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 cafe.
“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 any more—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-by 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-by 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 coupe 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. The whole household seemed to treat him with unusual respect, and the subject had a tendency to drift immediately to the war.
“What are you doing now?” asked Mr. Dickey. “Going into your father’s business?”
“There isn’t any business left,” said Charley frankly. “I’m just about on my own.”
Mr. Dickey considered for a moment.
“If you haven’t made any plans why don’t you come down and see me at my office some day this week. I’ve got a little proposition that may interest you.”
It annoyed Charley to think that Diana had probably arranged all this. He needed no charity. He had not been crippled, and the war was over five years. People did not talk like this any more.
The whole first floor had been set with tables for the supper that would follow the dance, so Charley and Diana had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Dickey in the library upstairs. It was an uncomfortable meal at which Mr. Dickey did the talking and Diana covered up the gaps with nervous gaiety. He was glad when it was over and he was standing with Diana on the veranda in the gathering darkness.
“Charley——” She leaned close to him and touched his arm gently. “Don’t go to New York tonight. Spend a few days down here with me. I want to talk to you and I don’t feel that I can talk tonight with this party going on.”
“I’ll come out again—later in the week,” he said evasively.
“Why not stay tonight?”
“I promised I’d be back at eleven.”
“At eleven?” She looked at him reproachfully. “Do you have to account to that girl for your evenings?”
“I like her,” he said defiantly. “I’m not a child, Diamond Dick, and I rather resent your attitude. I thought you closed out your interest in my life five years ago.”
“You won’t stay?”
“No.”
“All right—then we only have an hour. Let’s walk out and sit on the wall by the Sound.”
Side by side they started through the deep twilight where the air was heavy with salt and roses.
“Do you remember the last time we walked somewhere together?” she whispered.
“Why—no. I don’t think I do. Where was it?”
“It doesn’t matter—if you’ve forgotten.”
When they reached the shore she swung herself up on the low wall that skirted the water.
“It’s spring, Charley.”
“Another spring.”
“No—just spring. If you say ‘another spring’ it means you’re getting old.” She hesitated. “Charley——”
“Yes, Diamond Dick.”
“I’ve been waiting to talk to you like this for five years.”
Looking at him out of the comer of her eye she saw he was frowning and changed her tone.
“What kind of work are you going into, Charley?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a little money left and I won’t have to do anything for awhile. I don’t seem to fit into business very well.”
“You mean like you fitted into the war.”
“Yes.” He turned to her with a spark of interest. “I belonged to the war. It seems a funny thing to say but I think I’ll always look back to those days as the happiest in my life.”
“I know what you mean,” she said slowly. “Nothing quite so intense or so dramatic will ever happen to our generation again.”
They were silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was trembling a little.
“There are things lost in it—parts of me—that I can look for and never find. It was my war in a way, you see, and you can’t quite hate what was your own.” He turned to her suddenly. “Let’s be frank, Diamond Dick—we loved each other once and it seems—seems rather silly to be stalling this way with you.”
She caught her breath.
“Yes,” she said faintly, “let’s be frank.”
“I know what you’re up to and I know you’re doing it to be kind. But life doesn’t start all over again when a man talks to an old love on a spring night.”
“I’m not doing it to be kind.”
He looked at her closely.
“You lie, Diamond Dick. But—even if you loved me now it
