CHAPTER XXX

COLONEL FIELDING DISCUSSES "THE MYSTERY-GIRL"

"I would rather scrub floors for a man than dust a table for a woman."--EXTRACT FROM PRIVATE CONVERSATION.

"But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet, If we prayed you, paid you, brayed you In a mortar, for you could not, Sweet!" --BROWNING.

This was something I wouldn't have allowed to happen, could I have prevented it!

For Dick Holiday, of all people, to come upon me when I was having my hand kissed by Harry Markham, of all other people in the world!

Of course you see what Captain Holiday thought he had interrupted?

A love-scene!

He'd heard from me about the man who sailed for Salonika just before I left London, and that I'd joined up for the Land Army on that account. He'd tumbled to it that Harry, returned from Salonika, was "the" man. Now he saw, with his own eyes, this young staff-officer pressing his lips to the hand which I had put affectionately upon his red-tabbed shoulder.

Naturally Captain Holiday thought this meant the Happy Ending to whatever misunderstanding I and the other young man had had. In his mind I suppose he was certain that he would soon have to congratulate us!

Of course he never betrayed by one twitch of his face what he thought of what I know he must have seen.

He merely said quietly: "Ah, here you are. The others are going, Miss Matthews."

"Oh, are they? Yes, it must be getting late. Thank you so much for coming to tell me," I said hurriedly. The two young men followed me out of the garden as I made my hasty way up to the house, fuming!

What could be more annoying, I ask you, than to be so "caught out"? Especially when one couldn't possibly explain the meaning of the little incident?

I could not turn round and say to the young man behind me on the path "Captain Holiday, I hope you won't misunderstand what you saw just now. Captain Markham was kissing my hand, and perhaps it did look as if it were an illustration to a magazine love-story! But it wasn't that sort of kiss! It wasn't that sort of thing at all! He and I have never been less in love with one another. Both of us happen to be hopelessly in love with somebody else! For the first time in our lives we were feeling genuinely fond of each other in a friendly way because we were sorry for one another's love tragedies. Nothing could have been more entirely platonic!"

No. I couldn't tell him this, true as it was. For one thing, even the best and simplest and truest explanations have a way of sounding "thin." Hence the golden rule "NEVER EXPLAIN." Following it, I reached the house with my two cavaliers and found that the whole party were gathered outside the porch waiting for us.

Our host was at the head of the horse in the dog-cart, where Muriel had already perched herself, and everybody was chattering over the great bunches of roses and sweetpeas given them by our hostess ... it was then that I realized that Sybil's new employers must be almost as hard up as we were ourselves. For how seldom it is that the gardens of the rich spare a single petal for the flowerless guest! But here the daughter of the house had stripped even her own window-boxes of black pansies to make into a posy for me. Muriel, sitting up in the cart, called, smiling, "Are you coming, Harry? I really must get back to poor dear Mother now. But if you want to walk," with a coquettish glance, "my cousin will drive me----"

I saw Dick Holiday's quick step forward on the gravel. He was only too anxious, I could see, to respond to this invitation. But already Harry was before him, poor Harry! his face lighting up because his lady who refused him always could still be got to throw him a smile.... It was an irony of the Fate that had made so many girls ready to hang on the smiles of a man like Harry Markham. He sprang up, took the reins.

She was driven away, her flower-face smiling over her other flowers, her little hand waving gaily; Disturber of the Peace that she was!

The walking-party--amidst a buzz of kindly farewells and "_come agains_" and a last call from the mistress of the house of "_you won't forget that I should love a Land-girl's wedding from here?_"--set off down the road back to our Camp.

I had been dreading the thought of a walk _à deux_ with Captain Holiday; since Elizabeth would naturally stroll homewards at a snail's pace with her adored "Falconer" off a chocolate-box lid.

To my astonishment I found that I was to have this privilege! I found that somehow it was arranged that Captain Holiday was walking with Elizabeth, briskly, in front.

He didn't want to speak to me, then? I was left to follow with my chum's _fiancé_.

Colonel Fielding was remarkably nice and friendly to me for the whole of that walk. I seemed to have reached a stage when men became unsentimental and excellent friends with me. Was it, I wondered gloomily, because none of them ever fell in love with me any more? And as I chatted to Colonel Fielding of the "delightfulness" of the afternoon we'd just spent, I thought with a rueful little sigh of one young man who had been (presumably) a little sentimental about me.

Mr. Richard Wynn, who'd written to ask me to marry him! because he had liked the child I had been, seven years ago. What must he have thought of me for never even answering his letter...!

I didn't often remember that shadowy suitor. I forgot him again as I said to Colonel Fielding, walking beside me, "How sweetly pretty Miss Elvey was looking!"

He looked mischievous and said: "Are you still afraid she'll make me faithless to Elizabeth?"

"My good young man, I don't think she'll try."

"Oh, no! She'd never want to," he agreed serenely. "It never was me the young lady was anxious to marry. I know who it is all right."

I looked at him eagerly. At last I was going to get a little light on the subject! At last I was going to hear another opinion about whether Muriel meant in the long run to say "Yes" or "No" to Captain Holiday.

I nodded towards his distant back as it turned a corner of the lane in front of us. I suggested to his friend "You mean----?"

"Er----of course."

My heart felt absurdly heavy at the announcement. Had I still hoped that it could be otherwise? Silly of me!

I asked, succeeding in not sounding wistful: "Do you think, then, that she is in love with him after all, Colonel Fielding?"

Elizabeth's young Colonel stopped on the road where we walked. He turned to me as if he hadn't caught what I'd said. He frowned a little, and yet he was smiling under that absurdly soft golden feather of a moustache. He repeated: "In love? Miss Elvey? Of course not. Miss Elvey isn't the kind of girl who would ever be in love with anybody whomsoever."

