There was a knock at the door. She went leisurely to open it, with the
expectation of seeing her dinner served on a tray; but it was Eddie, the
loyal Eddie, come to fetch her. He was rather pale and quite unsmiling.
"If you’ll get dressed," he said. "We’re waiting for you to come to
dinner."
"Mrs. Geraldine said----”
"It doesn’t matter. You must come. I wouldn’t sit down without you."
He looked at her, and his face twitched. She looked so strange, so
terribly aloof! He was unstrung, anyhow. He had had a beastly interview
with his brother, and a somewhat unpleasant five minutes with Polly,
whom he so much admired. He had really annoyed her, for the sake of this
devilish girl. He was filled with dread and distress, with a wretched
sense of impending calamity--what people call a presentiment. Perhaps it
was because his mind unconsciously recognized all the elements here for
a hellish conflagration.
"Hurry, won’t you?" he said. "We’re waiting."
She did hurry, and her dressing took only ten minutes; but she was very
much surprised to find Eddie still waiting for her, and still more
surprised when he took her by the arm and for the first time used her
name.
"Angelica!" he said in a low voice.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Don’t!"
"Don’t what, Mr. Eddie?"
He didn’t answer, but he squeezed her arm, and when she looked up into
his face it was desperately anxious.
"All right!" she said, half understanding what he wished her to
understand.
For she, too, was vaguely aware of danger; she, too, could dimly
perceive whither her eager feet were leading her; but she ran to it,
flew to it. She, too, had an odd and terrible feeling of approaching ill
fortune. She felt disaster drawing near, yet was not able even to wish
to avoid it.
She sat down at the table, next to Vincent; and she hadn’t been there
for fifteen minutes before she was lost. His bold eyes rested on her
face, and all her own boldness turned to surrender, her own fierceness
melted. She couldn’t turn away from him; she sat very still, enthralled,
listening to his voice, watching his mobile face, the fine, straight
brows moving so expressively, his supple hands.
He was still in his rough sport clothes, and his bright brown hair was
ruffled. He had an air about him of fine, arrogant carelessness that she
could worship. He had none of Eddie’s punctilio, no sort of nice
manners; he had only an indifferent ease, a most complete disregard for
any other living soul.
He interrupted without compunction, he made no pretense of listening; he
wanted to do all the talking, and he wanted to be listened to with
respect. Well, why not? Angelica wished nothing better than to look at
him and listen to him forever; she couldn’t bear the idea of having to
leave his presence.
Every time she looked at him, he was looking at her--at those curious
eyes not quite alike. She was bewitched; she scarcely knew what she was
doing. She felt that she shouldn’t look at him so much, but that was
quite beyond her control. The other people seemed dim and far away,
hardly audible. He was filling up the world.
He talked of the war, and his words were glorious. Oh, he was a poet,
truly! His talk of blood and battles fired her imagination. Eddie’s
studious dissertations upon the rights and wrongs of the conflict seemed
to her contemptible. A man mustn’t go to war because it is his duty, but
because he loves it; because he is a hero, like Vincent.
"I’m going!" he said. "I long for it. It’s the completion of a man’s
life. Until he has fought and killed, a man has not lived. That is his
manhood, his glory. Think of all Europe rushing, blood-mad, to the
Flanders battlefields, all the young and the fine and the strong herded
there, to kill or to die! My God! The very pinnacle of life!"
"Or the lowest depth," said Eddie.
Vincent laughed.
"You’re no warrior, my dear boy," he said. "Well, we don’t expect it of
you."
Eddie grew red.
"I dare say I’m as much of a warrior as the next man," he said. "I dare
say I’d like it--this fighting and killing; but I don’t see anything
fine about it. I don’t glorify it. I think it’s beastly. There are
plenty of things that I’d enjoy that I don’t by any means admire. This
fighting is a filthy relic of our old barbarous days."
"Then so are all our splendid passions, my boy. God keep us barbarous,
and men! You chilly, cowering little pen-drivers----”
"That’s enough!" said Eddie. "You’re talking rot--pure rot!"
He was making a desperate effort to control a furious anger; for the
sake of his own dignity he didn’t dare to quarrel with Vincent. He knew
his brother and his unholy resources too well.
"All those chaps in offices and so on," he continued. "You don’t know
anything about them. If it comes to the test----”
"Oh, you’ll all do your duty, all you little money-grubbers!" said
Vincent. "I don’t doubt that; but what we need--what the world is sick
for, _dying_ for--is men who are inspired."
"They might be inspired by something better than drunken enthusiasm,"
said Eddie.
Vincent laughed again, and looked around the table at his worshipping
women; but his glance rested upon Angelica. She caught her breath,
stared up at him; and then, for the first time, smiled at him, a smile
quite strange to her, trembling and uncertain.