“I can’t whistle,” the soldier interrupted Deb. “But I’ll do all the rest of the stunts. Good-bye, Jenny, my darling; I’ve been a fearful rotter ...” his voice broke in mock pathos. Secretly he was rather glad of this burlesque which covered any necessity for real pathos; because he was so happy, he just could not pretend otherwise.
“I’m—not—in—pain!” gasped Jenny. “See—I’m smiling ... quite a beautiful smile, isn’t it? Perhaps I shall be well ... to-morrow. No, I shan’t!” she screamed. “No to-morrow for me. Soldier ... don’t—don’t go.... Wait till ... I ...”
“Sweetheart, I can’t; you might be ever so long about it, and I really must be off. Good-bye, Jenny; good-bye, Deb”; he lingered a moment still, though it was evident that every nerve in him was chafing at the delay. “You’ve both been so awfully decent to me,” he repeated, sincerely this time. And he kissed first Jenny and then Deb, in boyish, spontaneous gratitude.
So they gained, quite without effort, what they had set out to gain, that evening.
“Good-bye!” the door slammed behind him in sheer exuberance of high spirits. Then repetition of the same business with his bedroom door. Then silence. And the room a black pall now, with just a last faint quaver of light—suddenly quenched.
It was unnecessary, Deb reflected, that he should have shown himself to them in this new splendour of recovered buoyancy.... It was bad enough before.... Her fancy, feverishly active, followed his taxi along the streets, followed him up the steps and past the front door of the house in Campden Hill—into the room where a woman waited——
Fancy was jerked to a standstill here; he would utter her name; what was it?—Cicely?—Irene?—Eleanor? ... Yes, she could hear his voice speaking any of these ... very low and taut ... “Eleanor”....
Then of course he would kiss her. Well....
And for the girl who sat on the edge of the bed, the knowledge of having made—rather an exhibition of herself. It did not help much that he seemed to have forgotten the incident. The main thing was that she remembered it. Would always remember it.