The Disturbing Charm Part 28

"I shan't be able to lunch with you today, Mrs. Newton," Olwen said rather quickly. "My Aunt that I stay with is shopping in town today, so----"

"Say no more," returned Mrs. Newton's voice. "I've got Aunts myself. I mean I had before I was married. By the way, I told Fascinating Fergus that I can hear him telephoning his dinner engagements in the next room.

He said, with that aggressive face of his, that there was nothing prrivatt in those. I said, "Then why drop your voice when you're doing it?" And why does he, I ask you, insist on being a Tower of Silence in here, when he _longs_ to be considered a perfect Devil outside? Keeping his girl friends _well_ round the corner, n.o.body ever having seen _one_!... Sw.a.n.k!"

"Oh, he's not as bad as all that," murmured Olwen.

"He's all right at heart perhaps," came from the other side, "but I _should_ like to take a sc.r.a.per to him!"

And herewith there merged from behind the desk the source of all the voices that had been holding forth, in the person of Mrs. Newton.

Her Nile-green silken sports coat alone had cost more than her month's salary could have paid; her hair was arranged as carefully as though there was no thought but of her own extremely pretty looks beneath the broad velvet band that snooded her, but for all that, she was efficient.

Clever, too, at darting the arrows of a bright mind at chiefs and colleagues alike. She "took in" most things, not in any disguised fashion, but by turning full upon whatever it was she wished to observe a pair of large, pale grey and pretty eyes, amused and pa.s.sionless as those of a sea-maid. Their stare was even emphasized at times by the gesture of a slender forefinger and by the clearly-audible "Ah" of that treble voice.

Olwen enjoyed her thoroughly; her appreciation mingling with a wonder why she did not sometimes bitterly resent Mrs. Newton and her remarks.

Yes, two months of War work on The Honeycomb had taught Olwen already more than the A, B, C, and D of her job. Self-possession, serenity and poise, all newly acquired, were to be noticed now about the young girl as she sorted her letters (very different from the leisured correspondence of her Uncle), and smiled, partly at some thought that she was holding in reserve, and partly at her fellow-worker.

Mrs. Newton began again, "Do you know what I think is the keynote of F.

F.'s character?"

"Fascination, you seem to make out," suggested Olwen, that divided smile deepening upon her lips. She sometimes thought that Mrs. Newton dwelt upon the subject of their chief for her (Olwen's) benefit, and she was prepared for it.

"Ah! But I mean the _real_ keynote. It's _jealousy_," declared the young married woman. "He's a _jealous_ thing. Hates any other man to have a show at all. Must have everybody doing their best work, just for his _beaux yeux_ (not that he's got any, except those teeth). Yes; our Fergus must be IT in this Honeycomb. He must be _The_ Great Captain----"

She stopped abruptly as the door of cell 0369 opened to frame the black head, square shoulders, red tabs, and empty sleeve of the man of whom she'd been speaking; the chief of their section, Captain Fergus Ross himself.

"Mrs. Newton," he said, in the tone of business unalloyed, "have they sent up to you a letter that was taken in error to room 0720? A letter from A G 6, dated the 22nd?"

"It's here, Captain Ross," replied the head of the room in her demurest treble. "Miss Howel-Jones was attending to it.... Here it is."

"Right. Thank you," said Captain Ross.

His bright dark glance took in the letter that Mrs. Newton handed him; it pa.s.sed over the filed stack of other letters; it swept over the two desks, the typing-table, Miss Lennon's back, the calendar, the pinned-up Matania drawing on the wall, the green electric-light shades, the gla.s.s on the mantelpiece holding freesias, the chairs, the waste-paper basket--in short, over every object in the room but one.

For Olwen Howel-Jones, bending absorbed over her work, Captain Ross did not spare a fraction of his glance.

"Mrs. Newton, I am going out to lunch now," he announced. "Should there be any enquiries, I shall be back before two-thirty."

"Very well, Captain Ross."

(Exit Captain Ross.)

Then Mrs. Newton in Major Leefe's voice, "Wha'? Old Ferg' gone t' lunch?

_Bet_ you he's taking out some gir', Miss Howel-Jo'."

