Others besides Captain Ross (who was never inclined to be fair to him) had noticed this. Olwen herself had noticed it before now. It had been noticed by various girls whom he had taken out; for he was fond of taking out girls. But, unlike the majority of his s.e.x, he preferred _them_ to talk to _him_. He was perfectly happy to punctuate their treble twitter with his appreciative ba.s.s, "Ha!" "Bai Jove!" and "Priceless!" But (except for one other detail to be presently specified), he hardly knew what else to say to a young woman who was out with him. That was why he felt most at ease sitting beside her at a theatre (where, during two enjoyable hours, all the talking necessary was done for him by Mr. Owen Nares, or Mr. Leslie Henson, or somebody like that). Or at a restaurant, preferably at a table near the band; listening to that could always fill up any awkward pause. At dances, again, one could dance. At a little dinner party like tonight"s, for instance, there was a crowd where everybody talked; made everything so much more cheery at once. But it was when these things came to an end, when one had the girl all to oneself to bring home----_That_, he found, was the crab!
Why was it, he wondered, that he found it so difficult to talk to her, except upon one subject?
He remembered delightful evenings, ending in these painful and tedious journeys _a deux_. Tonight, for instance, it was going to be the very d.i.c.kens with this little Miss Howel-Jones. A jolly nice little kid, thought the sailor, a pretty kid! But here they might be held up together in this confounded train for another hour, perhaps, and he couldn"t even see her face, and he was blessed if he knew what more to say to her----Why, he"d said everything as he sat next to her at dinner, he and that funny little Brown chap. He did envy the flow of chaps like that! Chaps who could yarn away upon this, that, and the other subject for three years or the duration of the War. Talk to girls for ever, they could, without repeating themselves!
"I thought it looked a likely sort of evening for a raid," he heard himself say at this point.
"Yes," said the girl opposite to him in the dark.
Of course he"d said everything there was to be said on the subject of air-raids in general and this air-raid in particular on the way to Baker Street. Yet he couldn"t sit here in the dark opposite to her for the whole length of the raid, saying nothing?
Still the guns made distant thunder....
"I do hope you aren"t frightened," he said. "It"s quite all right, you know."
"Oh, I know. I"m not a bit frightened," came from Olwen; truthfully enough.
She was not frightened as she settled herself back against the padding of the carriage. She was only a little sleepy, a little anxious for the kind-hearted Lizzie, who would be waiting up for her in that pretty villa at Wembley Park; she was also excited and elated still after her lovely party.
She was thinking far more of that party than she was of her companion of the raid!
She was also wondering about Captain Ross.
What a _disgusting_ temper the man had been in all that evening!
Positively scowling at her! Was he jealous, really? _Was_ he?
Then she wondered what Captain Ross was doing at that moment.
If there had been no raid----! If it had been he who was seeing her home she might have asked him what she had done that he should scowl at her like that.
Or if only it were Captain Ross who was sitting with her here in this darkened carriage all smelling of engine-dust and cigarette smoke, waiting for the raid to finish....
Hurriedly Olwen put the thought away. It was no use allowing oneself to dwell on thoughts of things that were too good to be true. No, no, not too good. She told herself firmly that she did not wish Captain Ross were in this railway-carriage instead of Mr. Ellerton. Captain Ross would only be disagreeable.
Only----Well! She could imagine some girls feeling glad of a raid in these circ.u.mstances. Some girls to whom it would be as one long, long lovely dance "sat out" in a dark corner with their favourite partner of all. Perhaps there were girls "hung up" in this very train, feeling that it was the evening of their lives.
Whereas all she could feel was apologetic to Mr. Ellerton. He liked her, but she was sure he had never bargained for sitting out with her a dance of this length. Still, what was to be done? Here the train stuck. They couldn"t get out and walk to Wembley!
"Shall we smoke?" suggested Mr. Ellerton. "You"ll have a cigarette, won"t you?"
