“Until humanity has no value at all...” she whispered. “Ah, Eric... If I could wipe it all out and draw a sponge over your memory so that we met as we met that first evening at Margaret Poynter’s, if I could make you loving, tender—not to me, God knows!—, if I could cure your bitterness of spirit and teach you not to condemn all women because one woman once wrecked your life... Eric, if you could see yourself as I still see you that first night... like a faun, with big startled eyes...” She found her voice rising and stopped abruptly. “I think Lady Pentyre told me it was the ghost of a woman who’d been killed in the Civil War. You’re not afraid of ghosts?”
“Like everything else, they have to be faced boldly.”
There was a moment’s deepening silence, and Lady Pentyre caught the eyes of the women. It was only when he was free from the tension of Barbara’s presence that Eric realized her power. No other woman set his nerves tingling and his blood racing through his veins, and no other woman responded to him as Barbara did. When she flung her crude emotionalism at him, he was still never sure of himself; a very little more would go to his head... He looked round the table, counting the empty chairs and calculating the dinners that he had still to eat; with reasonable luck Lady Pentyre would not put him next to her for another meal.
A hand was laid on his knee, and he found O’Rane trying to speak to him. Pentyre and Gaymer were arguing with irritating heat about some trivial and forgotten aspect of the war, and it was difficult for any one else to make his voice heard.
“Our intrepid airman is becoming the least little bit of a nuisance,” murmured O’Rane. “I thought he was a bit thick when he got into the train at Euston, though he didn’t say much. I shall have to take him in hand; he used to be quite a nice boy.”
Eric’s attention had wandered until he was hardly conscious of his surroundings.
“I... scarcely know him,” he answered.
“You’ll find him worth cultivating... when you’ve overcome your dislike of him,” said O’Rane with a softly malicious laugh.
Gaymer’s voice could be heard growing in assertiveness; and, though Pentyre interrupted from time to time, his resistance gradually weakened until he faint-heartedly cut his opponent short by suggesting to General Maitland and Don Pinto that they should all go into the drawing-room.
“Strategic retreat,” commented Gaymer in thick scorn.