During the days that followed his afternoon on the lake at Blandford
Vane found himself thinking a good deal more of Joan than augured well
for his peace of mind. He had been over to call, and had discovered
that she had gone North very suddenly, and it was not certain when she
would return. And so he escaped from Aunt Jane as soon as he politely
could, and strolled back through the woods, conscious of a sense of
acute disappointment.
He went to his customary hiding place by the little waterfall, and,
lighting his pipe sat down on the grass.
"My son," he murmured to himself, "you'd better take a pull. Miss Joan
Devereux is marrying a millionaire to save the family. You are
marrying Margaret Trent--and it were better not to forget those two
simple facts. . . ."
He pulled Margaret's letter out of his pocket, and started to read it
through again. But after a moment it dropped unheeded on the ground
beside him, and he sat motionless, staring at the pool. He did not see
the green of the undergrowth; he did not hear a thrush pouring out its
little soul from a bush close by. He saw a huddled, shapeless thing
sagging into a still smoking crater; he heard the drone of engines
dying faintly in the distance and a voice whispering, "The devils . . .
the vile devils."
And then another picture took its place--the picture of a girl in grey,
lying back on a mass of cushions, with a faint mocking light in her
eyes, and a smile which hovered now and then round her lips. . . .
A very wise old frog regarded him for a moment and then croaked
derisively. "Go to the devil," said Vane. "Compared with Margaret,
what has the other one done in this war that is worth doing?"
"You must be even more damn foolish than most humans," it remarked, "if
you try to make yourself think that the way of a man with a maid
depends on the doing of things that are worth while." The speaker
plopped joyfully into the pool, and Vane savagely beheaded a flower
with his stick.
"C-r-rick, C-r-rick," went the old frog, who had come up for a
breather, and Vane threw a stone at it. Try as he would he could not
check a thought which rioted through his brain, and made his heart
pound like a mad thing. Supposing--just supposing. . . .
"Then why did she go up North so suddenly," jeered the frog. "Without
even leaving you a line? She's just been amusing you and herself in
her professional capacity."
Vane swore gently and rose to his feet. "You're perfectly right, my
friend," he remarked; "perfectly right. She's just an ordinary common
or garden flirt, and we'll cut it right out. We will resume our
studies, old bean; we will endeavour to find out by what possible
method Bolshevism--_vide_ her august papa--can be kept from the
country. As a precautionary measure, a first-class ticket to
Timbuctoo, in case we fail in our modest endeavour, might be a good
speculation. . . ."
For a moment he stood motionless, staring into the cool shadows of the
wood, while a curious smile played over his face. And may be, in spite
of his derisive critic, who still croaked from the edge of the pool,
his thoughts were not entirely centred on his proposed modest
endeavour. Then with a short laugh he turned on his heel, and strode
back towards Rumfold.
Two days later he found himself once again before a Medical Board.
Space, even in convalescent homes, was at a premium, and Vane, to his
amazement, found himself granted a month's sick leave, at the
expiration of which he was to go before yet another Board. And so
having shaken hands with Lady Patterdale and suffered Sir John to
explain the war to him for nearly ten minutes, Vane departed for London
and Half Moon Street.
He wrote Margaret a long letter in reply to hers telling him of her
decision to take up medicine. He explained, what was no more than the
truth, that her suggestion had taken him completely by surprise, but
that if she considered that she had found her particular job he, for
one, would most certainly not attempt to dissuade her. With regard to
himself, however, the matter was somewhat different. At present he
failed to see any budding literary signs, and his few efforts in the
past had not been of the nature which led him to believe that he was
likely to prove a formidable rival to Galsworthy or Arnold
Bennett. . . .
"I'm reading 'em all, Margaret--the whole blessed lot. And it seems to
me that with the world as it is at present, bread-and-butter is wanted,
not caviare. . . . But probably the mistake is entirely mine. There
seems to me to be a spirit of revolt in the air, which gives one most
furiously to think. Everybody distrusts everybody else; everybody
wants to change--and they don't know what they want to change to.