He fumbled in his pockets and brought out his torch. Its tiny beams made rounds of light in the carriage and upon his face and upon the gold braid and gold rings of his uniform. He found case and matches. He lighted a cigarette for Olwen, who puffed at it with secret distaste (for the moderate smoker is not found among her s.e.x; a woman being either a cigarette fiend or a pa.s.sive objector).
The two red glow-worms winked and wavered in the dark carriage, their reflections shining in the gla.s.s of photographs over the rack. Outside the searchlights pointed, and now and again the sky showed the alien star of a shrapnel-burst.
Then, without warning, crash after crash seemed to rock the train on the rails. Some guns, very near, that had not yet spoken, were barking savagely, and between the barks a shrill "whee-you! whee-you!" hissed past the telegraph wires....
The start that Olwen gave made her drop her cigarette on to the floor of the carriage. She dug her little French heel into the spark. Young Ellerton threw his cigarette down beside it and rose quickly. Snapping up the arm of the seat by Olwen, he sat down close to her.
"You needn"t be frightened," he said, encouragingly.
"I"m not frightened," she a.s.sured him. "Only it makes me jump."
"Brutes, frightening you!" exclaimed young Ellerton. "I say, I do wish I"d thought of bringing some chocolates or something for you."
"I"m not hungry either, thank you," laughed Olwen into the barking of those guns, but young Ellerton"s voice repeated, "I wish I"d got any sweets for you. I"ve only this----"
She felt him move against her arm as he leant nearer to her to get something else out of his pocket: it was a phial of saccharine tablets, carried about since the sugar restrictions.
"Have some of these," he said. "Put out your hand ... here, where are you?" He shook half a dozen tablets out into her palm.
As it happened, Olwen disliked saccharine worse than she disliked Virginian cigarettes, yet she munched the subst.i.tute-sweets to please this young man who, according to his lights, was being nice and kind and protective towards her.
For the severalth time he informed her that she was not to be frightened.... Then, in a new tone, he added, "Dear little girl." Then, more softly still, "For you _are_ a dear little girl, you know. Do you know, you"re just about the sweetest I"ve ever met."
"Oh, pooh!" laughed Olwen, taken by surprise, nevertheless. She rather wished she could see the face of the young man sitting so close beside her. Had she done so, she would have seen it was what is known as "a study." For during the last half-hour or so the young man had become the prey to conflicting emotions indeed. Chief of these, perhaps, was a helpless fascination; the fascination of some one with a weak head who watches himself draw nearer and nearer to the brink of some giddy height.
Harold Ellerton knew he was drifting, as he"d done times and again, towards a fatal habit of his. Times and again, since before he had left Dartmouth, this thing had happened to him. It was as characteristic of him as was his lack of general conversation where women were concerned.
In fact, it"s not impossible that one of these characteristics may have led to the other.
He didn"t know what to say to girls unless he were making love to them, and his sole conception of love-making was to ask them to marry him!
He saw it coming now in the dark accomplice solitude of this railway carriage. He knew that he was going to say a few more tender things to this little Howel-Jones girl, about her eyelashes and how sweet she"d looked at that party and how she ought to have a bridal party of her own, directly--dear little sweetheart she"d make to any fellow!
He said these things.
He knew the other was coming.
It came.
"Look here, d"you think you could care enough to be _mine_?" he heard himself say. "Bai Jove, if you would----! If you"d marry _me_! Would you? Would you?"
There! He"d done it again.
Now came the agonizing moment.
Now again he"d have to wait for the girl"s answer. That always seemed to him to be at least two hours in coming: except once, an anguished once when the girl had said, "Yes" directly. What would this one say; what?
He waited in the dark; and sweat broke out on the young brow under the peaked cap.
In a long, uncertain breath the girl said, "Oh----"
Then, "D"you mean it, Mr. Ellerton?"
"Of _course_!" returned Mr. Ellerton, ardently, but digging his nails into the palms of his hands.
The soft voice beside him said, rather waveringly, "Wait a minute----"
The young man who had just proposed again set his teeth and waited. This was Hades. Serve him right for being such a double-blanked fool again!