Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable (read aloud .txt) 📕

Peter was horribly uncomfortable. He felt how little he knew this girl, and he felt also how much he loved her.

"Nothing, dear," he said; "I was a beast."

"Well," she said, "if you won't tell me, I'll tell you. I was quite proper to-night, immensely and intensely proper, and you didn't like it. You had never seen me so. You thought, too, that I was making up to your friend. Isn't that so?"

Peter nodded. He marvelled that she should know so well, and he wondered what was coming.

"I wonder what you really think of me, Peter," she went on. "I suppose you think I never can be serious—no, I won't say serious—conventional. But you're very stupid; we all of us can be, and must be sometimes. You asked me just now what I thought of your friend—well, I'll tell you. He is as different from you as possible. He has his thoughts, no doubt, but he prefers to be very tidy. He takes refuge in the things you throw overboard. He's not at all my sort, and he's not yours either, in a way. Goodness knows what will happen to either of us, but he'll be Captain Langton to the end of his days. I envy that sort of person intensely, and when I meet him I put on armour. See?"

Peter stared at her. "How is he different from Donovan?" he asked.

"Donovan! Oh, Lord, Peter, how dull you are! Donovan has hardly a thought in his head about anything except Donovan. He was born a jolly good sort, and he's sampled pretty well everything. He's cool as a cucumber, though he has his passions like everyone else. If you keep your head, you can say or do anything with Donovan. But Langton is deliberate. He knows about things, and he refuses and chooses. I didn't want …" She broke off. "Peter," she said savagely, "in two minutes that man would know more about me than you do, if I let him."

He had never seen her so. The childish brown eyes had a look in them that reminded him of an animal caught in a trap. He sprang up and dropped on his knees by her side, catching her hand.

"Oh, Julie, don't," he said. "What do you mean? What is there about you that I don't know? How are you different from either of them?"

She threw her cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter.

"Lor', Peter, was I tragic? I didn't mean to be, my dear. There's a lot about me that you don't know, but something that you've guessed. I can't abide shams and conventions really. Let's have life, I say, whatever it is. Heavens! I've seen street girls with more in them than I pretended to your friend to have in me to-night. They at least deal with human nature in the raw. But that's why I love you; there's no need to pretend to you, partly because, at bottom, you like real things as much as I, and partly because—oh, never mind."

"Julie, I do mind—tell me," he insisted.

Her face changed again. "Not now, Peter," she said. "Perhaps one day—who can say? Meantime, go on liking me, will you?"

"Like you!" he exclaimed, springing up, "Why, I adore you! I love you!
Oh, Julie, I love you! Kiss me, darling, now, quick!"

She pushed him off. "Not now," she cried; "I've got to have my revenge. I know why you wouldn't come home in the cab! Come! we'll clink glasses, but that's all there is to be done to-night!" She sprang up, flushed and glowing, and held out an empty glass.

Peter filled hers and his, and they stood opposite to each other. She looked across the wine at him, and it seemed to him that he read a longing and a passion in her eyes, deep down below the merriness that was there now. "Cheerio, old boy," she said, raising hers. "And 'here's to the day when your big boots and my little shoes lie outside the same closed door!'"

"Julie!" he said, "you don't mean it!"

"Don't I? How do you know, old sober-sides. Come, buck up, Solomon; we've been sentimental long enough. I'd like to go to a music-hall now or do a skirt-dance. But neither's really possible; certainly not the first, and you'd be shocked at the second. I'm half a mind to shock you, though, only my skirt's not long and wide enough, and I've not enough lace underneath. I'll spare you. Come on!"

She seized her hat and put it on. They went out into the hall. There was a man in uniform there, at the office, and a girl, French and unmistakable, who glanced at Julie, and then turned away. Julie nodded to madame, and did not glance at the man, but as she passed the girl she said distinctly, "Bon soir, mademoiselle." The girl started and turned towards her. Julie smiled sweetly and passed on.

Peter took her arm in the street, for it was quite dark and deserted.

"Why did you do that?" he said.

"What?" she demanded.

"Speak to that girl. You know what she is?"

"I do—a poor devil that's playing with Fate for the sake of a laugh and a bit of ribbon. I'm jolly sorry for her, for they are both worth a great deal, and it's hard to be cheated into thinking you've got them when Fate is really winning the deal. And I saw her face before she turned away. Why do you think she turned away, Peter? Not because she was ashamed, but because she is beginning to know that Fate wins. Oh, la! la! what a world! Let's be more cheerful. 'There's a long, long trail a-winding.'" she hummed.

Peter laughed. "Oh, my dear," he said, "was there ever anyone like you?"

Langton was reading in his room when Peter looked in to say good-night.

"Hullo!" he said. "See her home?"

"Yes," said Peter. "What did you think of her?"

