第15章 CHAPTER VII(1)

"I wonder why you don't like Captain Granet?" Geraldine asked her fiance, as they stood in the drawing-room waiting for dinner.

"Not like him?" Thomson repeated. "Have I really given you that impression, Geraldine?"The girl nodded.

"Perhaps I ought not to say that, though," she confessed. "You are never particularly enthusiastic about people, are you?"One of his rare smiles transfigured his face. He leaned a little towards her.

"Not about many people, Geraldine," he whispered.

She made a charming little grimace but a moment afterwards she was serious again.

"But really," she continued, "to me Captain Granet seems just the type of young Englishman who is going to save the country. He is a keen soldier, clever, modest, and a wonderful sportsman. I can't think what there is about him fro any one to dislike."Major Thomson glanced across the room. In a way, he and the man whom he felt instinctively was in some sense of the word his rival, even though an undeclared one, were of exactly opposite types. Granet was the centre of a little group of people who all seemed to be hanging upon his conversation. He was full of high spirits and humour, debonair, with all the obvious claims to popularity. Thomson, on the other hand, although good-looking, even distinguished in his way, was almost too slim and pale. His face was more the face of a scholar than of one interested in or anxious to shine in the social side of life. His manners and his speech were alike reserved, his air of breeding was apparent, but he had not the natural ease or charm which was making Granet, even in those few minutes, persona grata with Geraldine's mother and a little circle of newly-arrived guests.

"At least I appreciate your point of view," Major Thomson admitted, with a faint sigh.

"Don't be such a dear old stick," Geraldine laughed. "I want you to like him because I find him so interesting. You see, as he gets to know one a little better he doesn't seem to mind talking about the war. You others will scarcely say a word of what you have seen or of what is being done out there.

I like to be told things by people who have actually seen them. He happened to be ten minutes early this evening and he gave me a most fascinating description of some skirmishing near La Bassee.""You must remember," Thomson told her, "that personally I do not, in an ordinary way, see a great deal of fighting until the whole show is over. It may be a fine enough panorama when an attack is actually taking place, but there is nothing very inspiring in the modern battlefield when the living have passed away from it."Geraldine shivered for a moment.

"Really, I almost wish that you were a soldier, too," she declared. "Your work seems to me so horribly gruesome. Come along, you know you are going to take me to dinner. Think of something nice to say. I really want to be amused.""I will make a suggestion, then," he remarked as they took their places. "Idon't know whether you will find it amusing, though. Why shouldn't we do like so many of our friends, and get married?"She stared at him for a moment. Then she laughed heartily.

"Hugh," she exclaimed, "I can see through you! You've suddenly realised that this is your chance to escape a ceremony and a reception, and all that sort of thing. I call it a most cowardly suggestion.""It rather appeals to me," he persisted. "It may be," he added, dropping his voice a little, "because you are looking particularly charming this evening, or it may be--"She looked at him curiously.

"Go on, please," she murmured.

"Or it may be," he repeated, "a man's desire to be absolutely sure of the thing he wants more than anything else in the world."There was a moment's silence. As though by some curious instinct which they both shared, they glanced across the table to where Granet had become the centre of a little babble of animated conversation. Geraldine averted her eyes almost at once, and looked down at her plate. There was a shade of uneasiness in her manner.

"You sounds very serious, Hugh," she observed.

"That is rather a failing of mine, isn't it?" he replied. "At any rate, I am very much in earnest."There was another brief silence, during which Geraldine was addressed by her neighbour on the other side. Thomson, who was watching her closely, fancied that she accepted almost eagerly the opportunity of diversion. It was not until dinner was almost over that she abandoned a conversion into which she had thrown herself with spirit.

"My little suggestion," Thomson reminded her, "remains unanswered."She looked down at her plate.

"I don't think you are really in earnest," she said.

"Am I usually a farceur?" he replied. "I think that my tendencies are rather the other way. I really mean it, Gerald. Shall we talk about it later on this evening?""If you like," she agreed simply, "but somehow I believe that I would rather wait. Look at mother's eye, roving around the table. Give me my gloves, please, Hugh. Don't be long."Thomson moved his chair next to his host's Geraldine's father, Admiral Sir Seymour Conyers, was a very garrulous old gentleman with fixed ideas about everything, a little deaf and exceedingly fond of conversation. He proceeded to give his prospective son-in-law a detailed lecture concerning the mismanagement of the field hospitals at the front, and having disposed of that subject, he opened a broadside attack upon the Admiralty. The rest of the men showed indications of breaking into little groups. Ralph Conyers and Granet were sitting side by side, engrossed in conversation. More than once Thomson glanced towards them.

"Wish I understood more about naval affairs," Granet sighed. "I'm a perfect ass at any one's job but my own. I can't see how you can deal with submarines at all. The beggars can stay under the water as long as they like, they just pop up and show their heads, and if they don't like the look of anything near, down they go again. I don't see how you can get at them, any way."The young sailor smiled in a somewhat superior manner.