There doesn't seem to be any single connected idea as to what is
wanted--or how to get it. The only thing on which everyone seems
agreed is More Money and Less Work. . . . Surely to Heaven there must
be a way out; some simple way out. We didn't have this sort of thing
over the water. We were pals over there; but here every single soul
loathes every other single soul like poison. . . . Can it be that only
by going back to the primitive, as we had to do in France, can one find
happiness? The idea is preposterous. . . . And, yet, now that I'm
here and have been here these months, I'm longing to come back. I'm
sick of it. Looking at this country with what I call my French
eyes--it nauseates me. It seems so utterly petty. . . . What the
devil are we fighting for? It's going to be a splendid state of
affairs, isn't it, if the immediate result of beating the Boche is
anarchy over here? . . . . And one feels that it oughtn't to be so;
one feels that it's Gilbertian to the pitch of frenzied lunacy. You've
seen those boys in hospital; I've seen 'em in the line--and they've
struck me, as they have you, as God's elect. . . . Then why, WHY, WHY,
in the name of all that is marvellous, is this state of affairs
existing over here? . . . .
"I went to lunch with Sir James Devereux before I left Rumfold. A nice
old man, but money, or rather the lack of it, is simply rattling its
bones in the family cupboard. . . ."
Vane laid down his pen as he came to this point, and began to trace
patterns idly on the blotting paper. After a while he turned to the
sheet again.
"His daughter seems very nice--also his sister, who is stone deaf. One
screams at her through a megaphone. He, of course, rants and raves at
what he calls the lack of patriotism shown by the working man. Fears
an organised strike--financed by enemy money--if not during, at any
rate after, the war. The country at a standstill--anarchy, Bolshevism.
'Pon my soul, I can't help thinking he's right. As soon as men, even
the steadiest, have felt the power of striking--what will stop
them? . . . And as he says, they've had the most enormous concessions.
By Jove! lady--it sure does make me sick and tired. . . .
"However, in pursuance of your orders delivered verbally on the beach
at Paris Plage, I am persevering in my endeavours to find the beaten
track. I am lunching to-day with Nancy Smallwood, who has a new craze.
You remember at one time it used to be keeping parrots--and then she
went through a phase of distributing orchids through the slums of
Whitechapel, to improve the recipients' aesthetic sense. She only gave
that up, I have always understood, when she took to wearing black
underclothes!
"I met her yesterday in Bond Street, and she tackled me at once.
"'You must lunch to-morrow . . . Savoy . . . 1.15 . . . Meet Mr.
Ramage, Labour leader . . . Intensely interesting. . . .'
"You know how she talks, like a hen clucking. 'Coming, man. . . . Has
already arrived, in fact. . . . One must make friends with the mammon
of unrighteousness these days. . . . Life may depend on it. . . .
He's such a dear, too. . . . Certain he'll never let these dreadful
men kill me. . . . But I always give him the very best lunch I
can. . . . In case, you know. . . . Good-bye.'
"I feel that she will sort of put down each course on the credit side
of the ledger, and hope that, if the total proves sufficiently
imposing, she may escape with the loss of an arm when the crash comes.
She'll probably send the receipted bills to Ramage by special
messenger. . . . I'm rather interested to meet the man. Sir James was
particularly virulent over what he called the intellectuals. . . .
"Well, dear, I must go. Don't do too much and overtire
yourself. . . ." He strolled out of the smoking-room and posted the
letter. Then, refusing the offer of a passing taxi, he turned along
Pall Mall on his way to the Savoy.
As Vane had said in his letter, Nancy Smallwood had a new craze. She
passed from one to another with a bewildering rapidity which tried her
friends very highly. The last one of which Vane had any knowledge was
when she insisted on keeping a hen and feeding it with a special
preparation of her own to increase its laying capacity. This
necessitated it being kept in the drawing-room, as otherwise she forgot
all about it; and Vane had a vivid recollection of a large and
incredibly stout bird with a watery and furtive eye ensconced on
cushions near the piano.
