“I had no idea, either, that you were a friend of the family, Esdaile,” he said. He also had dropped the “Jimmy.”
Sylvia answered for me.
“Not exactly a close friend,” she said sweetly. “Are you, Mr. Esdaile? We had almost forgotten each other’s existence.”
I could have smacked her.
Toby looked immensely relieved. I could see that, for the moment at least, he definitely put certain doubts out of his mind. He seemed to be trying to make up for his spasm of hostility when next he spoke.
“He’s an old pal of mine, anyway, aren’t you, Jimmy? It’s like old times to see you again. D’you remember that little scrap with a dozen Huns over Charleroi? That was a good finish-up—the day before the Armistice.”
I remembered well enough—remembered that after that last fight, at the very end of the war, I had landed by a miracle with my nerve suddenly gone. I had never been in the air since—for a long time could not look at an airplane without a fit of trembling.
Sylvia glanced at me in surprise. The secret humiliation of that finish had made me pretty close about my war-doings.
“Oh, you two knew each other in the war, then?” she said.
“I should rather think we did!” replied Toby. “Jimmy was my squadron-leader—and he’s some scientist in the air, let me tell you.” His tone of admiration smote me like a bitter irony. “Don’t forget you’re coming to look over that bus of mine tomorrow morning, Jimmy.”