"What a--what a surprising number of pictures you have, Mr. Dampier,"
said Leslie, mildly. "Hasn"t he, Taffy?"
Gwenna, turning at last from the window, realised dimly that this sophisticated room did seem somehow out of keeping as an eyrie for this eagle. The view outside, yes! But these armchairs? And she wouldn"t have thought that he would have bothered to have things _pretty_, like this----
"And what a lot of books you"ve got," she said. For the wall opposite to the windows was taken up by bookshelves, set under a trophy of swords of out-of-date patterns, and arranged with some thought.
The top shelves held volumes of verse, and of plays, from Beaumont and Fletcher to Galsworthy. The Russian novelists were ranged together; also the French. There was a corner for Sudermann and Schnitzler. A shelf further down came all the English moderns, and below that all the _Yellow Books_, a long blue line of all the _English Reviews_, from the beginning; a stack of _The New Age_, and a lurid pink-covered copy of _Blast_.
But before Gwenna could wonder further over these possessions of this young man, more incongruous possessions were brought in by the Sphinx-faced man-servant; a tea-table of beaten copper, a peasant-embroidered cloth, a tea-service of old Coalport; with a silver spirit-kettle, with an iced cake, with toast, and wafer, bread-and-b.u.t.ter and cress-sandwiches and Parisian _pet.i.ts-fours_ that all seemed, as the young girl put it simply to herself, "So unlike _him_!"
Her chum had already guessed the meaning of it all.
The Dampier boy"s rooms? _His_ library and ornaments? Ah, no. He"d never read one of all those books there. Not he! And these were not the type of "things" he"d buy, even if he"d had the money to throw away, thought Leslie. It was no surprise to that young woman when the legitimate owner of this lavishly appointed _garconniere_ made his sudden appearance in the middle of tea.
The click of a latchkey outside. Two masculine voices in the hall. Then the door was thrown open.
There walked in a foreign-looking young man, with bright dark eyes and a small moustache, followed by Mr. Hugo Swayne, attired in a Victorian mode that, as Leslie put it afterwards, "cried "_Horse, horse!_" where there was no horse." His tall bowler was dove-grey; his black stock allowed a quarter-inch of white collar to appear; below his striking waistcoat dangled a bunch of seals and a fob. This costume Leslie recognised as a revival of the Beggarstaff Touch. Gwenna wondered why this young man seemed always to be in fancy dress. Leslie could have told her that Mr. Swayne"s laziness and vanity had led him to abandon himself on the coast of Bohemia, where he had not been born. His father had been quite a distinguished soldier in Egypt. His father"s son took things more easily at the Grafton Gallery and the Cafe Royal and Artists" Clubs. He neither painted, wrote, nor composed, but his life was set largely among flatterers who did these things--after a fashion.
He came in saying, "Now this is where I live when I"m----"
He broke off with a start at the sight of the party within. The girls turned to him with surprised and smiling greeting.
Paul Dampier, fixing him with those blue eyes, remarked composedly, "Hullo, my dear chap. Have some tea, won"t you? I"ll ring for Johnson to bring in two more cups."
"That will be very nice," said Hugo Swayne, rising to the occasion with all the more grace because he was backed up by a tiny understanding glance from Miss Long. And he introduced his young Frenchman by a name that made Leslie exclaim, "Why! You are that Post-Impressionist painter, aren"t you?"
"Not I, mademoiselle, but my brother," returned Hugo"s French friend, slowly and very politely. His dark face was simple and intelligent as that of a nice child; he sat up as straight in his chair as he talked.
"It is for that Mr. Swayne, who is admirer of my brother"s pictures, is so amiable for to show me London. Me, I am not artiste. I am ingenieur only."
""Only"!" thought Gwenna over her teacup.
Surely any one should be proud of being an engineer, considering that Mr. Dampier had thus begun _his_ career; he who was now in what the romantic girl considered the First of All Professions? Perhaps her att.i.tude towards the Airman as such was noted by the Airman"s cousin.
Hugo, who had dropped a little heavily into the softest chair near Miss Long, turned his Chopinesque profile against a purple cushion to shoot a rather satirical glance at the cleaner-built youth in the worn grey suit.
"Now, how like a man! He doesn"t admire Taffy particularly, but he"s piqued to see her admire another type." Leslie summed this up quickly to herself. "Not really a bad sort; he behaved well about the invasion of these rooms. But he"s like all these well-off young men who potter about antique shops when they ought to be taking exercise--he"s plenty of feminine little ways. Since they call spitefulness "feminine"!"
