`Exactly! And I believe any Government which had the courage to pass that Bill would go down to posterity as having made the greatest contributions to permanent peace in history. Once it'd gone through the British Parliament other States would force it on their rulers too, because the masses in other countries don't want war any more than we do.'
`I wonder.' Valerie lit another cigarette. `Your dream moves in the right direction but there's one big snag in it. The final responsibility for starting a war may rest with National leaders but nearly always they're forced to it by the pressure of public opinion. The poisoning of a national mind is as necessary to the creation of war as the murder of millions of deluded people is to its fulfillment. The way of the Millers is terrible but sane. There can't be any lasting peace until the concessionaires, the armament racketeers and all those soulless ghouls who deliberately foment trouble for their own gain, are wiped out.'
For a moment they sat in silence. `How long have you been engaged to Christopher?' Lovelace asked suddenly.
`Three, no, four months, but our friendship goes back much further. We've known each other since we were children. Our homes on Long Island lie side by side and neither of us had any brothers or sisters.'
`Yes,' Lovelace murmured, `he told me that.'
`I worshipped him when he was little,' she went on slowly. `He wasn't rough like the other boys, but gentle and idealistic. Yet he could fight like a tiger when he was roused. He did once for me. A bigger boy had teased me over some stupid thing till, like a little fool, I began to cry. Christopher found us like that and half murdered him. That was when I was nine.'
`Later, in our teens, I came to think him just the handsomest boy that ever walked. His dark, curly hair and pale skin, and those wonderful eyes, you know. Lots of other girls thought the same, of course, but he never gave them a look. I honestly don't think he's ever kissed a girl in his life except me. He was more dreamy, more impractical than ever, and it was then I began to mother him.
`We had to part to go through college, but it was already an understood thing that we should marry when we were older, and our first thought when vacations came round was always to be together again. When he was twenty one all his great business interests were handed over to him formally. For a few years he worked terribly conscientiously on the boards of his companies and travelled all over the States to make a thorough personal investigation of his affairs. That was when I took up flying and began breaking records because, you see, we were separated for a bit. He wasn't very successful as a business man. He wasn't practical enough and he placed the well being of his work people before the piling up of profits. That couldn't go on indefinitely, his companies began to suffer; his shareholders began to kick. Eventually his co directors combined against him and he was practically forced into retirement. He came back to me as handsome and attractive as ever but well, just a bit shattered. He needed me more than ever and he took it for granted that we were to carry out our boy and girl understanding. One night he just said, “Isn't it about time we thought of getting married?” and I agreed that it was.'
`Did nothing occur before then to make you feel that one day you might prefer someone else?' Lovelace asked slowly.
She turned to him sharply. `Why do you ask that?'
'I don't know,' he shrugged. 'Your flying must have taken you about the world a bit I only wondered.'
'I'll be quite truthful,' she confessed after a moment. 'There was just one episode, years ago, when I was travelling in Europe with my father and mother before I went to college. That changed me from a child into a woman, I think. It haunted me for a long time but it was only a sort of schoolgirl dream.'
'Have you ever met the man again?'
`Yes, but he didn't even know me. After the first shock I wasn't really surprised either. It was only a silly incident that happened to make a tremendous impression on a little girl but could have had no significance at all for a grown man.'
'How strange life is strange, isn't it?'
She nodded. 'Anyhow, that's all over. It never happened except for the things my imagination built round it. Nothing has ever really come between Christopher and myself and I'm glad. I've never realised until these last few weeks quite how desperately he needed me. He needs you too.'
'Valerie.' He placed a hand gently on her shoulder and turned her towards him. `Where did we meet before? Why do you make such a mystery of it? I know we did won't you tell me?'
The bright moonlight glinted on her smooth chestnut hair as she shook her head. 'It was in the land of dreams perhaps, but this is Athens and Zirrif is leaving here tomorrow to obtain his Abyssinian concession. If he succeeds we know that it will be used to bring about another European war. Christopher means to try to stop him, but what chance will he have unaided? Poor, flame like, impractical Christopher is standing alone as the sole defence of the peace and happiness of ten million homes. He needs us, Anthony both of us and we can't let him down.'
`No,' said Lovelace slowly. `We can't let him down.'
9
A suicidal plan
At six thirty the following morning Christopher invaded Lovelace's room and shook him gently by the shoulder.
`Lovelace l' he said in a low voice. 'Lovelace, wake up, I want to talk to you.'
The sleeping man turned over and blinked his eyes, 'What's the matter?' he muttered. 'What's the time?'
'I don't know, something after six, I think,' Christopher said vaguely.
'Then you can go to hell,' Lovelace grunted. 'I never talk to anyone before nine,' and he buried his head firmly in the pillow.
He was furious at being wakened in the middle of a very pleasant dream. In it, he was a young man again and back at Fronds, the lovely old place in Yorkshire that had been in his family since Charles IIs time. He knew that he was not much over twenty because the gardens were beautifully kept, just as they had been before he succeeded to the title and heavy death duties had compelled him to close the place down. It was high summer and the sun made dazzling patches of light and shade upon the neatly trimmed yew hedges of the famous Maze. Lovelace had known every turn and twist of it from his earliest boyhood and he was only strolling through its high walled alleys to its centre because he wanted to think something out and be alone. Why he should have found it necessary to seek refuge there when he could have sat in the far more lovely pond garden or paced the long, walled border with its multitude of flowers, he could not recall. Suddenly the peace of the place had been disturbed by running feet and a pleading voice had cried, 'Please! please ! Show me the way out of here.' The dream had become confused then and he felt himself rocking as though in a ship at sea while someone was saying, 'Lovelace, Lovelace, wake up!'
He tried to recapture it as Christopher tiptoed from the room, but he could only see the gardens, now overgrown and uncared for, as they had been since straitened circumstances had necessitated his living on the few hundreds a year which was all his father had been able to leave him with the place.
For the hundredth time he wondered if it wouldn't really be wisest to sell Fronds. It was a very gracious house, a little larger perhaps than most people wanted these days, but a moderately rich man could keep it up quite easily and close one of the wings if he found it too big for him. The gardens were famous and could soon be put to rights again with a little money. The roofs were sound and there were plenty of bathrooms since it had been modernized, when his over generous father had spent far more than he could afford running it, free of all charges to the country, as a hospital during the war. He hadn't known then, of course, how a grateful Government would repay his patriotism by taxing him so highly, when the war was over, that he could no longer live there without making inroads on his capital, and that death duties would prove the final blow which would make a mockery of his son Anthony's inheritance.