“Very much indeed,” Susie replied. “She enjoys military society, fortunately, which I never did. Mrs. Trotter envies her, she says, as she doesn’t like Millport herself. Of course a place that is building itself up a great position with its University and its social schemes can’t have much interest for people who are always packing up and following a drum from one dusty parade ground to another.” She paused and, as her audience was busy with cake, went on, “Those dreadful folding beds and bamboo furniture that they all seem to go in for—I suppose because it is so light—depress me too much. I do love a beautiful home of my own, however small.”
“I don’t think you are altogether fair to the army, my dear lady,” said Mrs. Carpenter, a trifle piqued. “I lived, until I married, among my dear people who were always on the move, and I don’t think you would have said that their ideas were limited. Wherever they went they were fêted like princes by all the most interesting people, and I think it gave all of us girls much wider interests and sharpened our wits more than being shut up in the same set who all think each other perfect. Your parents felt it a great change, I expect, when they moved to London. One’s individuality has to fight so much harder there not to go under with the stream.”
“I daresay,” said Susie gently, “but that was some time before I was born. I have always been a Londoner, you know. Of course I missed at first being in the centre of everything, but I have got to enjoy the earnestness and concentration of it all here. Like those wonderful things your friend showed us under the microscope the other day,” she added to Mrs. Vachell. “One could hardly believe they were of so much importance until one saw them moving about.”
Mrs. Manley laughed and exchanged a look with Mrs. Vachell and then Cyril came in and they rose to go. They never felt quite at ease with him. Mrs. Carpenter, feeling bound to assert her familiarity with military interests, stayed a few minutes to question him about his work, hoping incidentally that she might see Evangeline and determine for herself the probable date of her initiation.
A few days later Evangeline was sitting in her father’s study after dinner. Her eyes were red with crying and she sat in a deep armchair opposite him, blowing her nose at intervals.
“Have a cigarette,” said Cyril sympathetically, pushing the box towards her. There had been something like a row at dinner. The Trotters had been invited and David Varens had turned up unexpectedly as he often did now after a late lecture at the University. All had gone well until the dessert, when Mrs. Trotter, with that want of perception that often goes with household efficiency and a bright nature, began telling of a rift in the matrimonial lute of the staff-captain and his wife. “It all comes of her being so keen on the University,” she concluded. “She was bound to get scorched by Mrs. Vachell, sooner or later, when she took up Egypt with that giddy old professor. He knows too much about the Sphinx altogether.” She helped herself to some grapes and winked at Evan Hatton. Evangeline grew nervous as she saw that he was excessively angry. Cyril saw, too, but not realising that the matter was serious he laid himself out for a little fun.
“Now then, Evan,” he said, “we’ll drink to the spotless reputation of the Army versus Thought, coupled with the name of Captain Hatton.” He poured himself out a glass of port and passed the decanter. “Now then, up you get.”
“I have no joke ready, Sir, about the sort of dirt that women choose to throw at each other,” said Evan, and he relapsed into a black silence, fingering his glass.
“Here, I say, Hatton——” began Captain Trotter angrily. Evangeline blushed scarlet and looked at her husband in despair. Mrs. Trotter inspected him with amused disgust and waited for her husband to go on.