"Of course, it"s Browning all right," she explained, "but it"s not Browning if you understand me."
The explanation left that company mystified. Harold Jupp shook his head mournfully at Joan, and tapped his forehead.
"Excessive study, Joan, has turned that little head. The moment I saw you in sandals I said to myself, "Joan couldn"t take the hill.""
Joan wrinkled her nose, and made a grimace at him. What rejoinder she would have made no one was to know. For Mr. Albany Todd finding himself unduly neglected burst into the conversation with a complete irrelevance.
"I am so happy. I shot a stag last autumn."
Both Dennis Brown and Harold Jupp turned to the great conversationalist with real interest.
"How many stone?" asked Dennis.
"I used a rifle," replied Mr. Albany Todd coldly. He did not like to be made fun of; and suddenly a ripple of clear laughter broke deliciously from Joan.
Lady Splay looked agitatedly around for succour. Oh, what a mistake she had made in bringing Mr. Albany Todd into the midst of these ribald young people. And after all--she had to admit it ruefully, he was a bit of a Plater. Dennis Brown, however, hurried to the rescue. He came across the room to Joan, and sat down at her side.
"I haven"t had a word with you, Joan."
"No," she answered.
"And how"s the little book going on? Do tell me! I won"t laugh, upon my word."
Joan herself tried not to. "Oh, pig, pig!" she exclaimed, but she got no further in her anathema for Miranda drew up a stool, and sat in admiration before her.
"Yes, do tell us," she pleaded. "It"s all so wonderful."
Miranda, however, was never to hear. Mr. Albany Todd leaned forward with an upraised forefinger, and a smile of keen discernment.
"You are writing a book, Miss Whitworth," he said, as if he had discovered the truth by his own intuition, and expected her to deny the impeachment. "Ah, but you are! And I see that you _can_ write one."
"Now, how?" asked Harold Jupp.
Mr. Albany Todd waved the question aside. "The moment I entered the hall, and saw Miss Whitworth, I said to myself, "There"s a book there!"
Yes, I said that. I knew it! I know women."
Mr. Albany Todd closed his eyelids, and peeped out through the narrowest possible slits in the cunningest fashion. "Some experience you know. I am the last man to boast of it. A certain almost feminine sensibility--and there you have my secret. I read the character of women in their eyebrows. A woman"s eyebrows. Oh, how loud they speak! I looked at Miss Whitworth"s eyebrows, and I exclaimed, "There is a book there--and I will read it!""
Joan flamed into life. She clasped her hands together.
"Oh, will you?" The question was half wonder, half prayer.
No man could have shown a more charming condescension than did Mr.
Albany Todd at this moment.
"Indeed, I will. I read one book a year--never more. A few sentences in bed in the morning, and a few sentences in bed at night. Yours shall be my book for 1923." He took a little notebook and a pencil from his pocket. "Now what t.i.tle will it have?"
""A Woman"s Heart, and Who Broke It,"" replied Joan, blushing from her temples to her throat.
Miranda repeated the t.i.tle in an ecstasy of admiration, and asked the world at large: "Isn"t it all wonderful?"
""And Who Broke It,"" quoted Mr. Albany Todd as he wrote the t.i.tle down.
He put his pocket-book away.
"The volume I am reading now----"
"Yes?" said Joan eagerly. With what master was she to find herself in company? She was not to know.
"----was given to me exquisitely bound by a very dear friend of mine, now alas! in precarious health!--the Marquis of Bridlington," said Mr.
Albany Todd--an audible groan from Harold Jupp; an imploring glance from Millie Splay, and to her immense relief the butler ushered in Harry Luttrell. He was welcomed by Millie Splay, presented to Sir Chichester, and surrounded by his friends. He was a trifle leaner than of old, and there were lines now where before there had been none. His eyes, too, had the queer, worn and sunken look which was becoming familiar in the eyes of the young men on leave. Joan Whitworth watched him as he entered, carelessly--for perhaps a second. Then her book dropped from her hand upon the carpet--that book which she had so jealously read a few minutes back. Now it lay where it had fallen. She leaned forward, as though above all she wished to hear the sound of his voice. And when she heard it, she drew in a little breath. He was speaking and laughing with Sir Chichester, and the theme was nothing more important than Sir Chichester"s Honorary Membership of the Senga Mess.
"Lucky fellow!" cried Sir Chichester. "No trouble for you to get into the papers, eh! Publicity waits on you like a valet."
"But that"s just the kind of valet I can"t afford in my profession,"
said Harry.
The conversation was all trivial and customary. But Joan Whitworth leaned forward with a light upon her face that had never yet burnt there. Colonel Luttrell was presented to Mr. Albany Todd, who was most kind and condescending. Joan looked suddenly down at her bilious frock, and the horror of her sandals was something she could hardly bear. They would turn to her next. Yes, they would turn to her! She looked desperately towards the great staircase with its broad, shallow steps which ran up round two sides of the hall. Millie Splay was actually beginning to turn to her, when Dennis Brown came unconsciously to her rescue.
"We looked out for you at Gatwick," he said.
"I only just reached the race course in time for the last race," said Harry Luttrell. "Luckily for me."
"Why luckily?" asked Harold Jupp in surprise.
"Because I backed the winner," replied Luttrell.
The indefatigable race-goers gathered about him a little closer; and Joan Whitworth rose noiselessly from her chair.
"Which horse won?" asked Harold Jupp.
"Loman!" Harold Jupp stared at Dennis Brown. Incredulity held them as in bonds.
"But he couldn"t win!" they both cried in a breath.
"He did, you know, and at a long price."
"What on earth made you back him?" asked Dennis Brown.
"Well," Luttrell answered, "he was the only white horse in the race."
Miranda uttered a cry of pleasure. She recognised a brother. "That"s an awfully good reason," she cried. But science fell with a crash. Dennis Brown took his "Form at a Glance" from his pocket, and sadly began to tear the pages across. Harold Jupp looked on at that act of sacrilege.
"It doesn"t matter," he said, and offered his invariable consolation.
"Flat racing"s no use. We"ll go jumping in the winter."
But Harold Jupp was never again to go jumping in the winter. Long before steeple chasing began that year, he was lying out on the flat land beyond the Somme, with a bullet through his heart.
Dennis Brown returned "Form at a Glance" to his pocket; and Millie Splay drew Harry Luttrell away from the group.