But that was years ago, and now the mammon of unrighteousness, as she
called it, apparently held sway. He wondered idly as he walked along
what manner of man Ramage would prove to be. Everyone whom he had ever
met called down curses on the man's head, but as far as he could
remember he had never heard him described. Nor did he recollect ever
having seen a photograph of him. "Probably dressed in corduroy," he
reflected, "and eats peas with his knife. Damn clever thing to do too;
I mustn't forget to congratulate him if he does. . . ."
He turned in at the courtyard of the hotel, glancing round for Nancy
Smallwood. He saw her almost at once, looking a little worried.
Incidentally she always did look worried, with that sort of helpless
pathetic air with which very small women compel very big men to go to
an infinity of trouble over things which bore them to extinction.
"My dear man," she cried as he came up to her. "Mr. Ramage hasn't come
yet. . . . And he's always so punctual. . . ."
"Then let us have a cocktail, Nancy, to keep the cold out till he
does." He hailed a passing waiter. "Tell me, what sort of a fellow is
he? I'm rather curious about him."
"My dear," she answered, "he's the most fascinating man in the world."
She clasped her hands together and gazed at Vane impressively. "So
wonderfully clever . . . so quiet . . . so . . . so . . . gentlemanly.
I am so glad you could come. You would never think for a moment when
you saw him that he sympathised with all these dreadful Bolsheviks and
Soviets and things; and that he disapproved of money and property and
everything that makes life worth living. . . . Sometimes he simply
terrifies me, Derek." She sipped her cocktail plaintively. "But I
feel it's my duty to make a fuss of him and feed him and that sort of
thing, for all our sakes. It may make him postpone the
Revolution. . . ."
Vane suppressed a smile, and lit a cigarette gravely. "They'll
probably give you a vote of thanks in Parliament, Nancy, to say nothing
of an O.B.E. . . . Incidentally does the fellow eat all right?"
With a gesture of horrified protest, Nancy Smallwood sat back in her
chair. "My dear Derek," she murmured. . . . "Far, far better than you
and I do. I always mash my bread sauce up with the vegetables if no
one's looking, and I'm certain he never would. He's most
respectable. . . ."
"My God!" said Vane, "as bad as that! I was hoping he'd eat peas with
his knife."
She looked towards the door and suddenly stood up. "Here he is, coming
down the stairs now. . . ." She held out her hand to him as he came
up. "I was afraid you weren't going to come, Mr. Ramage."
"Am I late?" he answered, glancing at his watch. "A thousand
apologies, Mrs. Smallwood. . . . A committee meeting. . . ."
He turned towards Vane and she introduced the two men, who followed her
into the restaurant. And in his first quick glance Vane was conscious
of a certain disappointment, and a distinct feeling of surprise.
Far from being clad in corduroy, Ramage had on a very respectable
morning coat. In fact, it struck him that Nancy Smallwood's remark
exactly described him. He looked _most_ respectable--not to say dull.
By no stretch of imagination could Vane imagine him as the leader of a
great cause. He might have been a country lawyer, or a general
practitioner, or any of those eminently worthy things with which
utility rather than brilliance is generally associated. He recalled
what he had read in the papers--paragraphs describing meetings at which
Mr. Ramage had taken a prominent part, and his general recollection of
most of them seemed to be summed up in the one sentence . . . "the
meeting then broke up in disorder, Mr. Ramage escaping with difficulty
through a window at the back." Somehow he could not see this decorous
gentleman opposite escaping through windows under a barrage of bad
eggs. He failed to fill the part completely. As a cashier in a local
bank gravely informing a customer that his account was overdrawn--yes;
but as a fighter, as a man who counted for something in the teeming
world around--why no. . . . Not as far as appearance went, at any
rate. And at that moment the eyes of the two men met for an instant
across the table. . . .
It seemed to Vane almost as if he had received a blow--so sudden was
the check to his mental rambling. For the eyes of the man opposite,
deep set and gleaming, were the eyes of greatness, and they triumphed
so completely over their indifferent setting that Vane marvelled at his
previous obtuseness. Martyrs have had such eyes, and the great
pioneers of the world--men who have deemed everything well lost for a
cause, be that cause right or wrong. And almost as if he were standing
there in the flesh, there came to him a vision of Sir James raving
furiously against this man.