I stopped too. We faced each other on that road at a dead standstill, as people do when their talk becomes more interesting to each other than their walk. I was more than eager to know exactly what this young man thought of the girl who had stolen my admirer, and who was probably going to marry the other man whom I myself admired. The girl whom all men loved and of whom all women were jealous. What was Colonel Fielding's view of her?

"You told me, the day you got engaged, that when you had time you would tell me all about Muriel's 'kind,'" I reminded him. "Tell me now."

"Oh ... er ... I don't know that there's so much to tell," he said, looking at me. "She's just one of the mystery-girls who seem to have everything a girl should have; looks, go, charm, laughter. But ... er ... Well! She hasn't got love. That power's just been left out of her composition, Miss Matthews. She's cold; she's null. She's--she's just the opposite to your little friend," his voice grew tender, "and mine."

"Elizabeth? But--except for you--Elizabeth doesn't like men. Muriel doesn't like anything better!"

He shook his head, the only man's head I'd met that seemed full of "feminine" intuitions.

"Muriel doesn't like men," he told me. "She likes what men can give her. Attention. A good time. Admiration _ad lib_. The cachet of being seen about, queening it over them. The sense of power; the atmosphere of ... er ... incense. That's what Muriel asks of men. Nothing else."

Puzzled, I said: "I don't understand."

"You would not."

"I've always thought Muriel a finished flirt, yet you say she's cold----"

"Flirts are," declared Elizabeth's lover. "Er ... I've heard that the true drunkard dislikes the actual taste of spirits. Well! The true flirt hates the actual idea of ... er ... Love."

He blushed as if with unconquerable shyness, but went on: "Do you know how the Muriel-type looks upon a kiss? As something to be got out of ... er ... or got over."

"I wonder," said I.

"I know," said he. "Plenty of them, the Mystery-girls."

"Why 'Mystery,' Colonel Fielding?"

"Because it is a mystery why they're made like that. Avid for what they call 'a good time'--they who can't _taste_ the real good times!"

"You mean the times like--like that tea we had in the hayfield; that lunch of your mother's with her old love."

--"And so forth. Yes ... Ah, how they surround themselves with every outward sign of 'a good time,' how they swallow them up into that _gap_ that can never be filled in their hearts. I remember one Mystery-girl--but I'm talking too much."

"No, no! Tell me about her."

"Well," said my new friend, "she was one of them, but not like Muriel; a nicer-natured girl altogether, married, and a topping little mother. She said to me once with all her soul in her pretty eyes, 'D'you know, the two wishes of my heart, Colonel Fielding? One is a pearl string down to _here_. The other is about ten silver-fox skins made into a stole.' I looked at her (she was a picture). I said, 'What rum things to choose for hearts-wishes!' She said, 'Beautiful things?' I said, 'Well, easy to get, anyhow.' She said, 'Very expensive!' I said, 'Not they! _They_ only cost ... money.' We both meant what we said. She was sweeter than Miss Muriel, too. Some of them aren't even as sweet. But all of them remind me of those--er--gaily-coloured flowers--without scent. If I like them, I'm sorry for them. If I don't like them, I'm sorry for the Race. Give me the palest musk-rose..."

From his face he was thinking again of his Carissima.... She meant all sweetness to him.

I said: "But men swarm round those others!"

"Yes; didn't I tell you the other day how weak the average man is on Love? He's all for the lovely ... er ... shell of the Mystery-girl. He adores to be tantalized and baffled by it ... because he doesn't know what that means, until he's ... er ... married and tied to it for life."

"And then?" I asked.

"Then he thinks Love must have been overrated by ... er ... these fiction-writers. Or he imagines that he's quite happy, because no one seems to think he isn't. Or the Muriel 'pretends' to love him and he doesn't know the difference, because he '_never, even in dreams, has seen the things that are more excellent._' Er ... I do talk too much, Miss Matthews; I bore you."

"Indeed you do not," I said. "All the week I have heard nothing discussed but the feeding of the two baby-calves, and the butter-market. Even the most enthusiastic farm-worker likes to go back to the problems of other lives sometimes."

"Still, you look as if I'd ... er ... depressed you."

"Oh, no," I protested. But he had depressed me. If his theories about Muriel were true, she would never make Captain Holiday happy! Wasn't this enough to sadden me?

In his quick, unmasculine way Colonel Fielding seemed to read my thoughts.

He said: "She--Miss Muriel--has an eye to the main chance. She simply must have the things that people who've got ... er ... love can afford to do without. She covets that lovely old country-house that's been turned into a hospital. It'll be turned back some day. I really think she'd like to see herself mistress of it. Up to now I expect she's hit everything she's aimed for. But..."

He paused and smiled, a curious, encouraging smile, at me.

He went on: "I don't think----"

He paused again before he uttered the very last words that I expected to hear coming out of his mouth.

"I don't think she's going to get our friend ... er ... Richard Wynn."

"What?" I said, sharply. "Colonel Fielding, what made you say that?"

He opened his eyes at me. "Say what?"

"You said 'Richard Wynn.' What has he got to do with it?" I asked, stupefied. "Do you know him? Because I do, and I----"

"Know him?" The young man looked at me as if I'd gone mad. "Know Wynn? Holiday?"

I gasped. "You said 'Richard Wynn,'" I repeated. "Did you mean to say Captain Holiday?"

Elizabeth's _fiancé_ was still gazing upon me in bewilderment. Then he uttered these further strange words; words that took me more aback than any I'd heard since I was a child reading _The Arabian Nights_ by the firelight that criss-crossed my schoolroom ceiling with the giant shadow of the wire fireguard.

He asked: "Miss Matthews, do you mean to say that you didn't know Dick Holiday and Richard Wynn were ... er ... the same person?"