Valentine said:
“Look here, Ethel, if you think that you can keep friends with mother and turn on Mr. Tietjens after all he’s done for you, you’re mistaken. You are really. And mother’s a great deal of influence. I don’t want to see you making any mistakes: just at this juncture. It’s a mistake to make nasty rows. And you’d make a very nasty one if you said anything against Mr. Tietjens to mother. She knows a great deal. Remember. She lived next door to the rectory for a number of years. And she’s got a dreadfully incisive tongue …”
Edith Ethel coiled back on her feet as if her whole body were threaded by a steel spring. Her mouth opened, but she bit her lower lip and then wiped it with a very white handkerchief. She said:
“I hate that man! I detest that man! I shudder when he comes near me.”
“I know you do!” Valentine Wannop answered. “But I wouldn’t let other people know it if I were you. It doesn’t do you any real credit. He’s a good man.”
Edith Ethel looked at her with a long, calculating glance. Then she went to stand before the fireplace.
That had been five—or at most six—Fridays before Valentine sat with Mark Tietjens in the War Office waiting hall, and, on the Friday immediately before that again, all the guests being gone, Edith Ethel had come to the tea-table and, with her velvet kindness, had placed her right hand on Valentine’s left. Admiring the gesture with a deep fervour, Valentine knew that that was the end.
Three days before, on the Monday, Valentine, in her school uniform, in a great store to which she had gone to buy athletic paraphernalia, had run into Mrs. Duchemin, who was buying flowers. Mrs. Duchemin had been horribly distressed to observe the costume. She had said:
“But do you go about in that? It’s really dreadful.”
Valentine had answered:
“Oh, yes. When I’m doing business for the school in school hours I’m expected to wear it. And I wear it if I’m going anywhere in a hurry after school hours. It saves my dresses. I haven’t got too many.”
“But anyone might meet you,” Edith Ethel said in a note of agony. “It’s very inconsiderate. Don’t you think you’ve been very inconsiderate? You might meet any of the people who come to our Fridays!”
“I frequently do,” Valentine said. “But they don’t seem to mind. Perhaps they think I’m a Waac officer. That would be quite respectable …”
Mrs. Duchemin drifted away, her arms full of flowers and real agony upon her face.
Now, beside the tea-table she said, very softly:
“My dear, we’ve decided not to have our usual Friday afternoon next week.” Valentine wondered whether this was merely a lie to get rid of her. But Edith Ethel went on: “We’ve decided to have a little evening festivity. After a great deal of thought we’ve come to the conclusion that we ought, now, to make our union public.” She paused to await comment, but Valentine making none she went on: “It coincides very happily—I can’t help feeling it coincides very happily!—with another event. Not that we set much store by these things. … But it has been whispered to Vincent that next Friday. … Perhaps, my dear Valentine, you, too, will have heard …”
Valentine said:
“No. I haven’t. I suppose he’s got the O.B.E. I’m very glad.”
“The Sovereign,” Mrs. Duchemin said, “is seeing fit to confer the honour of knighthood on him.”
“Well!” Valentine said. “He’s had a quick career. I’ve no doubt he deserves it. He’s worked very hard. I do sincerely congratulate you. It’ll be a great help to you.”
“It’s,” Mrs. Duchemin said, “not for mere plodding. That’s what makes it so gratifying. It’s for a special piece of brilliance, that has marked him out. It’s, of course, a secret. But …”
“Oh, I know!” Valentine said. “He’s worked out some calculations to prove that losses in the devastated districts, if you ignore machinery, coal output, orchard trees, harvests, industrial products and so on, don’t amount to more than a year’s household dilapidations for the …”
Mrs. Duchemin said with real horror:
“But how did you know? How on earth did you know? …” She paused. “It’s such a dead secret. … That fellow must have told you. … But how on earth could he know?”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Tietjens to speak to since the last time he was here,” Valentine said. She saw, from Edith Ethel’s bewilderment, the whole situation. The miserable Macmaster hadn’t even confided to his wife that the practically stolen figures weren’t his own. He desired to have a little prestige in the family circle; for once a little prestige! Well! Why shouldn’t he have it? Tietjens, she knew, would wish him to have all he could get. She said therefore:
“Oh, it’s probably in the air. … It’s known the Government want to break their claims to the higher command. And anyone who could help them to that would get a knighthood …”
Mrs. Duchemin was more calm.
“It’s certainly,” she said, “Burke’d, as you call it, those beastly people.” She reflected for a moment. “It’s probably that,” she went on. “It’s in the air. Anything that can help to influence public opinion against those horrible people is to be welcomed. That’s known pretty widely. … No! It could hardly be Christopher Tietjens who thought of it and told you. It wouldn’t enter his head. He’s their friend. He would be …”
“He’s certainly,” Valentine said, “not a friend of his country’s enemies. I’m not myself.”
Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed sharply, her eyes dilated:
“What do you mean? What on earth do you dare to mean? I thought you were a pro-German!”
Valentine said:
“I’m not! I’m not! … I hate men’s deaths. … I hate any men’s deaths. … Any men …” She calmed herself by main force. “Mr. Tietjens says
