The Moonlit Way Part 42

Dulcie laughed.

When they had gone, Barres said:

"You know I haven't thought about the summer. What was your idea about it?"

"My--idea?"

"Yes. You'd want a couple of weeks in the country somewhere, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. I never went away," she replied vaguely.

It occurred to him, now, that for all his pleasant toleration of Soane's little daughter during the two years and more of his residence in Dragon Court, he had never really interested himself in her well-being, never thought to enquire about anything which might really concern her. He had taken it for granted that most people have some change from the stifling, grinding, endless routine of their lives--some respite, some quiet interval for recovery and rest.

And so, returning from his own vacations, it never occurred to him that the shy girl whom he permitted within his precincts, when convenient, never knew any other break in the grey monotony--never left the dusty, soiled, and superheated city from one year's summer to another.

Now, for the first time, he realised it.

"We'll go up there," he said. "My family is accustomed to models I bring there for my summer work. You'll be very comfortable, and you'll feel quite at home. We live very simply at Foreland Farms. Everybody will be kind and n.o.body will bother you, and you can do exactly as you please, because we all do that at Foreland Farms. Will you come when I'm ready to go up?"

She gave him a sweet, confused glance from her grey eyes.

"Do you think your family would mind?"

"Mind?" He smiled. "We never interfere with one another's affairs.

It's not like many families, I fancy. We take it for granted that n.o.body in the family could do anything not entirely right. So we take that for granted and it's a jolly sensible arrangement."

She turned her face on the pillow presently; the ice-bag slid off; she sat up in her bathrobe, stretched her arms, smiled faintly:

"Shall I try again?" she asked.

"Oh, Lord!" he said, "_would_ you? Upon my word, I believe you would!

No more posing to-day! I'm not a murderer. Lie there until you're ready to dress, and then ring for Selinda."

"Don't you want me?"

"Yes, but I want you alive, not dead! Anyway, I've got to talk to Westmore this morning, so you may be as lazy as you like--lounge about, read----" He went over to her, patted her cheek in the smiling, absent-minded way he had with her: "Tell me, ducky, how are you feeling, anyway?"

It confused her dreadfully to blush when he touched her, but she always did; and she turned her face away now, saying that she was quite all right again.

Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he nodded:

"That's fine," he said. "Now, trot along to Selinda, and when you're fixed up you can have the run of the place to yourself."

"Could I have my slippers?" She was very shy even about her bare feet when she was not actually posing.

He found her slippers for her, laid them beside the lounge, and strolled away. Westmore rang a moment later, but when he blew in like a noisy breeze Dulcie had disappeared.

"My little model toppled over," said Barres, taking his visitor's outstretched hand and wincing under the grip. "I shall cut out work while this weather lasts."

Westmore turned toward the Arethusa, laughed at the visible influence of Mans.h.i.+p.

"All the same, Garry," he said, "there's a lot in your running nymph.

It's nice; it's knowing."

"That is pleasant to hear from a sculptor."

"Sculptor? Sometimes I feel like a sculpin--p.r.i.c.kly heat, you know."

He laughed heartily at his own witticism, slapped Barres on the shoulder, lighted a pipe, and flung himself on the couch recently vacated by Dulcie.

"This d.a.m.ned war," he said, "takes the native gaiety out of a man--takes the laughter out of life. Over two years of it now, Garry; and it's as though the sun is slowly growing dimmer every day."

"I know," nodded Barres.

"Sure you feel it. Everybody does. By G.o.d, I have periods of sickness when the ill.u.s.trated London periodicals arrive, and I see those dead men pictured there--such fine, clean fellows--our own kind--half of them just kids!--well, it hurts me to look at them, and, for the sheer pain of it, I'm always inclined to s.h.i.+rk and turn that page quickly.

But I say to myself, 'Jim, they're dead fighting Christ's own battle, and the least you can do is to read their names and ages, and look upon their faces.'... And I do it."

"So do I," nodded Barres, sombrely gazing at the carpet.

After a silence, Westmore said:

"Well, the Boche has taken his medicine and canned Tirpitz--the wild swine that he is. So I don't suppose we'll get mixed up in it."

"The Hun is a great liar," remarked Barres. "There's no telling."

"Are you going to Plattsburg again this year?" enquired Westmore.

"I don't know. Are you?"

"In the autumn, perhaps.... Garry, it's discouraging. Do you realise what a gigantic task we have ahead of us if the Hun ever succeeds in kicking us into this war? And what a gigantic mess we've made of two years' inactivity?"

Barres, pondering, scowled at his own thoughts.

"And now," continued the other, "the Guard is off to the border, and here we are, stripped clean, with the city lousy with Germans and every species of Hun deviltry hatching out fires and explosions and disloyal propaganda from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf!

"A fine mess!--no troops, nothing to arm them with, no modern artillery, no preparations; the Boche growing more insolent, more murderous, but slyer; a row on with Mexico, another brewing with j.a.pan, all Europe and Great Britain regarding us with contempt--I ask you, can you beat it, Garry? Are there any lower depths for us?--any sub-cellars of iniquity into which we can tumble, like the basket of jelly-fish we seem to be!"

"It's a nightmare," said Barres. "Since Liege and the _Lusitania_, it's been a bad dream getting worse. We'll have to wake, you know. If we don't, we're of no more substance than the dream itself:--we _are_ the dream, and we'll end like one."

"I'm going to wait a bit longer," said Westmore restlessly, "and if there's nothing doing, it's me for the other side."

"For me, too, Jim."

"Is it a bargain?"

"Certainly.... I'd rather go under my own flag, of course.... We'll see how this Boche backdown turns out. I don't think it will last. I believe the Huns have been stirring up the Mexicans. It wouldn't surprise me if they were at the bottom of the j.a.panese menace. But what angers me is to think that we have received with innocent hospitality these hundreds of thousands of Huns in America, and that now, all over the land, this vast, acclimated nest of snakes rises hissing at us, menacing us with their filthy fangs!"

"Thank G.o.d our police is still half Irish," growled Westmore, puffing at his pipe. "These dirty swine might try to rush the city if war comes while the Guard is away."