He watched him with a slightly puzzled frown for a moment. This was
the man who was deliberately leading the masses towards discontent and
revolt; this was the man of intellect who was deliberately using his
gift to try to ruin the country. . . . So Sir James had said; so Vane
had always understood. And his frown grew more puzzled.
Suddenly Ramage turned and spoke to him. A faint smile hovered for a
second around his lips, as if he had noticed the frown and interpreted
its cause aright.
"Things seem to be going very well over the water, Captain Vane."
"Very well," said Vane abruptly. "I think we've got those arch swine
beaten at last--without the help of a negotiated peace."
For a moment the deep-set eyes gleamed, and then, once more, a faint
smile hovered on his face. "Of which much maligned substitute for war
you doubtless regard me as one of the High Priests?"
"Such is the general opinion, Mr. Ramage."
"And you think," returned the other after a moment, "that the idea was
so completely wrong as to have justified the holders of the opposite
view expending--what, another two . . . three million lives?" . . .
"I am afraid," answered Vane a little curtly, "that I'm in no position
to balance any such account. The issues involved are a little above my
form. All I do know is, that our dead would have turned in their
graves had we not completed their work. . . .'
"I wonder?" said the other slowly. "It always seems to me that the
dead are saddled with very blood-thirsty opinions. . . . One sometimes
thinks, when one is in a particularly foolish mood, that the dead might
have learned a little common sense. . . . Very optimistic, but
still. . . ."
"If they have learned anything," answered Vane gravely, "our dead over
the water--they have learned the sublime lesson of pulling together.
It seems a pity, Mr. Ramage, that a few of 'em can't come back again
and preach the sermon here in England."
"Wouldn't it be too wonderful?" chirruped their hostess. "Think of
going to St. Paul's and being preached to by a ghost. . . ." For the
past minute she had been shooting little bird-like glances at a
neighbouring table, and now she leaned forward impressively. "There
are some people over there, Mr. Ramage, and I'm sure they recognise
you." This was better, far better, than feeding a hen in the
drawing-room.
He turned to her with a faintly amused smile. "How very annoying for
you! I am so sorry. . . . Shall I go away, and then you can discuss
my sins in a loud voice with Captain Vane?"
Nancy Smallwood shook an admonishing finger at him, and sighed
pathetically. "Do go on talking, you two. I do so love to hear about
these things, and I'm so stupid myself. . . ."
"For Heaven's sake, Nancy," laughed Vane, "don't put me amongst the
highbrows. I'm groping . . . crumbs from rich man's table sort of
business."
"Groping?" Ramage glanced at him across the table.
"Yes," said Vane taking the bull by the horns. "Wondering why the
devil we fought if the result is going to be anarchy in England. Over
there everybody seems to be pals; here. . . . Great Scott!" He
shrugged his shoulders. After a while he went on--"Over there we got
rid of class hatred; may I ask you, Mr. Ramage, without meaning in any
way to be offensive, why you're doing your utmost to stir it up over
here?"
The other put down his knife and fork and stared at Vane thoughtfully.
"Because," he remarked in a curiously deep voice, "that way lies the
salvation of the world. . . ."
"The machine-gun at the street corner," answered Vane cynically, "is
certainly the way to salvation for quite a number."
Ramage took no notice of the interruption. "If labour had controlled
Europe in 1914, do you suppose we should have had a war? As it was, a
few men were capable of ordering millions to their death. Can you
seriously contend that such a state of affairs was not absolutely
rotten?"
"But are you going to alter it by fanning class hatred?" demanded Vane
going back to his old point.
"Not if it can be avoided. But--the issue lies in the hands of the
present ruling class. . . ."
Vane raised his eyebrows. "I have generally understood that it was
Labour who was bringing things to a head."
"It rather depends on the way you look at it, doesn't it? If I possess
a thing which by right is yours, and you demand the return of it, which
of us two is really responsible for the subsequent fight?"
"And what does the present ruling class possess which Labour considers
should be returned to it?" asked Vane curiously.
