. . . ."

"And what are your big fundamental things?" she demanded.

Vane looked at her for a few moments before he answered her lightly.

"Things on which there can be no disagreement even though they are my own views. Love and the pleasure of congenial work, and health. . . .

Just think of having to live permanently with anybody whose digestion has gone. . . ."

"May you never _have_ to do it," said the girl quietly. Then she turned and walked towards the door. "I suppose it's about time to dress, isn't it?" She went out of the room and Mr. Sutton advanced on Vane, with his hand upraised, like the villain of a melodrama when on the point of revealing a secret, unaware of the comic relief ensconced in the hollow tree.

"My dear fellow," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "You've said the wrong thing." He peered round earnestly at the door, to make sure Joan had not returned. "Baxter--the man she's going to marry--is a perfect martyr to indigestion. It is the one thorn in the rose. A most suitable match in every other way, but he lives"--and the old gentleman tapped Vane on the shoulder to emphasise this hideous thing--"he lives on rusks and soda-water."

Vane threw the end of his cigarette in the fire and laughed. "There's always a catch somewhere, isn't there, Mr. Sutton? . . . . I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to excuse my changing; I've only got this khaki with me."

Vane was standing in front of the big open hearth in the hall when Joan came down for dinner. It was the first time he had seen her in an evening dress, and as she came slowly towards him from the foot of the stairs his hands clenched behind his back, and he set his teeth. In her simple black evening frock she was lovely to the point of making any man's senses swim dizzily. And when the man happened to be in love with her, and knew, moreover, that she was in love with him, it was not to be wondered at that he put both hands to his head, with a sudden almost despairing movement.

The girl, as she reached him, saw the gesture, and her eyes grew very soft. Its interpretation was not hard to discover, even if she had not had the grim, fixed look on his face to guide her; and in an instant it swept away the resolve she had made in her room to treat him coldly.

In a flash of clear self-a.n.a.lysis just as she reached him, she recognised the futility of any such resolve. It was with that recognition of her weakness that fear came. . . . All her carefully thought out plans seemed to be crumbling away like a house of cards; all that she wanted was to be in his arms . . . to be kissed. . . .

And yet she knew that that way lay folly. . . .

"Why have you come?" she said very low. "It wasn't playing the game after what I wrote you. . . ."

Vane looked at her in silence for a moment and then he laughed. "Are you really going to talk to me, Joan, about such a thing as playing the game?"

She stood beside him with her hands stretched out towards the blazing logs. "You know how utterly weak it makes me--being near you. . . .

You're just trading on it."

"Well," said Vane fiercely, "is there any man who is a man who wouldn't under the circ.u.mstances?"

"And yet," she said, turning and facing him gravely, "you know what is at stake for me." Her voice began to quiver. "You're playing with s.e.x . . . . s.e.x . . . . s.e.x, and it's the most powerful weapon in the world. But its effects are the most transitory."

"You lie, Joan, and you know it," Vane gripped her arm. "It's not the most transitory."

"It is," she cried stamping her foot, "it is. Against it on the other side of the balance lie the happiness of my father and brother--Blandford--things that last. . . ."

"But what of your own happiness?" he asked grimly.

"Why do you think I shouldn't be happy?" she cried. "I've told you that it's a purely business arrangement. Henry is very nice and kind, and all that I'll be missing is a few months of the thing they call Love. . . ."

Vane took his hand from her arm, and let it fall to his side. "I'm afraid I've marked your arm," he said quietly. "I didn't know how hard I was gripping it. There is only one point which I would like to put to you. Has it occurred to you that in the business arrangement which you have outlined so delightfully, it may possibly strike Mr.

Baxter--in view of his great possessions--that a son and heir is part of the contract?" As he spoke he raised his eyes to her face.

He saw her whole body stiffen as if she had been struck; he saw her bite her lip with a sudden little gasp, he saw the colour ebb from her cheeks. Then she recovered herself.

"Why, certainly," she said. "I have no doubt that that will be part of the programme. It generally is, I believe, in similar cases."

Vane's voice was very tender as he answered. "My grey girl," he whispered, "it won't do. . . . It just won't do. If I believed that what you say really expressed what you think, don't you know that I'd leave the house without waiting for dinner? But they don't. You can't look me in the eyes and tell me they do. . . ."

"I can," she answered defiantly; "that is what I think. . . ."

"Look me in the eyes, I said," interrupted Vane quietly.

Twice she tried to speak, and twice she failed. Then with a little half-strangled gasp she turned away. . . . "You brute," she said, and her voice was shaking, "you brute. . . ."

And as their host came down the stairs to join them, Vane laughed--a short, triumphant laugh. . . .

Almost at once they went in to dinner; and to Vane the meal seemed to be a succession of unknown dishes, which from time to time partially distracted his attention from the only real thing in the room--the girl sitting opposite him. And yet he flattered himself that neither his host nor hostess noticed anything remarkable about his behaviour. In fact he considered that he was a model of tact and discretion. . . .

Vane was drunk--drunk as surely as a man goes drunk on wine. He was drunk with excitement; he was mad with the madness of love. At times he felt that he must get up, and go round the table and gather his girl into his arms. He even went so far as to picture the butler's expression when he did it. Unfortunately, that was just when Mrs.

