Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

"How very interesting," said the old lady. "Have you been on it for long?"

"No—not long. In fact," said Vane looking fixedly at Joan, "I only got my orders last night. . . ." With the faintest flicker of a smile he watched the tell-tale colour come and go.

Then she turned on him, and her expression was a little baffling. "And have you any special qualification, Captain Vane, for dealing with such an intricate subject?"

"Intricate?" He raised his eyebrows. "I should have thought it was very simple. Just a matter of common sense, and making . . . er . . . these men—well—get their sense of proportion."

"You mean making them get your sense of proportion?"

"In some cases there can be only one," said Vane gravely.

"And that one is your own. These—German prisoners you said, didn't you?—these German prisoners may think it their duty to disagree with your views. Doubtless from patriotic motives. . . ."

"That would be a great pity," said Vane. "It would then be up to me to make them see the error of their ways."

"And if you fail?" asked the girl.

"Somehow I don't think I shall," he answered slowly. "But if I do—the trouble of which I spoke will not diminish. It will increase. . . ."

"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 damn 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 hoarsely. "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-analysis 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 circumstances?"

"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 sex . . . . sex . . . . sex, 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. . . .