"The bond note of slavery," returned the other. "If the present rulers
will tear up that bond--willingly and freely--there will be no
fight. . . . If not. . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. "Labour may
be forcing that issue, Captain Vane; but it will be the other man who
is responsible if the fight comes. . . . Labour demands fair
treatment--not as a concession, but as a right--and Labour has felt its
power. It will get that treatment--peacefully, if possible; but if
not"--and a light blazed in his eyes--"it will get it by force."
"And the referee as to what is just is Labour itself," said Vane
slowly; "in spite of the fact that it's the other man who is running
the financial risk and paying the piper. It sounds wonderfully fair,
doesn't it? Surely some rights must go with property--whether it's
land or a coal mine, or a bucket shop. . . . Surely the owner must
have the principal say in calling the tune." For a few moments he
stared at the man opposite him, and then he went on again, with
increasing earnestness--with almost a note of appeal in his voice. "I
want to get at your point of view, Mr. Ramage--I want to understand
you. . . . And I don't. There are thousands of men like me who have
been through this war--who have seen the glory underneath the dirt--who
want to understand too. We hoped--we still hope--that a new England
would grow out of it; but somehow. . . ." Vane laughed shortly, and
took out his cigarette case.
"And we are going to get that new England for which you have fought,"
burst out the other triumphantly. Then with a slight smile he looked
at Vane. "We must not forget our surroundings--I see a waiter
regarding me suspiciously. Thanks--no; I don't smoke." He traced a
pattern idly on the cloth for a moment, and then looked up quickly. "I
would like you to try to understand," he said. "Because, as I said,
the whole question of possible anarchy as opposed to a constitutional
change lies in your hands and the hands of your class."
Vane gave a short, incredulous laugh, and shook his head.
"In your hands," repeated the other gravely. "You see, Captain Vane,
we approach this matter from a fundamentally different point of view.
You look around you, and you see men striking here and striking there.
And you say 'Look at the swine; striking again!' But there's one thing
that you fail to grasp, I think. Underneath all these strikes and
violent upheavals, bursting into flame in all sorts of unexpected
places--there is the volcano of a vital conflict between two
fundamental ideas. Though the men hardly realise it themselves, it's
there, that conflict, all the time. . . . And we, who see a little
further than the mob, know that it's there, and that sooner or later
that conflict will end in victory for one side or the other. Which
side, my friend? Yours _or_ ours. . . . Or both. Yours _and_
ours. . . . England's." He paused for a moment as the waiter handed
him the coffee. Then he went on--"To the master-class generally there
is a certain order of things, and they can imagine nothing else. They
employ workers--they pay them, or they 'chuck' them, as they like.
They hold over them absolute power. They are kind in many cases; they
help and look after their employees. But they are the masters--and the
others are the men. That is the only form of society they can conceive
of. Any mitigation of conditions is simply a change within the old
order. That is one point of view. . . . Now for the other." He
turned with a smile to his hostess. "I hope I'm not boring you. . . ."
"Why, I'm thrilled to death," she cried, hurriedly collecting her
thoughts from an adjacent hat. "Do go on."
"The other point of view is this. We do not wish for mitigation of
conditions in a system which we consider wrong. We want the entire
system swept away. . . . We want the entire propertied class removed.
We deny that there are any inherent rights which go with the possession
of property; and even if there are, we claim that the rights of the
masses far outweigh the property rights of the small minority of
owners. . . ."
"In other words," said Vane briefly, "you claim for the masses the
right to commit robbery on a large scale."
"For just so long as that view of robbery holds, Captain Vane, for just
so long will there fail to be any real co-operation between you and us.
For just so long as you are convinced that your vested right is the
true one, and that ours is false--for just so long will the final
settlement by quiet methods be postponed. But if you make it too long
the final settlement will not come by quiet means."
"Your proposal, then, is that we should commit suicide with a good
grace?" remarked Vane. "Really, Mr. Ramage, it won't do. . . . I,
personally, if I owned property, would go into the last ditch in
defence of what was mine." Into his mind there flashed Joan's
words. . . . "It's ours. I tell you, ours," and he smiled grimly.
"Why, in the name of fortune, I should give what I possess to a crowd
of scally wags who haven't made good, is more than I can fathom. . . ."
