His mind, now concentrated on the question of whether to borrow the two thousand from his own bank or overdraw it from Jameson’s, did not allow of careless merrymaking. So that Patricia, although he fell in readily enough with her suggestion of two stalls at the Palace Vaudeville, found him curiously unaltered. He kissed her, but no more warmly than if he had just returned from a business-trip. She had expected nothing else: nevertheless she felt unreasonably disappointed. Physically, fresh air and exercise had tanned his cheeks, hardened his muscles: mentally, she could detect no change. And as they sat in the theatre, she could not but envy the obvious good spirits, the excited affection of the other couples about them.
He told her about Arthur; talked of “B” Company; answered questions about his new life readily. Nirvana, she heard, went as well as could be expected; Jameson’s sales had been rather disappointing. It was nice of her to offer to drive him back on Sunday in the car; but he thought the journey home, in the dark and without a chauffeur, might be too much for her.
Simpson too, asked by wire to be in the office on Saturday, could not see much difference in our Mr. Jameson. His grip of things did not seem to have suffered. He enquired about customers by name; about Hartopp (geborener Hagenburg) in particular. He mentioned the partnership deed; suggested a tentative renewal—say for two years or the “duration”—on the old terms. The older man, warning him vaguely about taking two thousand pounds out of the business at such a time, met with a curt, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but a fellow must stand by his own.” Mention of Beckmanns evoked another flash of temper.
Bramson, on the other hand, summoned peremptorily to give up the better part of his Saturday afternoon off, found Peter rather overbearing: confided the fact to his cousin Marcus with whom he dined that evening.
Said Marcus, “My boy, you forget that you’re a civilian to him now.”
Whereafter, the two settled down to piquet—with occasional references to the stationary condition of Nirvana trade as compared with the leaping canteen business of “Pullman Virginias.”
“Pretty” Bramson was perfectly straight: but after all “a fellow must stand by his own!”
§ 3
In the crowded Pullman car of the last Sunday night train back to Shoreham, Peter fell in with his Colonel. The diffident, kindly man—usually shy with his subalterns—offered a whisky-and-soda; grew a little talkative.
“I wish I were out in France,” he confided. “I’d rather be a Major out there than a Colonel in England any day. But the powers-that-be won’t hear of it. It looks like a long war, Jameson—a really long war. But of course it might end tomorrow—and then one would never have had one’s chance.”