had been startlingly accurate. After she had departed he actually did turn up his coat collar and give a little shiver; then he started to try and make a repair by the feel of the broken ignition wire. It was perhaps twenty minutes after Betty’s sauntering exit that there came the sound of double-note whistling and a light appeared down the lane from the direction of Lexham.
Immediately Herbert hurried to the back of his car and waved his hands in warning. The whistling stopped and a familiar voice came from behind the dazzlingly bright dynamo-driven cycle lamp.
“Herby! All by yourself m the starlight! Your damned lights are nearly out.…”
Vincent Grey pulled the brakes up sharp on his pedal cycle and the lamp died out. The dim starshine revealed him, blond-headed, in a thick white woollen sweater with roll collar and corduroy cycling trousers. Herbert could picture that round, good-humoured face—grinning and scornful.
“Hello, Vince…,” Herbert growled as he turned away. “I should have recognized you by your damned whistling.”
“Just cycling home from Lexham,” Vincent Grey explained. “I play chess now and again with an old pal of mine over there. But what happened to you? Breakdown?”
“Ignition. I—I had Betty with me. She’s gone on ahead to ask Tom Clayton to come and tow me in.”
“Betty? Oh, you had—had you?”
Herbert climbed into the back seat of the car and sprawled in a corner. Vincent leaned his bicycle carefully against the wing—chiefly to avoid scratching his bicycle. Then he clambered in at the other door and plumped into the upholstery. For a moment or two he sat breathing hard.
“Can’t think what Betty sees in you!” he said finally.
“Been out with her since dinner,” Herbert said, glowing with an inner pride. “She’s a grand girl!”
“I know; I’ve been out with her myself. But I don’t much like the way she walks out on me and takes up with you. It’s—flighty,” he decided.
“There’s nothing flighty about Betty, Vince. She only goes with me because she knows whom she can trust. You expect too much of a girl. I believe in slowly advancing into favour.”
“Then you’re crazy! Here—have a cigarette. It won’t make you drop dead…I’m afraid.”
Herbert took one and their two faces shone like masks for a moment as Vincent’s lighter flared in the windless air. Then they were silent again, blowing smoke at the gnats flying near them
“So,” Vincent resumed, “you take Betty out for the afternoon, your old tub won’t stand up to it, and then you send her to our worst rival for assistance! Ye gods! I’d have pushed the darned car to Langhorn myself before I’d have taken that chance!”
“What chance?” Herbert followed the trail of another meteor in the south.
“Well, if she’ll walk out on me to go with you, what’s to stop her walking out on both of us to play games with Tommy Clayton? I used to think Betty was a one-man girl, and that I was the one man. Now I know better— She’s no good for a rising citizen like me; I’ll cut her out from now on—”
“Take it easy,” Herbert warned, straightening up.
“I’ll say exactly what I like,” Vincent stated calmly. “You don’t approve of me and I’m not enamoured of you. We’ve never thought much of each other since we knew Betty liked both of us—or rather that she appeared to do. So I say she’s no good; and if you’ve any sense, you’ll agree with me.”
Herbert relaxed with a morose frown. Men have quarrelled about women since Adam took forty winks, and they will probably go on doing it until atomic bombs settle the argument conclusively.
“I can’t think that Betty would.…” Herbert’s voice trailed off into a weak emphasis. He really loved Betty, absolutely for herself. He knew that for all her seeming coquetry, there was a sterling worth somewhere in her, and he wanted the chance to find it in his own diffident way.
“Look here,” he said, “if I could get this darned car to work, we could go on into Langhorn and just see what has happened. I’m willing to wager that Betty gets Tom to dig me out—you think she will do nothing of the sort but, instead, fix a date with him for tomorrow evening, maybe, after he’s closed. All right, turn your bike upside down, revolve your back wheel, and give me a light from your dynamo.”
Reluctantly, Vincent heaved himself out of the car and moved round to his cycle. He tipped it up on its saddle and handlebars and then turned the crank-wheel and chain vigorously. The whir of the dynamo disturbed the stillness of the summer night. Herbert threw his cigarette away and stumbled into the lane, moving round to peer into the now fully illuminated engine.
“Yes, I think I can do it,” he said. “Keep on turning.”
From the toolbox under the battery he took out a set of spanners, a screwdriver, and jack-knife. Laboriously he set about the task he had commenced in the dark.
“I think,” Vincent said presently, cranking steadily and projecting the lamp beam, “that girls like Betty are not far short of a public menace. They get fellows all tied up. She’s got me hating you and you hating me—and both of us hating Tom Clayton. Why? Because all of us love her.”
“Thought you said you didn’t,” Herbert muttered as he half lay in the engine.
“Confound me, I do.” Vincent sighed. “I was piqued at her going out with you. That’s my trouble. I talk too big. I’m a pot lion. So help me, Herby, I’d do just anything for her.… But I don’t see why I should play second fiddle either. Only one way to get Betty, you know, and that is to cut out the opposition.”
Vincent stopped turning the crank suddenly and the gloom dropped. Herbert turned in surprise.
“What’d you do that for? I can’t see what I’m doing.”
“Only changing position,” Vincent said. “Shan’t be a minute.”
Herbert waited and there was a dim vision of Vincent moving about in his white sweater. He was stooping, presumably to haul the machine round.
Then far down the lane two brilliant headlamps shafted their beams into the dark sky from over a rise.
“Tom Clayton, a million to one,” Herbert said, gazing. “Coming from the direction of Langhorn. That shows how much truth there was in your tomfool accusations about Betty. She’s okay, I tell you. She’s the best girl that ever—”
The headlights swung full on him at that moment and there was the sound of a heavy truck engine. It was perhaps half a mile away down the lane. Herbert turned to Vincent with a grin of triumph. Vincent was still stooping, then he straightened up abruptly.
But for Herbert the world suddenly seemed to explode. A blinding impact struck him and his senses smashed into a million darknesses. There was an intense quiet and the world was void and without form.
CHAPTER TWO
Betty Shapley returned home, Clayton seeing her to the front door. Her parents merely looked at her as she entered; they had long since disavowed the mind-crushing tactics of the Victorians. They knew that Betty could look after herself and had the redeeming virtue of being truthful. To her the testing of three eligible young men was no crime—and she was capable of intense loyalty when she chose. As ever, there was a bright fire in the Shapley kitchen.
“I’m only late,” Betty said, moving to the table where supper awaited her, “because Herby’s car broke down. I had to walk two miles and then I stopped at Tom Clayton’s to ask him to pick Herby up. There! You can hear his breakdown truck starting off down the back now.”
“In fact, a bad end to a perfect day?” her mother smiled as she got up. “Well, I know Herby. He’s a shy boy but a nice one.… What do you want for your supper, love? There’s some cold pork pie.”