"It is hardly likely to go as far as that," said the other with a
smile. "But the time is coming when we shall have a Labour
Government--a Government which at heart is Socialistic. And their
first move will be to nationalise all the big industries. . . . How
far will property meet them and help them? Will they fight--or will
they co-operate? . . . It's up to property to decide. . . ."
"Because you will have forced the issue," said Vane; "an issue which, I
maintain, you have no right to force. Robbery is robbery, just the
same whether its sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, or whether it's
performed by a man holding a gun at your head. . . . Why, in God's
name, Mr. Ramage, can't we pull together for the side? . . ."
"With you as the leaders--the kind employers?"
"With those men as the leaders who have shown that they can lead," said
Vane doggedly. "They will come to the top in the future as they have
in the past. . . ."
"By all manner of means," cried Ramage. "Leaders--brains--will always
rise to the top; will always be rewarded more highly than mere manual
labour. . . . They will occupy more remunerative positions under the
State. . . . But the fruits of labour will only be for those who do
the work--be it with their hands or be it with their heads. The
profiteer must go; the private owner must go with his dole here and his
dole there, generally forced from him as the result of a strike. I
would be the last to say that there are not thousands of good
employers--but there are also thousands of bad ones, and now labour
refuses to run the risk any more."
"And what about depreciation--fresh plant? Where's the capital coming
from?"
"Why, the State. It requires very little imagination to see how easy
it would be to put away a certain sum each year for that. . . . A
question of how much you charge the final purchaser. . . . And the
profiteer goes out of the picture. . . . That's what we're aiming at;
that is what is coming. . . . No more men like the gentleman sitting
three tables away--just behind you; no more of the Baxters fattening on
sweated labour." His deep-set eyes were gleaming at the vision he saw,
and Vane felt a sense of futility.
"Even assuming your view is right, Mr. Ramage," he remarked slowly, "do
you really think that you, and the few like you, will ever hold the
mob? . . . You may make your new England, but you'll make it over
rivers of blood, unless we all of us--you, as well as we--see through
the glass a little less darkly than we do now. . . ."
"Every great movement has its price," returned the other, staring at
him gravely.
"Price!" Vane's laugh was short and bitter. "Have you ever seen a
battalion, Mr. Ramage, that has been caught under machine-gun fire?"
"And have _you_, Captain Vane, ever seen the hovels in which some of
our workers live?"
"And you really think that by exchanging private ownership for a
soulless bureaucracy you find salvation?" said Vane shortly. "You're
rather optimistic, aren't you, on the subject of Government
departments? . . ."
"I'm not thinking of this Government, Captain Vane," he remarked
quietly. He looked at his watch and rose. "I'm glad to have met you,"
he said holding out his hand. "It's the vested interest that is at the
root of the whole evil--that stands between the old order and the new.
Therefore the vested interest must go." . . . He turned to his
hostess. "I'm sorry to run away like this, Mrs. Smallwood, but--I'm a
busy man. . . ."
She rose at once; nothing would have induced her to forgo walking
through the restaurant with him. Later she would describe the progress
to her intimates in her usual staccato utterances, like a goat hopping
from crag to crag.
"My dear. . . . So thrilling. . . . He means wholesale murder. . . .
Told us so. . . . And there was a man close by, watching him all the
time. . . . A Government spy probably. . . . Do you think I shall be
arrested? . . . If only he allows Bill and me to escape when it
comes. . . . The revolution, I mean. . . . I think Monte is the
place. . . . But one never knows. . . . Probably the croupiers will
be armed with pistols, or something dreadful. . . . Except that if
it's the labouring classes who are rising, we ought to shoot the
croupiers. . . . It is so difficult to know what to do."
Vane turned to follow her, as she threaded her way between the tables,
and at that moment he saw Joan. The grey eyes were fixed on him
mockingly, and he felt as if everyone in the room must hear the sudden
thumping of his heart. With a murmured apology to his hostess, he left
her and crossed to Joan's table.
"This is an unexpected surprise," she remarked as he came up.
"Do you know Mr. Baxter--Captain Vane. . . ."