Olwen smiled undisturbed as she went to put on her her hat.

Twenty minutes later she was sitting at a table for two in a Soho restaurant, opposite to Captain Ross.

This meeting was not due to any arrangement.

What had happened was that some weeks before, Olwen, having explored all lunch-time haunts within a mile of the Honeycomb, had found this tiny, Continentally-appointed restaurant that she chose to call "The Aunt in Town." This had been on a fishday, and the fish had been deliciously cooked, as Olwen had reported afterwards. Perhaps Captain Ross did not overhear her mentioning the restaurant's real name to Major Leefe.

Anyhow, there is no reason to suppose that it was not by chance that Captain Ross happened upon "The Aunt in Town" upon the very next Friday.

As he saw Miss Howel-Jones sitting at a little table by herself, wasn't it natural that he should join her? He knew the girl, apart from the office, knew her Uncle. Absurd if he hadn't come up. But, as you see, there was a vast difference between his just taking the chair opposite to her, and his having planned to meet her. He did not attempt to pay for the chit's lunch. So that was that.

Certainly the fish-curry was excellent.

Captain Ross had already announced that he was fond of fish for lunch.

Consequently he took to haunting that restaurant on Fridays. Why shun it, merely because Miss Howel-Jones lunched there on that day?

As he would have told you, however, he made a definite rule of never "going out to lunch" with any woman working on The Honeycomb. With other girls, from other Government offices--well, that was another story.

There was, for instance, a fair-haired Miss Somebody (who rang him up, Mrs. Newton had declared, three times a day), but she worked at the inst.i.tution we will call The Rabbit Warren. There was also a pretty little friend of his on The Ant Hill. But from The Honeycomb itself--nope. Work and social relations must be kept strictly apart.

Olwen had been made to realize that from the first time she had set foot in the courtyard under those arches and that clock. She had been first astounded, then hurt, then finally she actually wanted to laugh at the different Captain Ross he now was from the one she had met at Les Pins.

The change had been sudden as the cut of a knife.

Over there on leave he had idled about the pine-woods and the _plage_; he had teased her as if she were no more than a pretty child; once he had given her chocolates; once--ah, that once!--he had held her hand....

Here, idleness was the last thing of which he could be accused. He no longer teased her with laughter and allusions to "_most_ little girls."

He had given her no more chocolates. As for hand-holding, why! She might not have had any hands. To be a fellow-worker with him on The Honeycomb seemed enough to transform any young woman into teak or granite as far as Captain Ross was concerned.

He had his code.

"I guess no girl friend of mine would ask me for a job where I work, twice," he'd told Olwen when they had first met in London at her Uncle's hotel. The Professor's niece, greatly daring, had retorted, "Do you mean she'd get it the first time of asking?"

"She'd get 'it,' sure thing. In the neck," the young Staff-officer had explained grimly. "She'd know better than to ask the second time."

So, exactly as he was not taking her out to lunch, Captain Ross had not secured for her this post on The Honeycomb. He had told Jack Awdas to get it for her, through his friend Major Leefe. A very different thing.

Olwen had "given up" the subtle reasonings of the s.e.x.

Today he was obviously in a bad temper. Why? After he had ordered his own lunch, he turned to her with an edgy politeness.

"I hope you enjoyed the show last night, Miss Howel-Jones."

"Show----?" said Olwen, forgetting for a second that she had been taken to the theatre by Mr. Ellerton, the young R.N.A.S. officer.

"Yes; you were too occupied to notice who else was in the house, I guess. I was in the dress-sairrcle. I looked right down upon you in the stalls."

Now, Olwen was losing her habit of the vivid blush that used to scorch her. She merely coloured up slightly but prettily as she returned, "Oh, were you?" and proceeded to eat her fish and to discuss the play--which had been _Romance_. She had thought it lovely.

Captain Ross informed her definitely that he himself had no use for such sentimental balderdash; and then told her he guessed it made her pretty late, going back all the way to Wembley Park (where her Aunt lived) after the theatre. He hoped that at least young Ellerton took her all the way home.

"Yes, thank you; he did."

"M'm. Last train from Baker Street, I presume. And then you've a long trail from the station to your house. In the drive, isn't it?"