There was a distinctly spiteful note in the young man"s voice as he made his next remark to his cousin.
This remark surprised even Leslie for a moment.
And to Gwenna"s heart it struck with a sudden, unreasonable shock of consternation.
For Mr. Swayne inquired blandly across the tea-table:
"Well, Paul; how"s your _fiancee_?"
CHAPTER VIII
LAUGHING ODDS
Before he answered, Gwenna had time to think smartingly, "His _fiancee_!
There! I might have _known_ he was engaged. I might have guessed it!
It"s nothing to do with me.... Only ... I believe _that"s_ what"s going to get in the way of my flying with him. She won"t let him. I mean he"ll always be taking her up! And I know who it is, too. It"s sure to be the one called Muriel that I saw go up with him at Hendon with the red hair and the scarf. I sort of guessed when I heard they were going up together that she must be his _fiancee_."
And all the while her eyes were, apparently, on the silver stand of the spirit-kettle, they watched the young Airman"s face (which looked a little sheepish). She listened, tensely, for his reply. Quite shortly Paul Dampier, still munching cake, said, "Who? Oh! Going on as usual, thanks."
"Now I may tell you that _that"s_ merely a pose to conceal devotion,"
laughed his cousin, turning to Gwenna. "Just as if every moment were not grudged that he spends away from HER!"
"Is it?" said the young girl with a smile. There was a bad lump in her throat, but she spoke with her most carefully-fostered "English"
accent. "I--I suppose that"s natural!" she remarked.
Hugo, fondling his Chopin curl again, went on amusing himself with this chosen subject.
"But, as is so often the case with a young man"s fancy," he announced, "n.o.body else sees anything in "her"!"
The stricken Gwenna looked quickly at young Dampier, who was cutting the t.i.tan wedges that men call "slices," of cake. How would _he_ take it that it had been said of his adored one that no one saw anything in her?
He only gave a short laugh, a confident nod of his fair head and said, "They will, though."
"Infatuated youth!" commented Hugo Swayne, resignedly, leaning back.
"And he tries to cover it up by seeming casual. "_Going on as usual_" is said just as a blind. It sounds so much more like a mere wife than a _fiancee_, don"t you think?"
"Ah, but you are cynique, monsieur," protested the young Frenchman, looking mildly shocked. "For you it is not sacred, the love for a wife?"
"Oh, look here! Hadn"t you better explain to them," broke in Paul Dampier boyishly, having finished a large mouthful of his cake, "that you"re rotting? _Fiancee_, indeed. Haven"t got such a thing in the world, of course."
At this Gwenna suddenly felt as if some crushing weight of disappointment had fallen from her. "It"s because I shall be able to go flying with him after all," she thought.
Young Dampier, rising to take her cup, grumbled laughingly, "D"you suppose girls will look at a man nowadays who can"t afford to spend the whole of his time gadding about after "em, Hugo, as you can, or blowing what"s my salary for an entire year on their engagement-rings----"
"My dear fellow, no girl in the world exacts as much of a man"s time and money as that _grande pa.s.sion_ of yours does," retorted Hugo Swayne, not ill-naturedly. And turning to Leslie, he explained: "What I call Paul"s _fiancee_ is that eternal aeroplane he"s supposed to be making."
"Ah!" said Gwenna, and then blushed violently; partly because she hadn"t meant to speak, and partly because this had drawn the blue eyes of the Airman quickly upon herself.
"Yes, that incessant flying-machine of his," enlarged Mr. Swayne, lolling back in his chair and addressing the meeting. "She--I believe it"s correct to call the thing "she"?--is more of a nuisance even than any engaged girl I"ve ever met. She interferes with everything this man does. Ask him to come along to a dance or the Opera or to see some amusing people, and it"s always "Can"t; I"m working on the cylinder or the spiral or the Fourth Dimension" or whatever it is he does think he"s working on. Practically "she" spends all the time he"s away from her ringing him up, or getting him rung up, on the telephone. "She" eats all his spare cash, too----"
"In steel instead of chocolate, I suppose?" smiled Leslie. "And must she be humoured? She seems to have every drawback of a young woman with "a diamond half-hoop." Is she jealous, as well?"
And then, while taking a cigarette from Hugo"s case, the elder girl made, lightly, a suggestion that the listening Gwenna was fated to remember.
"What would happen," asked Leslie dryly, "if a real flesh-and-blood _fiancee_ were to come along as a rival to the one of machinery?"