The Disturbing Charm Part 29

"Yes, but we didn't go by train at all," the girl explained. "Mr.

Ellerton managed to get a taxi to take us all the way back from town."

"In war-time?" Captain Ross's black-cat-like face was a study in righteous indignation. Then he took a lighter tone, tilting his chin contemptuously. "Well! If Mr. Ellerton's got money to burn that way it's no concairrrrn of mine. Taxis out to Wembley Park with a girl who's employed in the same office as he is. That's Ellerton's lookout. Not the kind of thing I'd care to be seen doing myself. (No, I won't have anything to drink. A ginger-ale, waiter.) Still, if he thinks that's all right in war-time and for folks on War work together, I've nothing to say."

The ghost of a smile hovered about Olwen's red mouth as Captain Ross went on saying this "nothing."

"Sweet as honey to any girl he takes out, no doubt. The regular naval flirt. He held your hand in the theatre, or some foolishness of that sort, I daresay."

"He didn't!" retorted little Olwen, quickly, and then a message seemed to come to her, whispered, perhaps by the generations of girls in love who still survived in her blood. Upon that instinct she added, "He did _not_ hold my hand----in the theatre."

The finest judge of women in Europe rose swiftly enough to this. "Is that so? You mean he only held it in the taxi going home. A much better scheme altogether."

Olwen, still refusing to meet the aggressive brown eyes that challenged her over the jar of mimosa on the table, retorted, "I didn't say so."

"It was so, though. Wasn't it?"

"I shan't tell you," said the girl, whose hand had not been held by anyone since that magic evening in a boat. "Why should I?"

"Don't trouble to tell me. I know."

"Then why d'you ask me?" she returned with a little ripple of laughter.

"Besides, why should you mind?"

"'_Mind?_'" retorted Captain Ross, laughing in his turn, but louder. "If I'd nothing worse than that to 'mind' about, I shouldn't be the busy man I am."

He turned to the menu; and Olwen, going on with her lunch, remembered Mrs. Newton's verdict, "He's a _jealous_ thing!"

She ought to have been wildly delighted....

Curious! She was only flattered; amused.

She felt oddly conscious today, that (to parody a superannuated song), she was _not_ the only girl in the world, and he was not the only boy.

That little restaurant alone was crowded with girl workers, busy as she was, being taken out to lunch by khaki of every grade and age; and, by the way, there was something to be noticed about all these girls and young women from Government offices. Once, a girl worker found it hard to hit the mean between being fluffily unsuitable or unbecomingly severe. Today these girls were approximating to a new type; pretty but _durable_. The London day that began in the office and ended in restaurant and theatre with an "on-leaver" without the possibility of going home to change, had done way with fripperies, but had brought decorativeness into the worker's kit. _That_ was why skirts were short, coats impertinently neat, and hair done so that it stayed done.

"Sensible" shoes, too, were now made in pretty styles; and since taxis were problematical on wet days, rain-coats and rain-hats were at last becoming things. This mixture of utility and attractiveness was a gift of war-time to British girlhood.

Olwen gained by it. She also gained by the consciousness that there was male companionship in the world besides that of Captain Ross. Further, she knew him so much better, now! Possibly, she was not left uninfluenced by the daily sallies of Mrs. Newton at the young officer's expense (for who knows the power of the comment that shows friend or lover from another's point of view?). No longer was she lacerated by the thoughts of those other girl friends "kept well around the corner."

Altogether Olwen realized that it was a good thing she no longer imagined herself desperately in love with Captain Ross, since he, though interested in all girls, was not "seriously" attracted by her.

(Otherwise, she concluded, he would have said so by this time.) She was cured; she no longer wore a Charm to win him....

That Charm! One night at Wembley Park the ribbon that held it had come unsewn. She hadn't had time to st.i.tch it. It hung over her mirror. One day, perhaps, she would attend to it; but she was always busy now. It didn't seem to matter....

Captain Ross rose to go. Olwen could picture the expression with which he'd presently look into cell 0369 to "see" if the workers had all returned.

She was generally just five minutes behind him.

Today he paused, and said abruptly, "Speaking of theatres--there's a concert or show of some sort on at the Phoenix Hut, that American place, next Monday. Awdas rang me up about it. He'd be very pleased if you'd go."

Mischief danced in Olwen's averted glance. "How jolly! But how funny of Mr. Awdas not to ask me himself! What time is this concert, Captain Ross?"

In a wooden voice Captain Ross said, "It starts at eight. If you'd dinner, say, at seven o'clock here, I could take you along afterwards."

"_You_ could? But you never take girls out from The Honeycomb."

"That's so," agreed Captain Ross, with firmness. "But this is Awdas's show. You'll be with him. So shall I. Good-bye."

He put on his red-banded hat, thrust his stick and gloves for a moment into the cross of his belt as he saluted woodenly, and turned.

Olwen burst into a merry laugh. "Captain Ross!"

He turned again.

"It's all right; I was going to that concert anyhow," she told him.

"I'm going with the girl who sings; you know Miss van Huysen!"

Miss Golden van Huysen was now one of Olwen's best friends.

CHAPTER II

THE LAST ALLIES

"They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they have found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt."

Kipling.

The War-missioner on the platform paused for a moment to look at his watch.

Then he resumed, in the rich deep voice that spoke English not as the English speak it, the voice that had done so much to bring the help of his great country into the War.

"But you'd rather be hearing Miss van Huysen sing; and if you wouldn't, I would. So I'll just say this one thing to you men and women at the Phoenix Hut tonight. I want you to look at this flag." He pointed to the right-hand one of the two flags that backed him where he stood; the Stars and Stripes.

"And now--I want to think of another flag. Our stars only stand for stars that are older still."

The orator's fine grey head was lifted as if he could see those stars above the many-pointed roof of the hut; stars of the night sky.

"Those stars don't change. They're rising all the while, right round the world. They were there, those stars, before you or I were heard of. They will be there when we are gone. I see them as the stars of Love and Home. And I'll tell you, friends, what I see in those stripes, too. I see the whole world turning round to Daybreak, and those stripes are the rays of the Dawn."

Measured as the roll of distant drums, as soft, as stirring, the War-missionary's voice sounded through a silence which could be felt.

"The Dawn seems a long time in coming, but that it is coming is sure; sure as our men are on the ocean now! That's all I have to say. It wouldn't be any truer if I said it twenty times, and it wouldn't be any less true if I never said it at all.... So now--Mr. Reynolds?"

The orator smiled to the dark, clean-shaven official with the high khaki collar and stepped quickly down off the platform. Just as he did so he looked back at the Stars and Stripes. "Not 'Old Glory' now," he added as if the thought had just come to him. "'New Glory,' joined with the Old,"

and his smile was for the Union Jack.