"Why, yes," she said, "I think I would. . . . I think I would."
CHAPTER XI
During the days that followed his afternoon on the lake at Blandford Vane found himself thinking a good deal more of Joan than augured well for his peace of mind. He had been over to call, and had discovered that she had gone North very suddenly, and it was not certain when she would return. And so he escaped from Aunt Jane as soon as he politely could, and strolled back through the woods, conscious of a sense of acute disappointment.
He went to his customary hiding place by the little waterfall, and, lighting his pipe sat down on the grass.
"My son," he murmured to himself, "you'd better take a pull. Miss Joan Devereux is marrying a millionaire to save the family. You are marrying Margaret Trent—and it were better not to forget those two simple facts. . . ."
He pulled Margaret's letter out of his pocket, and started to read it through again. But after a moment it dropped unheeded on the ground beside him, and he sat motionless, staring at the pool. He did not see the green of the undergrowth; he did not hear a thrush pouring out its little soul from a bush close by. He saw a huddled, shapeless thing sagging into a still smoking crater; he heard the drone of engines dying faintly in the distance and a voice whispering, "The devils . . . the vile devils."
And then another picture took its place—the picture of a girl in grey, lying back on a mass of cushions, with a faint mocking light in her eyes, and a smile which hovered now and then round her lips. . . .
A very wise old frog regarded him for a moment and then croaked derisively. "Go to the devil," said Vane. "Compared with Margaret, what has the other one done in this war that is worth doing?"
"You must be even more damn foolish than most humans," it remarked, "if you try to make yourself think that the way of a man with a maid depends on the doing of things that are worth while." The speaker plopped joyfully into the pool, and Vane savagely beheaded a flower with his stick.
"C-r-rick, C-r-rick," went the old frog, who had come up for a breather, and Vane threw a stone at it. Try as he would he could not check a thought which rioted through his brain, and made his heart pound like a mad thing. Supposing—just supposing. . . .