the idea?” cried the other girl in a slightly raised voice. “Why don’t you stay at your own table? You must be tight.”
“Now Elaine!” said Charley, turning to her reprovingly.
“I’ll meet the train that gets to Greenwich at six,” Diana went on coolly. “If you can’t get rid of this—this woman——” she indicated his companion with a careless wave of her hand—“send her to the movies.”
With an exclamation the other girl got to her feet and for a moment a scene was imminent. But nodding to Charley, Diana turned from the table, beckoned to her escort across the room and left the café.
“I don’t like her,” cried Elaine querulously when Diana was out of hearing. “Who is she anyhow? Some old girl of yours?”
“That’s right,” he answered, frowning. “Old girl of mine. In fact, my only old girl.”
“Oh, you’ve known her all your life.”
“No.” He shook his head. “When I first met her she was a canteen worker in the war.”
“She was!” Elaine raised her brows in surprise. “Why she doesn’t look——”
“Oh, she’s not nineteen anymore—she’s nearly twenty-five.” He laughed. “I saw her sitting on a box at an ammunition dump near Soissons one day with enough lieutenants around her to officer a regiment. Three weeks after that we were engaged!”
“Then what?” demanded Elaine sharply.
“Usual thing,” he answered with a touch of bitterness. “She broke it off. Only unusual part of it was that I never knew why. Said good-bye to her one day and left for my squadron. I must have said something or done something then that started the big fuss. I’ll never know. In fact I don’t remember anything about it very clearly because a few hours later I had a crash and what happened just before has always been damn dim in my head. As soon as I was well enough to care about anything I saw that the situation was changed. Thought at first that there must be another man.”
“Did she break the engagement?”
“She cern’ly did. While I was getting better she used to sit by my bed for hours looking at me with the funniest expression in her eyes. Finally I asked for a mirror—I thought I must be all cut up or something. But I wasn’t. Then one day she began to cry. She said she’d been thinking it over and perhaps it was a mistake and all that sort of thing. Seemed to be referring to some quarrel we’d had when we said good-bye just before I got hurt. But I was still a pretty sick man and the whole thing didn’t seem to make any sense unless there was another man in it somewhere. She said that we both wanted our freedom, and then she looked at me as if she expected me to make some explanation or apology—and I couldn’t think what I’d done. I remember leaning back in the bed and wishing I could die right then and there. Two months later I heard she’d sailed for home.”
Elaine leaned anxiously over the table.
“Don’t go to the country with her, Charley,” she said. “Please don’t go. She wants you back—I can tell by looking at her.”
He shook his head and laughed.
“Yes she does,” insisted Elaine. “I can tell. I hate her. She had you once and now she wants you back. I can see it in her eyes. I wish you’d stay in New York with me.”
“No,” he said stubbornly. “Going out and look her over. Diamond Dick’s an old girl of mine.”
Diana was standing on the station platform in the late afternoon, drenched with golden light. In the face of her immaculate freshness Charley Abbot felt ragged and old. He was only twenty-nine, but four wild years had left many lines around his dark, handsome eyes. Even his walk was tired—it was no longer a demonstration of fitness and physical grace. It was a way of getting somewhere, failing other forms of locomotion; that was all.
“Charley,” Diana cried, “where’s your bag?”
“I only came out to dinner—I can’t possibly spend the night.”
He was sober, she saw, but he looked as if he needed a drink badly. She took his arm and guided him to a red-wheeled coupé parked in the street.
“Get in and sit down,” she commanded. “You walk as if you were about to fall down anyhow.”
“Never felt better in my life.”
She laughed scornfully.
“Why do you have to get back tonight?” she demanded.
“I promised—you see I had an engagement——”
“Oh, let her wait!” exclaimed Diana impatiently. “She didn’t look as if she had much else to do. Who is she anyhow?”
“I don’t see how that could possibly interest you, Diamond Dick.”
She flushed at the familiar name.
“Everything about you interests me. Who is that girl?”
“Elaine Russel. She’s in the movies—sort of.”
“She looked pulpy,” said Diana thoughtfully. “I keep thinking of her. You look pulpy too. What are you doing with yourself—waiting for another war?”
They turned into the drive of a big rambling house on the Sound. Canvas was being stretched for dancing on the lawn.
“Look!” She was pointing at a figure in knickerbockers on a side veranda. “That’s my brother Breck. You’ve never met him. He’s home from New Haven for the Easter holidays and he’s having a dance tonight.”
A handsome boy of eighteen came down the veranda steps toward them.
“He thinks you’re the greatest man in the world,” whispered Diana. “Pretend you’re wonderful.”
There was an embarrassed introduction.
“Done any flying lately?” asked Breck immediately.
“Not for some years,” admitted Charley.
“I was too young for the war myself,” said Breck regretfully, “but I’m going to try for a pilot’s license this summer. It’s the only thing, isn’t it—flying I mean.”
“Why, I suppose so,” said Charley somewhat puzzled. “I hear you’re having a dance tonight.”
Breck waved his hand carelessly.
“Oh, just a lot of people from around here. I should think anything like that’d bore you to death—after all you’ve seen.”
Charley turned helplessly to Diana.
“Come on,” she said, laughing, “we’ll go inside.”
Mrs. Dickey met them in the hall and subjected Charley to a polite but somewhat breathless scrutiny.
