The Parts Men Play Part 32

'Don't chaff me, Elise. I can't stand it. I'm frightfully upset--really.'

'What has Marian been doing to you?''

'Nothing, except making a blithering a.s.s of me. You know, I was fearfully keen on her, and I've pa.s.sed up all sorts of fluff so as to do the decent; but when that brute Heckles-Jennings advised me to-night to be sure and sit out a dance with Marian because she was such hot stuff, he said . . . Of course, he's an outsider and all that, and I told him to go to h.e.l.l--but you don't blame me for feeling cut up, do you, Elise?'

'Didn't you know she was that kind?'

'What kind?'

'Oh--the--the universal kisser--the complete osculator--the'----

'I say'----

'But surely you don't think you are the only one she has made a fool of?

To begin with, there's her husband in France--a brother-officer, Horace.'

Maynard wriggled uneasily, sliding down the chair in the movement until his knees were very near his chin.

'He's a rotter, Elise.'

'Do you know him?'

'N-no. But Marian says he absolutely neglects her. He's one of those cold-blooded fish--doesn't understand her a bit. After all'--the extra vehemence shifted him another few inches, so that he presented an extraordinary figure, like the hump of a dromedary--'women must have sympathy. They need it. They'----

'Oh, Horace!' Elise burst into a laugh. 'Are there really some of you left? How refreshing! Why don't you put it on your card: "2nd Lt.

Horace Maynard, Grenadier Guards, soul-mate by appointment"?'

'I wish you wouldn't laugh like that.'

He was a picture of such utter dejection that, checking her mirth, Elise laid her hand on his arm. 'Sorry, Horace. You know, if it hadn't been for this war we might never have known how _nice_ our men are. I only wonder how it is that the women have the heart to make such fools of you.'

The unhappy warrior pulled himself up to a fairly upright posture and tapped his cigarette against the palm of his hand. 'I'm glad,' he said with a slight blush, 'that you don't quite put me down as a rotter. I don't know what's come over us all. Before the war, when you met a chap's wife--well, hang it all!--she was his wife, and that was all there was about it. But nowadays'----

'I know, Horace, it's a miserable business altogether--partly war hysteria, and partly the fact that women can't stand independence, I suppose. Marian's a splendid type of the female war-shirker. You know she's married; yet, because she lets you maul her'----

'I say, Elise!'

'----and she murmurs pathetically that her husband in France neglects her--at least, that's what she tells you. When she was dressing to-night Marian said that she and her husband absolutely trusted each other.'

'By Jove! You don't mean that?'

'She also said that all men, including you, were a scream. Probably she considers you a perfect shriek.'

Trembling with indignation, Maynard suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon and relapsed dejectedly into his rec.u.mbent att.i.tude. 'What an a.s.s I have been!' he lamented sorrowfully. 'What a sublime a.s.s! And Marian--the little devil!'

'Rubbish!'

'Eh? I suppose you think I am an idiot for---- Well, perhaps you're right.'

For a couple of minutes nothing was said, and the melancholy lover, with his chin resting on his chest, ruminated over his unhappy affair.

'Hang it all!' he said at last, hesitatingly, 'when a chap gets leave from the front he's--he's sort of woman-hungry. You don't know what it feels like, after getting away from all that mud and corruption, to hear a girl's voice--one of our own. It goes to the head like bubbly. It's a--a dream come true. There's just the two things in your life--eight or nine months in the trenches; then a fortnight with the company of women again. It's awfully soppy to talk like this'----

'No, it isn't, Horace. It's the biggest compliment ever paid our women.

I only wish we could try to be what you boys picture us. That's what makes me feel like drowning Marian every few days. Horace, I'm proud of you.'

She patted his hand which was grasping the arm of the chair, and he blushed a hearty red.

'Elise!' He sat bolt-upright. 'By gad! I never knew it until this minute. _You_ are the woman I ought to marry. You are far too good and clever and all that; but, by Jove! I could do something in the world if I had you to work for. Don't stop me, Elise. I am serious. I should have known all along'----

'Horace, Horace!' Hardly knowing whether to laugh or to cry, Elise put her hand over his mouth and checked the amorous torrent. 'You're a perfect dear,' she said, 'and I'm ever so grateful'----

'But'----

'But you mustn't be silly. This is only the reaction from Marian.'

'It's nothing of the sort,' he blurted, putting aside her hand. 'I--I really do--I love you. You're different from any other girl I ever met.'

'My dear, you mustn't say such things. You know you don't love me as you will the right girl when you meet her.'

He got out of the chair by getting over its arm. 'I beg your pardon, Elise,' he said, not without a certain shy dignity. 'I meant every word I said--but I suppose there's some one else.'

'Only a dream-man, Horace.'

'What about that American?'

'What--American?' Her agitation was something she could hardly have explained.

'That author-fellow at Roselawn. He was frightfully keen on you. I remember half-a-dozen times when he would be talking to us, and if you came in he'd go as mum as an oyster, and just follow you with his eyes.

Is _he_ the chap, Elise?'

'Good gracious!'--she forced a laugh-- 'why, I don't even know where he is.'

'Don't you? He's in London; I can tell you that much. Last month in France I ran across that Doosenberry-Jewdrop fellow---you know--the futurist artist.'

'Do you mean Johnston Smyth?'

'That's the chap.'

'I didn't know he was in France.'

'Rather. I thought your brother would have told you.'

'_My brother?_' There was not a vestige of colour in her cheeks. 'What do you mean?'

Maynard scratched the back of his head. 'Smyth told me,' he said, wondering at the cause of her agitation, 'that d.i.c.k and he enlisted together some months ago. By Jove! I remember now. He told me that this American fellow put them up at his rooms in St. James's Square one night. Smyth didn't know who d.i.c.k was until they got to France. He was travelling under the name of Sherlock, or Shylock, or Sherwood'----

'I--I thought d.i.c.k was in China.' She wrung her hands nervously. 'You didn't see him?'