"Us----?"
"To do with England."
"But----" he said, frowning. "Why, how absurd! A war with England?
Why ... of course not. Why should you think of it?"
She cleared her throat and answered with another tremulous question.
"Why should you have--that gun-thing--on your aeroplane?"
"Not going to. Not on the P.D.Q.," he said, shaking his head. "Only an experiment, anyhow."
"Why should you have "experiments" with those things?" she faltered.
""_Have to be a rifle_," you said. Why should you talk about "scouting"
and "modern warfare"?"
"I wasn"t!" he said quite hotly.
"Yes, you were. That day we were together. That day in the field when you were talking to me about the Machine."
"Oh, _then_! Weeks ago."
"Yes. Why should there _be_ all that, unless you meant that there"d be a war, with England in it. _Paul!_" she cried, almost accusingly, "you said yourself that it was "_bound to come_!""
"Oh, well! Everybody said _that_," he a.s.sured her lightly. "Can"t help seeing Germany and that Fleet of hers, and her Zeppelins and things, going on build, build, build. They don"t do that for their health, you bet! Sc.r.a.p"s bound to come; yes. Sooner or later."
"Yes, Paul; but _when_?"
"How should I know, my _dear_ child?" retorted the young Airman. "Why didn"t you ask Lord Thingummy, or Conyers at the Club just now?" he laughed. "Good speech of his, wasn"t it?"
"Does _he_ know?" persisted Gwenna, paling. "About the war coming, I mean?"
"More likely to know than I am, those people. Not that they"d give it away if they did. It won"t be to-morrow, anyway. To-morrow; that"s Sunday. _Our_ holiday. Another day we shall have all to ourselves. Tell me what time I"m to call for you at the Club."
Not to be put off, she retorted, timid, persistent, "Tell me when _you_ think it would come. Soon?"
Half laughing, half impatient, he said, "I _don"t_ know. Soon enough for it to be in my time, I hope."
"But--" she said, with a little catch in her voice, "you"re not a soldier?"
He said quietly, "I"m an aviator."
An aviator; yes. That was what she meant. He belonged to the most daring and romantic of professions; the most dangerous, but not _that_ danger.
An inventor, part of his time; the rest of his time an airman at Hendon who made flights above what the man with the megaphone called the "Aer-rio-drome" above the khaki-green ground with the pylons and the border of summer-frocked spectators. _Her_ boy! An aviator.... Would that mean presently a man flying above enemy country, to shoot and be shot at? ("_Fired at by both friend and foe._"). She said quiveringly: "_You_ wouldn"t have to fight?"
He said: "Hope so, I"m sure."
"Oh, Paul!" she cried, aghast, her hands on his arm. "Just when--when I"ve only just _got_ you! To lose you again so soon----! Oh, no----!"
"Oh, I say, darling, don"t be so silly," he said briskly and rea.s.suringly. He patted the little hands. "We"re not going to talk about this sort of thing, d"you hear? There"s nothing to talk _about_.
Actually, there"s nothing. Understand?"
"Yes," she murmured slowly. She thought, "Actually, "there"s nothing to talk about" in what"s between him and me. _But it"s there all the time._"
And then, gradually, that presentiment of War began to fade in the reality of her joy at being with him now, with him still....
They turned up the Hampstead Road, flaring with naphtha-lights above the stalls, noisy with shouts of costers, crowded with the humble shoppers of Sat.u.r.day night.
"Well, and what about to-morrow?" Dampier took up.
"I _was_ going with Leslie to----"
"So you said. With Leslie, indeed! D"you think you"re going to be allowed to go anywhere again, except with _me_?" he muttered as he put his arms about her.
He held her as close as he had done on the scaffolding, that afternoon when he had arranged with himself never to see the Little Thing again; close as he"d done next time he did see her, at the Factory.
"Oh, _you_ don"t know!" he said quite resentfully (while she laughed softly and happily in his hold), "you _don"t_ know how I"ve wanted you with me. I--I haven"t been able to think of anything--You _have_ got a fellow fond of you in a jolly short time, haven"t you? How"ve you done it? M"m? I--Here!" he broke off savagely, "what _is_ this dashed idiot stopping the taxi for?"
"Because I get out here. It"s the Club," Gwenna explained to him gravely, opening the door of the cab for herself. "Good-night."
"What? No, you don"t," protested the boy. "We"re going up the Spaniards Road and down by the Whitestone Pond, and round by Hendon first. I must take you for a drive. It"s not so late. Hang it, I haven"t _seen_ you to speak to----"
She had made a dash out and across the lamp-lighted asphalt, and now she nodded to him from the top step of the house, with her key already clicking in the lock.
"There," she thought.
For even in the tie that binds the most adoring heart there is twisted some little gay strand of retaliation.
Let _him_ feel that after a whole evening of sitting in her pocket he hadn"t seen anything of her. She"d known that sort of feeling long enough. Let _him_ take his turn; let _him_ have just a taste of it!
"Good-night!" she called softly to her lover before she disappeared.
"See you to-morrow!"
CHAPTER III
THE LAST SUNDAY OF PEACE
Never had Gwenna risen so early after having spent so little of a night in sleep!
Into the small hours she had crouched in her kimono on the edge of Leslie"s camp bedstead in the light that came from the street lamp outside the window; and she had talked and talked and talked.
For by "not saying anything about it" she had never meant keeping her happiness from that close chum.
Miss Long, sincerely delighted, had listened and had nodded her wise black head from the pillow. She had thrown in the confidante"s running comments of "There! What did Leslie tell you?... Oh, he would, of course.... Good.... Oh, my dear, _how_ exactly like them all.... No, no; I didn"t mean that. (Of course there"s n.o.body like _him_); I meant "Fancy!" ... Yes and then what did Paul say, Virginia?" At last repet.i.tions had cropped up again and again into the softly chattered recital, with all its girlish italics of: "Oh, but you _don"t_ know what he"s like; oh, Leslie, no, you _can"t_ imagine!"--At last Leslie had sighed, a trifle enviously. And little Gwenna, pattering to the head of the bed, had put her cheek to the other girl"s and had whispered earnestly: "Oh, Leslie, if I only could, d"you know what I"d do? I"d arrange so that he had a twin-brother _exactly_ like him, to fall in love with _you_!"