But Vane did not go away; he merely stood there looking at her with a faint, half-quizzical smile on his lips.

"Joan," he said, after a moment, "I'm thinking I have played the deuce with your general routine. All the earlier performances will be in the nature of an anti-climax after this. But--perhaps, later on, when my abominable remarks are not quite so fresh in your mind, you won't regard them as quite such an insult as you do now. Dreadful outsider though I am--unpardonably caddish though it is to have criticised your war work--especially when I have appreciated it so much--will you try to remember that it would have been far easier and pleasanter to have done the other thing?"

Slowly her eyes came round to his face, and he saw that they were dangerously bright. "What other thing?" she demanded.

"Carried on with the game; the game that both you and I know so well.

Hunting, cricket and making love. . . . Is it not written in 'Who's Who'--unless that interesting publication is temporarily out of print?"

"It strikes me," the girl remarked ominously, "that to your caddishness you add a very sublime conceit."

Vane grinned. "Mother always told me I suffered from swelled head. . . ." He pointed to the envelope still unaddressed, lying between them on the writing table. "After which slight digression--do you mind?"

She picked up the pen, and sat down once again. "I notice your tone changes when you want me to help you."

Vane made no answer. "The address is Mrs. Vernon, 14, Culman Terrace, Balham," he remarked quietly.

"I trust she is doing war work that pleases you," sneered the girl. She handed him the envelope, and then, as she saw the blaze in his eyes, she caught her breath in a little quick gasp.

"As far as I know," he answered grimly, "Mrs. Vernon is endeavouring to support herself and three children on the large sum of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. Her husband died in my arms while we were consolidating some ground we had won." He took the envelope from her hand. "Thank you; I am sorry to have had to trouble you."

He walked towards the door, and when he got to it, he paused and looked back. Joan Devereux was standing motionless, staring out of the window.

Vane dropped his letter into the box in the hall, and went up the stairs to his room.

CHAPTER VI

There was no objection to Vane going to London, it transpired. He had merely to write his name in a book, and he was then issued a half-fare voucher. No one even asked him his religion, which seemed to point to slackness somewhere.

It was with feelings the reverse of pleasant that Vane got into the first-cla.s.s carriage one morning four days after he had written to Mrs.

Vernon. She would be glad to see him, she had written in reply, and she was grateful to him for taking the trouble to come. Thursday afternoon would be most convenient; she was out the other days, and on Sundays she had to look after the children. . . .

Vane opened the magazine on his knees and stared idly at the pictures.

In the far corner of the carriage two expansive looking gentlemen were engaged in an animated conversation, interrupted momentarily by his entrance. In fact they had seemed to regard his intrusion rather in the light of a personal affront. Their general appearance was not prepossessing, and Vane having paused in the doorway, and stared them both in turn out of countenance, had been amply rewarded by hearing himself described as an impertinent young puppy.

He felt in his blackest and most pugilistic mood that morning. As a general rule he was the most peaceful of men; but at times, some strain inherited from a remote ancestor who, if he disliked a man's face hit it hard with a club, resurrected itself in him. There had been the celebrated occasion in the Promenade at the Empire, a few months before the war, when a man standing in front of him had failed to remove his hat during the playing of "The King." It was an opera hat, and Vane removed it for him and shut it up. The owner turned round just in time to see it hit the curtain, whence it fell with a thud into the orchestra. . . . Quite inexcusable, but the fight that followed was all that man could wish for. The two of them, with a large chucker-out, had finally landed in a heap in Leicester Square--with the hatless gentleman underneath. And Vane--being fleet of foot, had finally had the supreme joy of watching from afar his disloyal opponent being escorted to Vine Street, in a winded condition, by a very big policeman. . . .

Sometimes he wondered if other people ever felt like that; if they were ever overcome with an irresistible desire to be offensive. It struck him that the war had not cured this failing; if anything it had made it stronger. And the sight of these two fat, oily specimens complacently discussing business, while a woman--in some poky house in Balham--was waiting to hear the last message from her dead, made him gnash his teeth.

Of course it was all quite wrong. No well-brought-up and decorous Englishman had any right to feel so annoyed with another man's face that he longed to hit it with a stick. But Vane was beginning to doubt whether he had been well brought up; he was quite certain that he was not decorous. He was merely far more natural than he had ever been before; he had ceased to worry over the small things.

And surely the two other occupants of the carriage were very small. At least they seemed so to him. For all he knew, or cared, they might each of them be in control of a Government Department; that failed to alter their littleness.

Fragments of their conversation came to him over the rattle of the wheels, and he became more and more irate. The high price of whisky was one source of complaint--it appeared, according to one of them, that it was all going to France, which caused a shortage for those at home. Then the military situation. . . . Impossible, grotesque. . . .

Somebody ought to be hanged for having allowed such a thing to happen.

After four years to be forced back--inexcusable. What was wanted was somebody with a business brain to run the Army. . . . In the meantime their money was being wasted, squandered, frittered away. . . .

Vane grew rampant in his corner as he listened; his mental language became impossibly lurid. He felt that he would willingly have given a thousand or two to plant them both into that bit of the outpost line, where a month before he had crawled round on his belly at dawn to see his company. Grey-faced and grey-coated with the mud, their eyes had been clear and steady and cheerful, even if their chins were covered with two days' growth. And their pay was round about a shilling a day. . . .

