Thorley, in the radiance of good nature and kindliness which always surrounded Thorley, he had not quite realized the shock this would be. But in that case (swift-prompting thought) what about Celia? Thorley hadn't opened the telegram! Then Celia didn't know either.
Thorley, wearing a dark suit, had been only a blur of black and white until he emerged into the after glow from the windows. He stood there for a moment, staring. He had changed very little. He had perhaps put on weight, making the bulky body thicker, and gained in the face as well: a handsome face, though the tendency to weight made his fine features seem a little too small. There were tiny horizontal lines across his forehead. But the black hair, shining and plastered down to a nicety, showed no tinge of gray. Then Thorley woke up.
'My dear old boy!' he cried. It was as though icicles tinkled and fell. He threw an arm across Holden's shoulder, and began to wallop him on the back with real affection. He added, hastily and rather incoherently: 'Unexpectedness . .. you must forgive . . . under the circumstances . . . things that have been happening—'
(Things that have been happening?]
Anyway,' said Thorley, with all the charm and kindliness radiant in his smile, 'anyway, my dear fellow, how are you?'
'I'm fine, thanks. Never better. But listen, Thorley! Celia . . .'
'Oh, yes, Celia.' A new thought came to Thorley; there was a slight pause. His dark eyes grew evasive. 'Celia . . . isn't here just now.'
Holden's heart sank. Wasn't he ever to see her, then? Probably she was out with Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore, M.P. Still, maybe it was better like this.
Across the room there was a slight click, and a light went on.
The girl, hovering, had been standing at the far side of a white-covered sofa where there was a little table and a table lamp with a buff-colored shade. Both Thorley and Holden swung round as she pressed the button of the lamp. Standing just over that lamp, with the light from its open top shining up strongly across her face, the girl tried to keep a cool and assured air.
She was perhaps nineteen, though with a hair style and make-up designed for one considerably older, and she was not very tall. That core of light, brilliant in the midst of green-painted walls, showed .her dark-blue frock trimmed with white, and the blonde hair drawn above her ears, under a white hat A stranger? Apparently. Yet to Holden that pretty face, with its rather angry blue eyes and spoiled mouth, suggested ...
Yes! It suggested the background of a church, never very far from his thoughts, and a little flower girl, aged twelve, who . . .
'You're Sir Danvers Locke's daughter,' he said flatly. 'You're little Doris Locke!'
The girl stiffened. That word 'little' had obviously annoyed her. She stood turning her head slowly from one side to the other, either in keeping her eyes away from the light or in deliberately posing.
'How terribly clever of you to remember me,' she murmured. Then, in a different voice, she burst out: 'I think it was an awfully mean trick of you to pop up like that!'
'It was unpardonable, Miss Locke. I deeply apologize.'
His formal courtesy and grave bearing, for some reason, made her flush.
'Oh, that’s all right. It--it doesn't matter.' She took up gloves and a handbag from the table. 'Anyway, I'm afraid I must be pushing off now.'
'You're not going?' Thorley cried incredulously.
'Oh, didn't I tell you?' said Doris. 'I promised to meet Ronnie Merrick at the Cafe Royal, and then we're going on somewhere to dance.' Doris looked at Holden. 'Ronnie's nice. Probably I shall marry him, because my father wants me to, and they say he's going to be a great painter one day: I mean Ronnie, of course, not my father. But he's so young.'
'He's a year older than you,' said Thorley.
'I always say,' observed Doris, elaborately turning her eyes away, 'that a person is as old as they feel.' Again her tone changed. 'Go on, Mr. Holden! Say 'as old as they feel' is shocking grammar. You were always like that. Go on! Say it!'
Holden laughed.
'It's bad grammar, Miss Locke. I don't know about the 'shocking
But the girl was regarding him strangely. Something different, something straightforward and likable, looked out of the blue eyes.
'You—you were the one,' she added suddenly, 'who was so keen about Celia. And thought you were keeping your secret so well, only everybody knew it. And she was absolutely scatty about you. And now, things being what they are ... oh, God!' said Doris, her fingers tightening round her handbag. 'I must go. Excuse me.'
And, startlingly, she almost ran for the door.
'Wait!' cried Thorley, a bulky figure coming to life. 'Let me send you in the car! Let me . . .'
But the door had closed. They heard a quick, agitated rapping of high-heeled shoes fading away down the hall; then the hollow slam of the front door, which made one or two prisms tingle in the chandelier.
('Things being what they are,' Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore, M.P.?)
Thorley, solid and stolid looking, took half a dozen indecisive paces toward the door. Then he swung round, the lamp light sleek on his black hair, and stood jingling coins deep in his pockets. He began talking in a very hurried way.
'Er—that was Doris Locke,' he explained rapidly. 'Daughter of old Danvers Locke. He's got a big place down in the country near Caswall. Fellow collects masks; all sorts of masks; even got a metal one worn by a German executioner hundreds of years ago; crazy hobby. But filthy with money— absolutely filthy—and, of course, in with all the right people in the business world. He ...'
'Thorley!
Thorley broke off. 'What did you say, old man?'
'I know all that,' Holden said gently. 'I'm acquainted with Locke too, you know.'
'Yes. Of course. So you are.' Thorley passed a hand across his forehead. 'It's damn difficult,' he complained. 'Putting things back in their places again.'
'Yes. I've found that out.'
'Then you weren't killed in that famous attack? And didn't get a DSO?' 'I'm afraid not.'
'You've rather let me down, young fellow,' said Thorley, with the ghost of his jovial laugh. 'I've been bragging about you all over the place.' He frowned. 'But look here: what did happen to you? Were you a prisoner of war or something? Even so, why did you stop writing? And why turn up like this when the war's been over for so long?'
'I was in Intelligence, Thorley.'
'Intelligence?'
'Yes. Certain things had to be done, and certain other things printed in the newspapers. ‘I’ll explain later. The point is . . .'
'I suppose,' Thorley said gloomily, 'it was all eyewash, too, about your getting that baronetcy. Ah, well. Doesn't matter now. I remember thinking, though, it was a bit of bad luck: getting knocked off in the field only a couple of months after you'd come into a pot of cash, and could arrange your life in any way you liked. Poor old Celia . . .'
'For Christ's sake, stop talking about it/'
Thorley, startled and hurt, opened his eyes wide. For a moment he looked like an overgrown child.
'I beg your pardon,' said Holden, instantly getting a grip on himself. 'I seem always, from the best of motives, to be doing or saying the wrong thing. No offense?'
'Lord, no! Of course not!'
'As you say, Thorley, that doesn't matter now. My story can wait. The point is, how are things with you?'
For a moment Thorley did not reply. He wandered over to the large sofa beside which the lamp was burning, and sat down. He put his hands on his knees, and contemplated the floor. His face, with the handsome features rather too small for it, was as blank as the dark eyes. The house seemed very still, uncannily still. Not a breath of wind stirred in from the darkening garden.
Holden laughed. 'As I came in here tonight,' he remarked, suddenly conscious that he was trying to make light conversation and wondering why, 'as I came in here tonight, I was thinking about Mammy Two.'
