Tabs, to distract attention from the reconciliation, addressed the General. It was odd that he should feel so much sympathy for a man whom his letters, already beyond recall, would stir into panic in the morning. "Do you intend to stay in the Army, sir?"
"No. But why do you ask? They're getting rid of all of us who aren't Regulars, no matter how brilliant our service. They're making the Army again a social club. I shall soon be out of uniform."
"And then?" Tabs persisted.
"Oh, then I shall find something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If I can find anything."
"If it isn't impertinence," Tabs sank his voice, "may I ask what you intend to turn to?"
The General eyed him suspiciously, wondering whether he was again about to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position ought to be able to choose."
"Ought! But that hasn't been the story up-to-date. What of the Colonel you were just telling us about?" Tabs saw that another storm was brewing. He leant across the table and hurried on. "If the worst comes to the worst, I expect your old job's waiting for you. The qualities which have made you what you are to-day, must have been recognized and valued----" Terry had completed her reconciliation with her father and was resting her gaze upon them. Tabs altered his tone. "You put what you said at dinner rather strongly, sir. But I understand what you were driving at--it was the democracy of the front-line where courage, which at its best is unselfishness, was our only standard of aristocracy."
Before the General could make reply, Sir Tobias had raised his bewildered head. "It's a thing that I for one don't want to understand. I don't want to go on living, if what you've said is true."
Tabs turned considerately to the older man. "I think you would if you knew. The difference that war made to all of us who were there was that it taught us to judge men by their good points rather than their defects. It upset all our preconceived notions about society, especially our notions about the extreme value of race and breeding. What we learnt was that there's a breeding of the heart which enables a man from the gutter to run true to the highest form."
Sir Tobias leveled his weary eyes in challenge. "Then what about Adair?"
The name was out at last--the name which he had been trying to get uttered all evening. It didn't matter that Adair hadn't been at the war and had no proper place in the argument. He had wanted to break through his reticence due to his sense of impending family disaster. At last he had done it.
"I think, Daddy," Terry said, "the General and I had better leave you and Tabs to talk alone."
The next thing that Tabs saw was Terry making her escape with this other man. He had it in his power to settle his suspense for all time by saying, "One minute, Terry. You're choosing between the General and myself. It may help you in making your decision to know that Braithwaite was once----" But the coster's definition of fair-play deterred him. This man had been his pal in the trenches; because of that he allowed himself for the second time that day to be shut out from the company of youth. He hadn't discovered how much or how little she knew. By her withdrawal he was made to feel middle-aged--more nearly her father's contemporary than ever. Yet, as an underlying comfort to his distress, he had the remembered pressure of the little hand that had sought his own in secret friendliness.
He turned to Sir Tobias. "Yes, what about Adair? Terry said that you wanted to consult me. If there's anything that I can say or do----"
VIII
The door was reopening. Tabs glanced back across his shoulder through the shadows. She was hovering just inside the threshold, hastily clad in her evening-wrap; beyond her in the hall the General stood fidgeting with his cap. Sir Tobias was sitting with his head bowed; he had not heard the sound of her rentry. He spoke evidently believing that they two were alone. "I don't like that fellow. It's the last time he ever comes to my house. Whatever Terry can see in him---- And he's not good for Terry."
She tiptoed back into the hall, pulling the door softly behind her. A moment later the front door closed with a bang.
"What was that?" Sir Tobias looked up gnome-like and startled.
Tabs guessed what it was; but because, as she had said they three had paid the price together, he kept her secret. "General Braithwaite, probably. But you were speaking of Adair?"
Sir Tobias shivered, betraying his nervous tension. "A disturber," he said irritably, "even in his going. And yet, I suppose it's true; we shouldn't be sitting here comfortably to-night if it hadn't been for his sort."
Now that it had been broached, it was anything to avoid the main topic. He drummed with his fingers on the table, ceased drumming and sighed heavily. "Yes, I was speaking of Adair. I don't understand him. I've grown out of touch; I don't seem to understand anybody. I'm left behind, somehow. People do things to-day that they never used to do. They shout about things from the house-tops which all my life I've mentioned only in whispers. Terry does; you heard what she said to-night about never having been loved and never having had children. The loss of delicacy----"
"I wouldn't call it a loss of delicacy." Tabs struck a match. "I would call it a loss of prudishness. We all know that girls are born to be married and that the best of them long to have children. Why shouldn't they own it? You owned it long ago when you bought her dolls. The lid is off false reticences. I hope it stays off; we shall be a much honester world."
"The lid's off! That's the phrase I was searching for." Sir Tobias leant forward confidentially. "You haven't been much in England during the past four years or you'd know how badly the lid is off. You men, when you were in the trenches, lived above yourselves; but, the moment you came home on leave, you taught the world that wasn't in khaki how to live below itself. I could tell you stories----"
"I know." Tabs didn't want to hear those stories. "It was pathetic. Men tried to steal in a handful of hours all the passionate experiences that would have come to them beautifully and legitimately over forty years. It was like snatching from a bargain-counter things that you hadn't time to pay for. You were young and you were so soon to be snuffed out. The unthoughtful took desperately what they believed life owed them. They----"
It was the turn of Sir Tobias to interrupt. "But so did the women--this Maisie woman, for instance. It was astounding--the women one would least have expected. All the desires we had caged through the centuries broke loose--caged with traditions, with public opinion and scriptural penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it. "They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo, to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets into our houses. Now the war's ended and the jungle's all about us; we can't get the animals back into their cages. Fellows like this General Braithwaite don't help matters by telling us that we oughtn't to want to get them back----"
"Perhaps he's one of the animals," Tabs interpolated. "You couldn't expect him to want to be put back."
"Perhaps he is. In fact that's what I've felt about him. That's what's helped me to make up my mind that he shall see no more of Terry." He reached out and tapped Tabs' hand, taking it for granted that he was his ally. "The sight's becoming far too normal--wild beasts everywhere, sunning themselves in impertinent freedom, as if they were house-cats. Nobody's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't--at least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like ourselves, to----"
"To do what?"