Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (59 page)

"He
was
in
the
9th,
you
know,"
said
Mantravers,
as
though
Defrayne did,
after
all,
have
something
to
say
to
the
war.
I
hardly
listened,
I
was barely
polite,
my
interest
was
so
entirely
elsewhere.
The
only
point I
noticed
as
curious,
and
had
been
aware
of,
indeed,
even
before— though
the
excitement
had
prevented
my
paying
special
attention to
it—was
the
colour
of
my
cousin's
face.
His
skin
was
dead
white
of rather
a
ghastly
kind.
"Try
and
remember,"
he
urged.
"Look
back a
bit.
He
was
in
your
regiment.
You
must
have
heard
of
him."
But I
listened
through
a
chorus
of
other
voices,
for
we
were
all
talking at
once.
.
.
.

It
was
well
after
midnight,
"God
Save
the
King"
already
sung, when,
to
my
surprise,
Mantravers
begged
me
to
walk
home
with
him, since
it
was
on
my
own
way,
and
when
we
reached
his
door
asked, even
insisted,
that
I
should
come
in.
He
wished
to
tell
me
something. Once
in
his
room,
a
drink
before
us,
I
remember
that
a
sensation of
discomfort,
almost
of
alarm,
came
over
me,
and
that
I
began
to watch
him
more
closely.
My
own
preoccupation
was
still
entirely with
the
war,
of
course.
Literally,
I
could
think
of
nothing
else.
Yet his
first
question,
since
I
had
naturally
expected
something
about Germany
at
least,
returned
to
his
own
personal
affair:
"You
tell
me," he
began
in
a
low
and
rather
tense
voice,
"that
you
don't
recall
Defrayne?"
I
did
not,
and
I
told
him
so
again
bluntly
enough,
exasperation
and
impatience
showing
plainly.
I
had
hoped
for
something very
different.

"Then—if
you
don't
mind—I'll
tell
you
something,"
he
said,
and there
was
a
nervous
hesitation,
almost
a
demand
for
sympathy,
in
his manner
that
made
me
wonder.
Tire
pallor
in
his
face
again
struck me
sharply.
"I
must
tell
someone,"
he
went
on,
"and
you're
the
sort of
listener
I
want.
You're
ignorant
and
simple,
but
you're
openminded."
He
paused
for
a
second
or
two.
"It's
about
Defrayne
and myself,"
he
added,
almost
in
a
whisper,
and
for
some
reason
I
felt
.1
sudden
shiver
run
down
my
back.
It
was
due,
this
shiver,
I
verily believe,
to
an
abrupt
realisation
that
he
looked
twenty-five
years voimger
than
he
was.
I
knew
this
in
a
general
way,
had
wondered a
I
it
often
enough.
I
now
realised
it.
I
felt
at
any
rate
this
passing shiver.

2

Let
me
say
at
once
that
this
announcement
both
bored
and
half infuriated
me,
so
that
at
first
I
listened
perfunctorily—for
what possible
interest
could
Defrayne,
whoever
he
was,
have
now?—but
I
hat
later,
if
considerably
later,
my
interest
was
so
deeply
caught
that
I
lie
war,
with
all
it
meant,
slipped
into
the
background.