United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The one clue to the origin of the mysterious attachment between them had been a naive phrase which he had once overheard Craive utter to a mutual acquaintance: "Old G.J.'s so subtle, isn't he?" G.J. said to himself, reconsidering the proposal: "And why on earth not?" And then aloud, soothingly, to Craive: "All right! All right!" The Major brightened and said to Molder: "You'll come, of course?"
Molder to tea to-morrow, and if you can't come he must come alone...." With a last strange look at Molder she retired into the glitter of the crowded larger room. "She been driving any fresh men to suicide lately?" Major Craive demanded acidly under his breath. G.J. raised his eyebrows. Then: "That's not you, Frankie!" said the Major with a start of recognition towards the Staff lieutenant.
The two had little in common Craive was a stockbroker when world-wars did not happen to be in progress but G.J. greatly liked him because, with all his crudity, he was such a decent, natural fellow, so kind-hearted, so fresh and unassuming. And Craive on his part had developed an admiration for G.J. which G.J. was quite at a loss to account for.
Moreover, he was easily old enough to be Molder's father. It seemed to him that though two generations might properly mingle in anything else, they ought not to mingle in licence. Craive's crudity was extraordinary. "See here!" Craive went on, serious and determined. "You know the sort of thing I've come from. I got four days unexpected. I had to run down to my uncle's.
Major Craive, the host, the splendid quality of whose hospitality was proved by the flowers, the fruit, the bottles, the cigar-boxes and the cigarette-boxes on the table, sat between Alice and Aida Altown. The three women on principle despised and scorned each other with false warm smiles and sudden outbursts of compliment.
"Craive," said G.J. affectionately, "until you and Queen came along Molder and I really thought we were at a picture exhibition, and we still think so, don't we, Molder?" The Lieutenant nodded. "Now, as you're here, just let me show you one or two things." "Oh!" breathed the Major, "have pity. It's not any canvas woman that I want By Jove!"
G.J. murmured to Molder: "You don't want to go and have tea with her, do you?" And Molder answered, with the somewhat fatuous, self-conscious grin that no amount of intelligence can keep out of the face of a good-looking fellow who knows that he has made an impression: "Well, I don't know " G.J. raised his eyebrows again, but with indulgence, and winked at Craive.
His eye rested on the badge of her half-brother's regiment which she had had reproduced in diamonds. At this juncture he heard himself addressed in a hearty, heavy voice as "G.J., old soul." An officer with the solitary crown on his sleeve, bald, stoutish, but probably not more than forty-five, touched him much gentler than he spoke on the shoulder. "Craive, my son! You back!
G.J. saw the look of simple, half-worshipful appeal that sometimes came into Craive's rather ingenuous face. He well knew that look, and it always touched him. He remembered certain descriptive letters which he had received from Craive at the Front, they corresponded faithfully. He could not have explained the intimacy of his relations with Craive. They had begun at a club, over cards.
Word Of The Day