She looked at Tietjens now with a sort of gloating curiosity. How was it possible that the most honourable man she knew should be so overwhelmed by foul and baseless rumours? It made you suspect that honour had, in itself, a quality of the evil eye. . . .
Tietjens, his face pallid, was fingering a piece of toast. He muttered:
"Met . . . Met . . . It's Met . . ." He wiped his brow with a table-napkin, looked at it with a start, threw it on the floor and pulled out a handkerchief. . . . He muttered: "Mett . . . Metter . . ." His face illuminated itself like the face of a child listening at a shell.
Sylvia screamed with a passion of hatred:
"For God's sake say Metternich . . . you're driving me mad!"
When she looked at him again his face had cleared and he was walking quickly to the telephone in the corner of the room. He asked her to excuse him and gave a number at Ealing. He said after a moment:
"Mrs. Wannop? Oh! My wife has just reminded me that Metternich was the evil genius of the Congress of Vienna. . . ." He said: "Yes! Yes!", and listened. After a time he said: "Oh, you could put it stronger than that. You could put it that the Tory determination to ruin Napoleon at all costs was one of those pieces of party imbecility that, etc. . . . Yes; Castlereagh. And of course Wellington. . . . I'm very sorry I must ring off. . . . Yes; to-morrow at 8.30 from Waterloo. . . . No; I shan't be seeing her again. . . . No; she's made a mistake. . . . Yes; give her my love . . . good-bye." He was reversing the earpiece to hang it up, but a high-pitched series of yelps from the instrument forced it back to his ear: "Oh! War babies!" he exclaimed. "I've already sent the statistics off to you! No! there isn't a marked increase of the illegitimacy rate, except in patches. The rate's appallingly high in the lowlands of Scotland; but it always is appallingly high there . . ." He laughed and said good-naturedly: "Oh, you're an old journalist: you won't let fifty quid go for that . . ." He was breaking off. But: "Or," he suddenly exclaimed, "here's another idea for you. The rate's about the same, probably because of this: half the fellows who go out to France are reckless because it's the last chance, as they see it. But the other half are made twice as conscientious. A decent Tommie thinks twice about leaving his girl in trouble just before he's killed. . . . The divorce statistics are up, of course, because people will chance making new starts within the law. . . . Thanks . . . thanks . . ." He hung up the earpiece. . . .
Listening to that conversation had extraordinarily cleared Sylvia's mind. She said, almost sorrowfully:
"I suppose that that's why you don't seduce that girl." And she knew—she had known at once from the suddenly changed inflection of Tietjens' voice when he had said "a decent Tommie thinks twice before leaving his girl in trouble"!—that Tietjens himself had thought twice.
She looked at him now almost incredulously, but with great coolness. Why shouldn't he, she asked herself, give himself a little pleasure with his girl before going to almost certain death. . . . She felt a real, sharp pain at her heart. . . . A poor wretch in such a devil of a hole. . . .