“Hullo, Pentyre! I haven’t seen you to speak to since you were smashed up,” said Eric.
“No, I came to look you up when I was home about a year and a half ago, but they told me you were in America. I caught sight of you in the distance at one of Sonia’s parties... This is a memento of the final Hun push. You know my brother, don’t you? And Gaymer?”
“Oh, yes!” Eric felt his heart quickening its beat. There was an adequate nod, Gaymer rose with adequate alacrity and bowed a second time to Ivy; but there was no glint of resentment over their late candid meeting in Buckingham Gate, no flicker of curiosity at finding Ivy in such company and no embarrassment in meeting her at all. “You know Lord Pentyre, don’t you? Miss Maitland, Mr. Frank Pentyre.”
“Oh, please don’t get up,” Ivy begged, as Pentyre and his brother reached for their crutches.
Eric was pleased to see that she was composed—as much composed as he had been when he found himself confronted with George and Barbara at Covent Garden; he also remembered his own emotions that night and led her away as soon as he could make an opportunity.
“Well done!” whispered Eric, pressing Ivy’s arm.
“Let’s go further in front,” she answered. “I don’t want to travel up with them... Eric! I could have killed him! So cool and collected... He knows how he’s treated me, he knows he’s been a brute and a liar—”
“Steady on, Ivy,” Eric urged, as her voice became tremulous.
“He always frightened me, because nothing seemed to make any impression on him. When he was flying, he was inconceivably brave; people have told me. He’d have been given the V. C. again and again, if any one had known. When he crashed, it would have killed any other man, but, though he’s not allowed to fly any more, it’s made no other difference. He frightens me, because I can’t do anything with him. That night—he let me do all the talking... He’s a brute.”
Eric was disquieted that Gaymer should have seen them together. Most men would be glad to be relieved so promptly of their responsibilities, but under his mask of indifference Gaymer was capable of being piqued at finding himself so quickly supplanted; it was almost an invitation to see whether he could reestablish his ascendancy, a challenge to his idleness and vanity, his taste for mischief and his love of power.