Into the blue

He did so, ordered a whisky-and-soda from the hovering waiter. I looked at him as one looks at an acquaintance of old times, seeking for changes. I had not seen him since the Armistice, when our squadron of fighting scouts was demobilized and a cheery crowd of daredevil pilots was dispersed to the four quarters of the globe.

He had not greatly altered. His face was a little thinner, more mature. His hair was still the same wild red mop. His eyes--peculiar in that when he opened them upon you, you saw the whites all round the pupil--had still that strange look in them, as though somewhere deep down in them his soul was like a caged animal, supicious and restless, which I so well remembered. The reason for his nickname jumped back into my mind. It was from his little trick of suddenly and disconcertingly going “mad dog,” not only when he swooped down, against any sort of odds, upon a covey of Huns, but in the mess. Some one had called him “Mad dog;” it had been affectionately softened to “dog Toby;” and “Toby” he remained.

“And what on earth are you doing here?” I asked.

He smiled grimly.

“Earning my living, old bean. Introducing all the grocers in England to the poetry of flying, at ten bob a head.”

“So that was your machine I saw going up and down the sea-front today?”

“It was. Five-minute trips--two bob a minute, and cheap at the price. Had to do something, you know. So I hit on this. There are worse things. Put my last cent into buying the machine--ex-Government, of course. She’s a topping bus!” His voice freshened suddenly with enthusiasm. “It’s almost a shame to use her for hacking up and down like this. You must come and have a look at her.”

“Thanks,” I replied, “I’d like to, but--”

Our conversation was abruptly interrupted. Toby had jumped to his feet. Coming in through the door of the lounge was--miracles never happen singly!--an only-too-familiar, smiling and middle-aged married couple and--_Sylvia_! Toby obscured me from them for an instant as he went eagerly toward them--an instant where I weighed the problem of whether to stay or bolt. The last time Sylvia and I had met she had told me, with a pretty sympathy that ought to have softened the blow, that she would always be glad to have me as a friend, but-- The problem was resolved for me, before I could decide. Toby was leading the trio up to me.

“I want to introduce an old pal of mine--Jimmy Esdaile.”

Mr. and Mrs. Bryant shot a swift smile at each other and then to me as we shook hands. Sylvia almost grinned. I felt a perfect fool. “Good evening, Mr. Esdaile,” said Sylvia in her sweetest tones, her gray eyes demurely alight.

Mr. Esdaile! The last time, it had still been “Jimmy.” It is true that since I had somewhat boorishly informed her, upon that occasion, that I had no manner of use for being her friend, I had scarcely a legitimate grievance if now she chose to be frigid.

“Wont you sit down, all of you?” I suggested. “Mr. Bryant, you’ll take a Grand Marnier with your coffee, I know.”

“Thanks, Jimmy, I will,” said Mr. Bryant, seating himself. I saw Toby stare. His astonishment visibly increased as Mrs. Bryant, having comfortably disposed herself upon the settee, added in her motherly fashion: “And what in the world are you doing here, Jimmy?”

“That’s what I’m asking myself,” I replied. Toby cut me short in what might have been a witty answer had I been allowed to finish it.

“You people know each other, then?” he demanded.

Mr. Bryant smiled.

“Yes. We’ve met Jimmy before--haven’t we, Sylvia?”

“He used to be an acquaintance of ours in London,” corroborated Sylvia imperturbably, delicately underlining the word acquaintance.

Toby probed me with a peculiar look, suddenly almost hostile. I could guess that he was asking himself whether I had come to Southbeach in pursuit of Sylvia. One did not need to be a detective to discover his own eager interest in her. It was patent, with no attempt at concealment. Those strange hungry restless eyes of his seemed to devour her. Quite apart from any personal feelings--any time during the last six months I could have assured you, with perfect sincerity, that my heart was stone dead,--I didn’t like it. Toby was not the sort of chap--

But I had no opportunity to intervene. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant, with a genuine kindly interest in me and my doings that at any other time I should have appreciated, monopolized me. And Sylvia flirted with him, demurely but outrageously. She called him Toby with the most natural ease in the world. He, poor devil, was awkward in an uncertainty whether she were playing with him, jerkily spasmodic in his answers, devouring her all the time with those strange eyes of his, wherein I recognized that same caged-animal look familiar to me as a preliminary to an outburst of “mad dog” on those nights when there was ragging in the mess. She, I could see, was enjoying herself at playing with fire.

At last I could stand it no longer. I switched off from the amiable platitudes I was exchanging with her parents, interrupted her in her markedly exclusive conversation with him.

“I didn’t know Toby was a friend of yours, Syl--Miss Bryant,” I said.

She turned candid eyes upon me.

“Oh, yes, we have known Toby quite a long time--soon after you dropped us--nearly six months, isn’t it, Toby?”

She took, evidently, a malicious pleasure in reiterating his Christian name. I messed up the end of my cigarette before I remembered not to chew it. Toby looked up suspiciously.

“I had no idea, either, that you were a friend of the family, Esdaile,” he said. He also had dropped the “Jimmy.”

Sylvia answered for me.

“Not exactly a close friend,” she said sweetly. “Are you, Mr. Esdaile? We had almost forgotten each other’s existence.”

I could have smacked her.

Toby looked immensely relieved. I could see that, for the moment at least, he definitely put certain doubts out of his mind. He seemed to be trying to make up for his spasm of hostility when next he spoke.

“He’s an old pal of mine, anyway, aren’t you, Jimmy? It’s like old times to see you again. D’you remember that little scrap with a dozen Huns over Charleroi? That was a good finish-up--the day before the Armistice.”