Sutton had concluded a harrowing story of a dead soldier who had left a bedridden wife with thirteen children. Vane had not heard a word of the story, but the butler's face had crossed his mental horizon periodically, and he chose that moment to laugh. It was not a well-timed laugh, but he floundered out of it somehow. . . .

And then just as the soup came on--or was it the savoury?--he knew, as surely as he could see her opposite him, that his madness was affecting Joan. Telepathy, the wiseacres may call it, the sympathy of two subconscious minds. . . . What matter the pedagogues, what matter the psychological experts? It was love--glorious and wonderful in its very lack of restraint. It was the man calling the woman; it was the woman responding to the man. It was freedom, beauty, madness all rolled into one; it was the only thing in this world that matters. But all the time he was very careful not to give away the great secret. Just once or twice their eyes met, and whenever that happened he made some remark more inordinately witty than usual--or more inordinately foolish. And the girl opposite helped him, and laughed with him, while over the big mahogany table there came leaping her real message--"My dear, I'm yours. . . ." It whispered through the flowers in the big cut-gla.s.s bowl that formed the centrepiece; it echoed between the ma.s.sive silver candlesticks with their pink shaded lights. At times it sounded triumphantly from every corner of the room, banis.h.i.+ng all the commonplace surroundings with the wonder of its voice; at times it floated softly through the warm, scented air, conjuring up visions of nights on the desert with the Nile lapping softly on the hot sand, and the cries of the waterboys coming faintly through the still air.

But ever and always it was there, dominating everything, so insistent was its reality. As a.s.suredly as if the words had been spoken did they see into one another's hearts that evening at dinner while a worthy old Suss.e.x squire and his wife discussed the war, and housing problems, and the futility of fixing such a price on meat that it paid farmers to put their calves to the cow, instead of selling the milk. After all, the words had been spoken before, and words are of little account. There are times--not often, for artificiality and civilisation are stern taskmasters--but there are times when a man and woman become as G.o.ds and know. What need of words between them then; a mathematician does not require to consult the multiplication table or look up the rules that govern addition and subtraction.

But the condition is dangerous--very dangerous. For the Law of the Universe has decreed that for every Action there is an equal and opposite Reaction. No account may be taken of madness--even though it be Divine. It avails not one jot when the time comes to foot the bill.

By that time the madness has pa.s.sed, like a dream in the night; and cold sanity is the judge before which a man must stand or fall. A few, maybe, there are who cheat the reckoning for a s.p.a.ce; but they live in a Fools' Paradise. Sooner or later the bill is presented. It must be--for such is the Law of Things as they Are . . . . And all that a man may pray for is that he gets good value for his money.

After dinner Joan sang once or twice, and Vane, from the depths of a chair near the fire, watched her through half-closed eyes. His hostess was placidly knitting and the old gentleman was openly and unashamedly asleep. The girl had a small voice, but very sweet and pure; and, after a while Vane rose and went over to the piano. With his elbow resting on it he stood there looking down at her, and once, as their eyes met, her voice faltered a little.

"Ah! when Love comes, his wings are swift, His ways are full of quick surprise; 'Tis well for those who have the gift To seize him even as he flies. . . ."

She sang the simple Indian love song with a sort of wistful tenderness, and it seemed to the man watching her as if she was singing to herself rather than to him. It was as the last note of the refrain trembled and died away that Mr. Sutton awoke with a loud snort and looked round guiltily. Quite satisfied that no one had observed his lapse, he got up and strode over to the piano.

"Delightful, my dear, delightful," he said heartily. "My favourite tune." The number of the old gentleman's favourite tunes heard under similar circ.u.mstances was large.

"Come along, my boy," he went on, turning to Vane. "Pool or billiards, and let's see if the old man can't show you a thing or two."

With an inward groan Vane professed himself delighted. "Perhaps Miss Devereux will come and score for us," he murmured.

"Do, my love," said Mrs. Sutton. "And then I'll go to bed."

If Vane remembered little of dinner that evening, he remembered still less about the game of billiards except that he was soundly beaten, to Mr. Sutton's great delight, and that he laughed quite a lot over silly little jokes. Every now and then he stood beside Joan at the scoring board, and touched her arm or her hand; and once, when his host, intent on some shot, had his back towards them, he bent very quickly and kissed her on the lips. And he felt her quiver, and then grow rigid at his touch.

He played execrably, and when he tried to pull himself together to get the game done quicker, he played worse. If only the old man would go to bed, or something, and leave them. . . . If only he could get a few moments alone with Joan, just to kiss her, and take her in his arms.

But the old man showed no signs of doing anything of the sort. He did not often get a game of billiards; he still less often beat anybody, and he fully intended to make the most of it. Then at last, when the game was finally over, he played half of his shots over again for practice. And Vane, with his cue grasped in both hands, contemplated braining him with the b.u.t.t. . . .

But worse was still to come. Mr. Sutton prided himself on being old fas.h.i.+oned. Early to bed and early to rise, a proverb which Vane had always considered the most detestable in the English language, was one of his host's favourite texts. Especially when applied to other people. . . .