§ 11

it was just in this phase of wrath and darkness that wilmington came over to london for his last leave before he was killed, and begged joan for all the hours she had to spare. she was quite willing to treat him generously. they dined together and went to various theatres and music-halls and had a walk over hampstead heath on sunday. he was a silent, persistent companion for most of the time. he bored her, and the more he bored her the greater her compunction 490and the more she hid it from him. but wilmington, if he had a slow tongue, had a penetrating eye.

the last evening they had together was at the criterion. they dined in the grill room, a dinner that was interspersed with brooding silences. and then wilmington decided to make himself interesting at any cost upon this last occasion.

“joan,” he said, knocking out a half-consumed cigarette upon the edge of his plate.

“billy?” said joan, waking up.

“queer, joan, that you don’t love me when i love you so much.”

“i’d trust you to the end of the earth, billy.”

“i know. but you don’t love me.”

“i think of you as much as i do of any one.”

“no. except—one.”

“billy,” said joan weakly, “you’re the straightest man on earth.”

wilmington’s tongue ran along his white lips. he spoke with an effort.

“you’ve loved peter since you were six years old. it isn’t as though—you’d treated me badly. i can’t grumble that you’ve had no room for me. he’s always been there.”

joan, after an interval, decided to be frank.

“it’s not much good, billy, is it, if i do?”

wilmington said nothing for quite a long time. he sat thinking hard. “it’s not much good pretending i don’t hate peter. i do. if i could kill him—and in your memory too.... he bars you from me. he makes you unhappy....”

his face was a white misery. joan glanced round at the tables about her, but no one seemed to be watching them. she looked at him again. pity, so great that it came near to love, wrung her....

“joan,” he said at last.

“yes?”

“it’s queer.... i feel mean.... as though it wasn’t right.... but look here, joan.” he tapped her arm. “something—something that i suppose i may as well point out to you. because in certain matters—in certain matters you are being a fool. it’s astonishing—— but absolutely—a fool.”

491joan perceived he had something very important to say. she sat watching him, as with immense deliberation he got out another cigarette and lit it.

“you don’t understand this peter business, joan. i—i do. mostly when i’m not actually planning out or carrying out the destruction of germans, i think of you—and peter. and all the rest of it. i’ve got nothing else much to think about. and i think i see things you don’t see. i know i do.... oh damn it! go to hell!”

this last was to the waiter, who was making the customary warning about liqueurs on the stroke of half-past nine.

“sorry,” said wilmington to joan, and leant forward over his folded arms and collected his thoughts with his eyes on the flowers before them.

“it’s like this, joan. peter isn’t where we are. i—i’m very definite and clear about my love-making. i fell in love with you, and i’ve never met any other woman i’d give three minutes of my life to. you’ve just got me. as if i were the palm of your hand. i wish i were. and—oh! what’s the good of shutting my eyes?—peter has you. you’ve been thinking of peter half the time we’ve been together. it’s true, joan. you’ve grown up in love. buh! but peter, you’ve got to understand, isn’t in love. he doesn’t know what love means. perhaps he never will. love with you and me is a thing of flesh and bone. he takes it like some skin disease. he’s been spoilt. he’s so damned easy and good-looking. he was got hold of. i——”

wilmington flushed for a moment. “i’m a chaste man, joan. it’s a rare thing. among our sort. but peter—— loving a woman body and soul means nothing to him. he thinks love-making is a kind of amusement—— casual amusement. any woman who isn’t repulsive. you know, joan, that’s not the natural way. the natural way is love of soul and body. he’s been perverted. but in this crowded world—like a monkey’s cage ... artificially heated ... the young men get made miscellaneous.... lots of the girls even are miscellaneous....”

he considered the word. “miscellaneous? promiscuous, i mean.... it hasn’t happened to us. to you and me, i mean. i’m unattractive somehow. you’re fastidious. 492he’s neither. he takes the thing that offers. to grave people sex is a sacrament, something—so solemn and beautiful——”

the tears stood in his eyes. “if i go on,” he said.... “i can’t go on....”

for a time he said no more, and pulled his unconsumed cigarette to pieces over the ash-tray with trembling fingers. “that’s all,” he said at last.

“all this is—rather true,” said joan. “but——!”

“what does it lead up to?”

“yes.”

“it means peter’s the ordinary male animal. under modern conditions. lazy. affectionate and all that, but not a scrap of emotion or love—yet anyhow. not what you and i know as love. you may dress it up as you like, but the fact is that the woman has to make love to him. that’s all. hetty has made love to him. he has never made love to anybody—except as a sort of cheerful way of talking, and perhaps he never, never will.... he respects you too much to make love to you.... but he’d hate the idea of any one else—making love to you.... it’s an idea—— it’s outside of his conception of you.... he’ll never think of it for himself.”

joan sat quite still. after what seemed a long silence she looked up at him.

wilmington was watching her face. he saw she understood his drift.

“you could cut her out like that,” said wilmington, with a gesture that gained an accidental emphasis by knocking his glass off the table and smashing it.

the broken glass supplied an incident, a distraction, with the waiters, to relieve the tension of the situation.

“that’s all i had to say,” said wilmington when that was all settled. “there’s no earthly reason why two of us should be unhappy.”

“billy,” she said, after a long pause, “if i could only love you——”

the face of gratitude that looked at him faded to a mask.

“you’re thinking of peter already,” said wilmington, watching her face.

493it was true. she started, detected.

he speculated cheerlessly.

“you’ll marry me some day perhaps. when peter’s thrown you over.... it’s men of my sort who get things like that....”

he stood up and reached for her cloak. she, too, stood up.

then, as if to reassure her, he said: “i shall get killed, joan. so we needn’t worry about that. i shall get killed. i know it. and peter will live.... i always have taken everything too seriously. always.... i shall kill a lot of germans yet, but one day they will get me. and peter will be up there in the air, like a cheerful midge—with all the archies missing him....”