第6章 CHAPTER III(1)

A few rays of fugitive sunshine were brightening Piccadilly when Geraldine and her escort left the Ritz. The momentary depression occasioned by the dramatic little episode of a few minutes ago, seemed already to have passed from the girl's manner. She walked on, humming to herself. As they paused to cross the road, she glanced as though involuntarily at her companion. His dark morning clothes and rather abstracted air created an atmosphere of sombreness about him of which she was suddenly conscious.

"Hugh, why don't you wear uniform in town?" she asked.

"Why should I?" he replied. "After all, I am not really a fighting man, you see.""It's so becoming," she sighed.

He seemed to catch the reminiscent flash in her eyes as she looked down the street, and a shadow of foreboding clouded his mind.

"You found Captain Granet interesting?"

"Very," she assented heartily. "I think he is delightful, don't you?""He certainly seems to be a most attractive type of young man," Thomson admitted.

"And how wonderful to have had such adventures!" she continued. "Life has become so strange, though, during the last few months. To think that the only time I ever saw him before was at a polo match, and to-day we sit side by side in a restaurant, and, although he won't speak of them, one knows that he has had all manner of marvellous adventures. He was one of those who went straight from the playing fields to look for glory, wasn't he, Hugh? He made a hundred and thirty-two for Middlesex the day before the war was declared.""That's the type of young soldier who's going to carry us through, if any one can," Major Thomson agreed cheerfully.

She suddenly clutched at his arm.

"Hugh," she exclaimed, pointing to a placard which a newsboy was carrying, "that is the one thing I cannot bear, the one thing which I think if I were a man would turn me into a savage!"They both paused and read the headlines--

PASSENGER STEAMER TORPEDOED WITHOUT WARNING IN THE IRISH SEA. TWENTY-TWOLIVES LOST.

"That is the sort of thing," she groaned, "which makes one long to be not a man but a god, to be able to wield thunderbolts and to deal out hell!""Good for you, Gerry," a strong, fresh voice behind them declared. "That's my job now. Didn't you hear us shouting after you, Olive and I? Look!"Her brother waved a telegram.

"You've got your ship?" Thomson inquired.

"I've got what I wanted," the young man answered enthusiastically. "I've got a destroyer, one of the new type--forty knots an hour, a dear little row of four-inch guns, and, my God! something else, I hope, that'll teach those murderers a lesson," he added, shaking his fist towards the placard.

Geraldine laid her hand upon her brother's arm.

"When do you join, Ralph?"

"To-morrow night at Portsmouth," he replied. "I'm afraid we shall be several days before we are at work. It's the Scorpion' they're giving me, Gerald--or the mystery ship, as they call it in the navy.""Why?" she asked.

His rather boyish face, curiously like his sister's, was suddenly transformed.

"Because we've got a rod in pickle for those cursed pirates--""Conyers!" Thomson interrupted.

The young man paused in his sentence. Thomson was looking towards him with a slight frown upon his forehead.

"Don't think I'm a fearful old woman," he said. "I know we are all rather fed up with these tales of spies and that sort of thing, but do you think it's wise to even open your lips about a certain matter?""What the dickens do you know about it?" Conyers demanded.

"Nothing," Thomson assured him hastily, "nothing at all. I am only going by what you said yourself. If there is any device on the Scorpion for dealing with these infernal craft, I'd never breathe a word about it, if I were you.