Part 33 (2/2)

Olwen, with Golden's furs, hurried through the billiard-room to the outer hall with the ”Enquiries” counter, the long bar, and the rows of refreshment-tables crowded by soldiers and sailors.

One table was empty, reserved for Mr. Awdas's party, but the young flying officer had been called away on duty just after his _fiancee's_ second song. Olwen was sorry for him, but his loss was her chance; and she saw so little of this friend of hers.

As she handed over the great leopard-skin m.u.f.f, she said, rather appealingly, ”Are you staying, Golden?”

”Why, aren't you?” Golden said, glancing towards the group who were ordering coffee. ”It's quite early.”

”Yes; and I felt like a walk,” said the other girl, wistfully, ”and I thought if we got out of this crush I might see you to speak to----”

Golden laughed. ”Very well,” she agreed. ”I'll come with you; wait while I shake hands with Mrs. Cartwright....”

The two young girls bade a quick good night to the party, and before it was quite realized that they were leaving, they had pa.s.sed through the hall, descended the wooden staircase, and reached the entrance to the Strand.

It was a clear and sparkling night above the murky lamp-gla.s.ses, with a touch of frost. Away to the west the spoke of a single searchlight could be seen creeping this way and that like a snail's horn.

The tall girl and the little one turned to take the quieter streets in the direction of Baker Street, Olwen's terminus.

Already they had walked many a mile together, those oddly contrasted girl-friends, during that growth of this quick, firm friends.h.i.+p. Several times the Welsh girl had been invited to the big house near Grosvenor Gardens, which was Golden's home; the little house at Wembley Park had in its turn welcomed the American. There had been appointments for matinees together, and for lunch. Olwen, in fact, would have wished to claim the Sunburst girl whenever Jack Awdas was out of town, bound for France with a new machine. Taking aeroplanes across the Channel was now his job. Little Olwen had been the first of her girl friends to whom Golden had confided the pact on Biscay Beach that had made of her Bird-boy the happiest man flying.

But as Golden was not of the type that lets any Third (however dear) into details that concern a happy two, Olwen had never heard of the part played in that scene by a trifle of pink ribbon and satin in which her own hand had bestowed a Charm....

If she had known of it, it might have been better for her. It might have startled her out of the lines that her own life was taking; humdrum lines, she knew--she scarcely realized that they were also growing towards the lines of disillusionment, even of cynicism. Being gloriously in love was a thing for the few, she thought. Certainly a bright fixed star seemed to s.h.i.+ne over this girl by her side and over the Jack she appeared to adore. But what gleam of it touched the life of Olwen? She had now reached twenty, and the phase when a girl believes herself to have outgrown everything she ever used to feel. Certainly she had gained, by that casting off of some of her feverish emotionalism and credulities, but was there nothing this young girl was in danger of losing?

It was as they were turning into Cranbourne Street that Golden van Huysen, who had been swinging along without speaking, did startle her by a sudden remark:

”Olwen! I didn't know you could be so cruel.”

Quickly Olwen's little head went up. ”Cruel, Golden? What can you mean?”

”I mean just plain cruel. What made you say good night in the way you said it, as if you didn't care if it were good night, or good-bye, or good riddance?”

”'Good night' to whom? I spoke to Mrs. Cartwright; she was the one who mattered,” Olwen said a little defensively. ”All those other people from the Honeycomb----well, I wanted to get away with you, and I see _them_ every day.”

”And are '_they_' all the same to you?”

”Of course,” said Olwen in a resigned voice, ”you _mean_ Captain Ross.”

”Certainly I didn't mean your little Major Leefe, who talks as if it hurt him, not your young sailor-boy, who loves to laugh.”

”Well, I see Captain Ross every day, and I expect he thinks that's far too much.”

Golden's reply was a soft laugh. ”Oh, you British, you are the funniest things! Either you want to grab a thing before you take another breath, or else you wait staring at it until you can't see it!----Why, Olwen, that man's crazy about you.”

”Not he!” returned Olwen, decidedly, and with another sort of laugh--a slightly bitter one.

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