“Monty Veyze? Of course. I know him.”
“You know him!” cried Helen and Maud in a breath. “What’s he like?”
“Oh, he’s all that Darcy thinks he is,” smiled Gloria. “It’s years since I’ve seen him. To put it Englishwise, he was by way of being horribly smart, then. Just where is he now, Darcy?”
“Near the Siberian frontier,” said Darcy shortly. There was a gleam in Gloria’s eye which she neither understood nor liked.
“In one of the twenty-two sub-wars that signalize the universal peace, I suppose,” laughed the actress. “Or is it twenty-nine.”
“I thought long engagements weren’t the thing in England,” said Maud, musingly. “Particularly in these uncertain times when—when anything might happen.”
“I think that’s pretty horrid of you, Maud,” retorted Darcy with carefully assumed sadness, smothering a private and murderous wish that “anything” would happen to her home-made fiancé.
“I don’t mean it that way. But if I were really engaged to an Englishman on active service, I’d go over and marry him, on his very first leave.”
Casual though Maud’s “really” sounded, it brought red to Darcy’s cheeks and a livelier gleam to Gloria’s eyes. The latter turned to Darcy.
“Why not tell them?”