It was just as the train was slowing down to enter Victoria that he felt he could contain himself no longer. The larger and fatter of the two, having concluded an exhaustive harangue on the unprecedented wealth at present being enjoyed by some of the soldiers' wives in the neighbourhood--and unmarried ones, too, mark you!--stood up to get his despatch case.

"It seems a pity, gentlemen, you bother to remain in the country,"

remarked Vane casually. "You must be suffering dreadfully."

Two gentlemen inferred icily that they would like to know what he meant.

"Why not return to your own?" he continued, still more casually.

"Doubtless the Egyptian Expeditionary Force will soon have it swept and garnished for you."

The train stopped; and Vane got out. He was accompanied to the barrier by his two late travelling companions, and from their remarks he gathered that they considered he had insulted them; but it was only when he arrived at the gate that he stopped and spoke. He spoke at some length, and the traffic was unavoidably hung up during the peroration.

"I have listened," said Vane in a clear voice, "to your duologue on the way up, and if I thought there were many like you in the country I'd take to drink. As it is, I am hopeful, as I told you, that Jerusalem will soon be vacant. Good morning. . . ."

And the fact that two soldiers on leave from France standing close by burst into laughter did not clear the air. . . .

"Jimmy," said Vane half an hour later, throwing himself into a chair in his club next to an old pal in the smoking-room, "I've just been a thorough paced bounder; a glorious and wonderful cad. And, Jimmy! I feel so much the better for it."

Jimmy regarded him sleepily from the depths of his chair. Then his eyes wandered to the clock, and he sat up with an effort. "Splendid, dear old top," he remarked. "And since it is now one minute past twelve, let's have a spot to celebrate your lapse from virtue."

With the conclusion of lunch, the approaching ordeal at Balham began to loom large on his horizon. In a vain effort to put off the evil hour, he decided that he would first go round to his rooms in Half Moon Street. He had kept them on during the war, only opening them up during his periods of leave. The keys were in the safe possession of Mrs. Green, who, with her husband, looked after him and the other occupants of the house generally. As always, the worthy old lady was delighted to see him. . . .

"Just cleaned them out two days ago, Mr. Vane, sir," she remarked.

New-fangled Army ranks meant nothing to her: Mr. Vane he had started--Mr. Vane he would remain to the end of the chapter.

"And, Binks, Mrs. Green?" But there was no need for her to answer that question. There was a sudden scurry of feet, and a wire-haired fox-terrier was jumping all over him in ecstasy.

"My son, my son," said Vane, picking the dog up. "Are you glad to see your master again? One lick, you little rascal, as it's a special occasion. And incidentally, mind my arm, young fellow-me-lad."

He put Binks down, and turned with a smile to Mrs. Green. "Has he been good, Mrs. Green?"

"Good as good, sir," she answered. "I'm sure he's a dear little dog.

Just for the first week after you went--the same as the other times--he'd hardly touch a thing. Just lay outside your door and whined and whined his poor little heart out. . . ."

The motherly old woman stooped to pat the dog's head, and Binks licked her fingers once to show that he was grateful for what she'd done.

But--and this was a big but--she was only a stop-gap. Now--and with another scurry of feet, he was once again jumping round the only one who really mattered. A series of short staccato yelps of joy too great to be controlled; a stumpy tail wagging so fast that the eye could scarcely follow it; a dog. . . .

"I believe, Mrs. Green," said Vane quietly, "that quite a number of people in England have lately been considering whether it wouldn't be a good thing to kill off the dogs. . . ."

"Kill off the dogs, sir!" Mrs. Green's tone was full of shrill amazement. "Kill Binks? I'd like to see anyone try." . . . Vane had a momentary vision of his stalwart old landlady armed with a poker and a carving knife, but he did not smile.

"So would I, Mrs. Green. . . . So would I. . . ." And with a short laugh he took the key from her and went upstairs.

The room into which he went first was such as one would have expected to find in the abode of a young bachelor. Into the frame of the mirror over the fireplace a score of ancient invitations were stuck. Some heavy silver photo frames stood on the mantel-piece, while in the corner a bag of golf clubs and two or three pairs of boxing gloves gave an indication of their owner's tastes. The room was spotlessly clean, and with the sun shining cheerfully in at the window it seemed impossible to believe that it had been empty for six months. A few good prints--chiefly sporting--adorned the walls; and the books in the heavy oak revolving bookcase which stood beside one of the big leather chairs were of the type generally described as light. . . .

For a time Vane stood by the mantelpiece thoughtfully staring out of the window; while Binks, delirious with joy, explored each well-remembered corner, and blew heavily down the old accustomed cracks in the floor. Suddenly with a wild scurry, he fled after his princ.i.p.al joy--the one that never tired. He had seen Vane throw it into the corner, and now he trotted sedately towards this wonderful master of his, who had so miraculously returned, with his enemy in his mouth. He lay down at Vane's feet; evidently the game was about to begin.

The enemy was an indiarubber dog which emitted a mournful whistling noise through a hole in its tummy. It was really intended for the use of the very young in their baths--to enable them to squirt a jet of water into the nurse's eye; but it worried Binks badly. The harder he bit, the harder it whistled. It seemed impossible to kill the d.a.m.n thing. . . .