Vane looked curiously at the man who had invoked his late companion's
wrath. Then his glance fell on the bottle of Vichy in front of the
millionaire, and his jaw tightened.
"You left Blandford very unexpectedly, Miss Devereux," he said politely.
"Yes--I had to go North suddenly." She looked at him with a smile.
"You see--I was frightened. . . ."
"Frightened. . . ." murmured Vane.
"A friend of mine--a very great friend of mine--a girl, was in danger
of making a fool of herself." Her eyes were fixed on the band, and his
heart began to thump again.
"I trust the catastrophe was averted," he remarked.
"One never knows in these cases, does one?" she answered. He saw the
trace of a smile hover on her lips; then she turned to her companion.
"Captain Vane was one of the convalescents at Rumfold Hall," she
explained.
Mr. Baxter grunted. "Going over again soon?" he asked in a grating
voice.
"I'm on leave at present," said Vane briefly.
"Well, if you'll forgive my saying so," continued Baxter in his harsh
voice, "your luncheon companion to-day is a gentleman you want to be
careful with. . . ."
Vane raised his eyebrows. "You are more than kind," he murmured. "But
I think. . . ."
Mr. Baxter waved his hand. "I mean no offence," he said. "But that
man Ramage is one of the men who are going to ruin this country. . . ."
"Funnily enough, Mr. Baxter, he seems to be of the opinion that you are
one of the men who have already done so."
The millionaire, in no wise offended, roared with laughter. Then he
became serious again. "The old catchwords," he grated. "Bloated
capitalist--sweated labour, growing fat on the bodies and souls of
those we employ. . . . Rot, sir; twaddle, sir. There's no business
such as mine would last for one moment if I didn't look after my
workpeople. Pure selfishness on my part, I admit. If I had my way I'd
sack the lot and instal machines. But I can't. . . . And if I could,
do you suppose I'd neglect my machine. . . . Save a shilling for
lubricating oil and do a hundred pounds' worth of damage? Don't you
believe it, Captain Vane. . . . But, I'll be damned if I'll be
dictated to by the man I pay. . . . I pay them a fair wage and they
know it. And if I have any of this rot of sympathetic strikes after
the war, I'll shut everything down for good and let 'em starve. . . ."
He looked at Joan. . . . "I wouldn't be sorry to have a long rest," he
continued thoughtfully.
"Captain Vane is a seeker after truth," she remarked. "It must be most
valuable," she turned to Vane, "to hear two such opinions as his and
Mr. Ramage's so close together." Her eyes were dancing merrily.
"Most valuable," returned Vane. "And one is so struck with the
pugilistic attitude adopted by both parties. . . . It seems so
extraordinarily helpful to the smooth running of the country
afterwards." He had no occasion to like Baxter from any point of
view--but apart altogether from Joan, he felt that if there was any
justification in his late luncheon companion's views, men such as
Baxter supplied it.
With a movement almost of distaste he turned to Joan. "I was sorry
that we didn't have another game before I left Rumfold," he said
lightly.
"It was so very even that last one," she returned, and Vane's knuckles
showed white on the table.
"My recollection is that you won fairly easily," he murmured.
"Excuse me a moment, will you?" said Mr. Baxter to Joan. "There's a
man over there I must speak to. . . ." He rose and crossed the
restaurant. Joan watched him as he moved between the tables; then she
looked at Vane. "Your recollections are all wrong," she said softly.
The grey eyes held no hint of mockery in them now, they were sweetly
serious, and once again Vane gripped the table hard. His head was
beginning to swim and he felt that he would shortly make a profound
fool of himself.
"Do you think you're being quite kind, grey girl," he said in a low
voice which he strove to keep calm.
For a few moments she played with the spoon on her coffee cup, and
suddenly with a great rush of pure joy, which well-nigh choked him,
Vane saw that her hand was trembling.
"Are _you_?" He scarcely heard the whispered words above the noise
around.
"I don't care whether I am or not." His voice was low and exultant.
He looked round, and saw that Baxter was threading his way back towards
them. "This afternoon, Joan, tea in my rooms." He spoke swiftly and
insistently. "You've just got to meet Binks. . . ."
And then, before she could answer, he was gone. . . .