"She's fathoms deep, I should say. But I should take care if I were you, my boy. It's all very well to eat and drink with publicans and sinners, though, as I told you, it's better no one should know. But they are dangerous company."

"Why especially?" demanded Peter.

Langton stretched himself. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Perhaps because society's agin 'em."

"Look here, Langton," said Peter. "Do you hear what I say? Damn society! Besides, do you think your description applies to that girl?"

Langton smiled. "No," he said, "I shouldn't think so, but she's not your sort, Peter. When you take that tunic off, you've got to put on a black coat. Whatever conclusions you come to, don't forget that."

"Have I?" said Peter; "I wonder."

Langton got up. "Of course you have," he said. "Life's a bit of a farce, but one's got to play it. See here, I believe in facing facts and getting one's eyes open, but not in making oneself a fool. Nothing's worth that."

"Isn't it?" said Peter; and again, "I wonder."

"Well, I don't, and at any rate I'm for bed. Good-night."

"Good-night," said Peter; "I'm off too. But I don't agree with you. I'm inclined to think exactly the opposite—that anything worth having is worth making oneself a fool over. What is a fool, anyway? Good-night."

He closed the door, and Langton walked over to the window to open it. He stood there a few minutes listening to the silence. Then a cock crew somewhere, and was answered far away by another. "Yes," said Langton to himself, "what is a fool, anyway?"

The Lessing family sat at dinner, and it was to be observed that some of those incredible wonders at which Peter Graham had once hinted to Hilda had come about. There were only three courses, and Mr. Lessing had but one glass of wine, for one thing; for another he was actually in uniform, and was far more proud of his corporal's stripes than he had previously been of his churchwarden's staff of office. Nor was he only in the Volunteers; he was actually in training to some extent, and the war had at any rate done him good. His wife was not dressed for dinner either; she had just come in from a war committee of some sort. A solitary maid waited on them, and they had already given up fires in the dining-room. Not that Mr. Lessing's income had appreciably diminished, but, quite honestly, he and his were out to win the war. He had come to the conclusion at last that business could not go on as usual, but, routed out of that stronghold, he had made for himself another. The war was now to him a business. He viewed it in that light.

"We must stop them," he was saying. "Mark my words, they'll never get to Amiens. Did you see Haig's last order to the troops? Not another inch was to be given at any cost. We shan't give either. We've got to win this war; there's too much at stake for us to lose. Whoever has to foot the bill for this business is ruined, and it's not going to be Great Britain. They were saying in the Hall to-night that the Army is as cheerful as possible: that's the best sign. I doubt the German Army is. Doesn't Graham say anything about it, Hilda?"

"No, father," said Hilda shortly, and bent over her plate.

"'Xtraordinary thing. He's a smart chap, and I should have thought he'd have been full of it. Perhaps he's too far back."

"He was in a big town he doesn't name the other day, in an air-raid, and a man was killed in his carriage."

"Good Lord! you don't say so? When did you hear that? I thought we had command of the air."

"I got a letter to-night, father. He just mentioned that, but he doesn't say much else about it. He's at Abbeville now, on the Somme, and he says the Germans come over fairly often by night."

"Impossible!" snorted the old man, "I have it on the best possible authority that our air service is completely up to date now, and far better than the German. He must be exaggerating. They would never allow the enemy to out-distance us in so important a department. What else does he say?"

"Oh, nothing;" said Hilda, "or at least nothing about the war in a way.
It's full of—of his work." She stopped abruptly.

"Well, well," said Mr. Lessing, "I was against his going at first; but it's all shoulders to the wheel now, and it was plain he ought to see a little life out there. A young man who doesn't won't have much of a look in afterwards—that's how I reasoned it. And he works hard, does Graham; I've always said that for him, I expect he's of great service to them. Eh, Hilda?"

"I don't know," said the girl; "he doesn't say. But he's been chosen for some special work, lecturing or something, and that's why he's at Abbeville."

"Ah! Good! Special work, eh? He'll go far yet, that fellow. I don't know that I'd have chosen him for you, Hilda, at first, but this business has shaken us all up, and I shouldn't be surprised if Graham comes to the front over it." He stopped as the maid came in, "I think I'll have my coffee in the study, my dear," he said to Mrs. Lessing; "I have some reading to do."

When the two women were once more alone Mrs. Lessing put her cup down, and spoke. "What is it, dear?" she questioned.

Hilda did not look at her. The two, indeed, understood each other very well. "I can't tell you here, mother," she said.

"Come, then, dear," said Mrs. Lessing, rising. "Let's go to my room. Your father will be busy for some time, and we shall not be disturbed there."

She led the way, and lit a small gas fire. "I can't be cold in my bedroom," she said; "and though I hate these things, they are better than nothing. Now, dear, what is it?"

Hilda seated herself on a footstool on the other side of the