The Yellow Dove. Gibbs George

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СКАЧАТЬ rather,” replied the captain. And he pushed a pouch and a package of cigarette papers along the tablecloth. “It’s a mix of my own. I hope you’ll like it.”

      Hammersley opened the bag and sniffed at its contents.

      “Good stuff, that. Virginia, Perique and a bit of Turkish. What?”

      Byfield nodded and watched Hammersley as he poured out the tobacco, rolled the paper and lighted it at the candelabra, inhaling luxuriously.

      “Thanks,” he sighed. “Jolly good of you,” and he pushed the pouch back to Byfield along the table.

      “You must come to Scotland some day, old chap,” said the Honorable Cyril carelessly.

      “Delighted. When the war is over,” returned Byfield quietly. “Not until the war is over.”

      “Awf’ly glad to have you any time, you know—awf’ly glad.”

      “In case of furlough—I’ll look you up.”

      “Do,” said the Honorable Cyril.

      Hammersley’s rather bovine gaze passed slowly around the room, and just over Lord Kipshaven’s head in the mirror over the mantel it met the dark gaze of John Rizzio. The fraction of a second it paused there and then he stretched his long legs and rose, stifling a yawn.

      “Let’s go in—what?” he said to Byfield.

      Byfield got up and at the same time there was a movement at the mantel.

      “Don’t be too hard on the chap,” Rizzio was saying in an undertone to Kipshaven. “You’re singing the ‘Hassgesang.’ He’s harmless—I tell you—positively harmless.” And then as the others moved toward the door: “Come, Lady Heathcote won’t mind our tobacco.”

      Hammersley led the way, with Byfield and Rizzio at his heels. Jacqueline Morley had been trying to play the piano, but there was no heart in the music until she struck up “Tipperary,” when there was a generous chorus in which the men joined.

      Hammersley found Doris with Constance Joyliffe in an alcove. At his approach Lady Joyliffe retired.

      “Handsome, no end,” he murmured to her as he sank beside her.

      “Handsome is as handsome does, Cyril,” she said slowly. “If you knew what I was thinking of, you wouldn’t be so generous.”

      “What?”

      “Just what everybody is thinking about you—that you’ve got to do something—enlist to fight—go to France, if only as a chauffeur. They’d let you do that tomorrow if you’d go.”

      “Chauffeur! Me! Not really!”

      “Yes, that or something else,” determinedly.

      “Why?”

      She hesitated a moment and then went on distinctly.

      “Because I could never marry a man people talked about as people are talking about you.”

      “Not marry—?” The Honorable Cyril’s face for the first time that evening showed an expression of concern. “Not marry—me? You can’t mean that, Doris.”

      “I do mean it, Cyril,” she said firmly. “I can’t marry you.”

      “Why–?”

      “Because to me love is a sacrament. Love of woman—love of country, but the last is the greater of the two. No man who isn’t a patriot is fit to be a husband.”

      “A patriot–”

      She broke in before he could protest. “Yes—a patriot. You’re not a patriot—that is, if you’re an Englishman. I don’t know you, Cyril. You puzzle me. You’re lukewarm. Day after day you’ve seen your friends and mine go off in uniform, but it doesn’t mean anything to you. It doesn’t mean anything to you that England is in danger and that she needs every man who can be spared at home to go to the front. You see them go and the only thing it means to you is that you’re losing club-mates and sport-mates. Instead of taking the infection of fervor—you go to Scotland—to shoot—not Germans but—deer! Deer!” she repeated scathingly.

      “But there aren’t any Germans in Scotland—at least none that a chap could shoot,” he said with a smile.

      “Then go where there are Germans to shoot,” she said impetuously. She put her face to her hands a moment. “Oh, don’t you understand? You’ve got to prove yourself. You’ve got to make people stop speaking of you as I’ve heard them speak of you tonight. Here you are in the midst of friends, people who know you and like you, but what must other people who don’t know you so well or care so much as we? What must they think and say of your indifference, of your openly expressed sympathy with England’s enemies? Even Lady Betty, a kinswoman and one of your truest friends, has lost patience with you—I had almost said lost confidence in you.”

      Her voice trailed into silence. Hammersley was moving the toe of his varnished boot along the border of the Aubusson rug.

      “I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “Awf’ly sorry.”

      “Sorry! Are you? But what are you going to do about it?”

      “Do?” he said vaguely. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m no bally use, you know. Wouldn’t be any bally use over there. Make some silly ass mistake probably. No end of trouble—all around.”

      “And you’re willing to sacrifice the goodwill, the affection of your friends, the respect of the girl you say you love–”

      “Oh, I say, Doris. Not that–”

      “Yes. I’ve got to tell you. I can’t be unfair to myself. I can’t respect a man who sees others cheerfully carrying his burdens, doing his work, accepting his hardships in order that he may sleep soundly at home far away from the nightmare of shot and shell. You, Cyril, you! Is it that—the love of ease? Or is it something else—something to do with your German kinship—the memory of your mother. What is it? If you still want me, Cyril, it is my right to know–”

      “Want you, Doris—” his voice went a little lower. “Yes, I want you. You might know that.”

      “Then you must tell me.”

      He hesitated and peered at the eyeglass in his fingers.

      “I think—it’s because I—” He paused and then crossed his hands and bowed his head with an air of relinquishment. “Because I think I must be a”—he almost whispered the word—“a coward.”

      Doris Mather gazed at him a long moment of mingled dismay and incredulity.

      “You,” she whispered, “the first sportsman of England—a—a coward.”

      He gave a short mirthless laugh.

      “Queer, isn’t it, the way a chap feels about such things? I always hated the idea of being mangled. Awf’ly unpleasant idea that—’specially in the tummy. In India once I saw a chap–”

      “You—a СКАЧАТЬ