Part 47 (2/2)

He also felt sick with young Jack. What on earth had he been trying to play at? He had no duty. He was married that morning; hadn't he, Ross, seen him married? What the something did he mean by leaving his wife and chasing off like that? Saying ”All right; shut up----” What did the young fool mean by it?

Further, there was that little hussy that Captain Ross was sick with.

Sitting----wherever he was sitting while the raid-guns scolded outside, he went over and over in his mind the many grouses that he had against that little hussy Olwen Howel-Jones. She didn't know how to treat him right.

She was a darned little flirt.

Look at her at Les Pins with that a.s.s young Brown!

Look at her here in London, with that even worse a.s.s, young Ellerton!

Scandalous.... Scandalous....

To Ellerton he meant to give such a telling-off as the young man had never heard in his life before.

And to the girl he was going to speak about it this very evening. Then the raid had come....

Of course Ellerton would see that child all the way home.

He'd done it before....

She admitted that herself.

She practically admitted that the fellow made love to her on the way home.

No doubt he was doing it again at that moment! Captain Ross could picture it. He did picture it....

Nothing could have been less like his picture than the reality of that proposal scene in the railway carriage of the train held up outside Willesden Junction at that moment, but how should this jealous brooder be expected to guess that?

He continued to brood so intently that it is unlikely he heard any of the firing....

That little hussy! How was it she always contrived to irritate him so?

Always! Every time she spoke! The more meek and mild she was in the office the more downright impairrrtinence she managed to infuse, somehow, into the very meekness and mildness of the tone in which she spoke to her chief. Yep! Even if she were only putting somebody through to him on the telephone, she managed to convey an impression of--of--of _something_.

And why any busy man should waste a moment thinking of her the finest judge of women in Europe did not know.... How had she done it?

Yes; she was pretty; confound her! Awfully neat.... but weren't other girls? Why think of her, more than of all the others, dozens, scores, yes, hundreds of 'em that he'd known? What he demanded of a girl's society was that it should be kept in its right proporrrrtion as a relaxation for when a man wasn't occupied with a job.

Woman, it could not too often be reiterated, was the Plaything of Man----but not of young Ellerton, by the way. Why should any sensible man be obsessed by one more than another of these toys?

Let them keep in their places.

Dashed pretty she was! Taking little face, dandy little figure, hands and feet _it_.... Still, if she thought that he, with all his experience, was going to say that Miss Olwen Howel-Jones was the best-looking girl he'd ever struck, she had another guess coming to her.

Casual little ways she had! Those spoilt her. Pursing up her mouth----which was as red as if she shoved on carmine by the stick every five minutes, though he could see she didn't. It would sairrrrrrrrve her jolly well right if a man (not young Ellerton) were to catch ahold of her and kiss her good and hard a couple of dozen times running and then leave her, having had all he wanted of her. That other maddening habit of hers, too; looking 'way over a man's shoulder when he was speaking to her! Refusing to meet his eyes ... though she could look straight enough into young Ellerton's.... What colour _were_ her eyes when all was said: brown, green, or hazel?

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