Nothing Venture by Patricia Wentworth Page A

“My name’s Nan. Please don’t mind—it wasn’t your fault a bit.”
    Mr Fazackerley recovered himself. It took a good deal to disconcert him, and he possessed recuperative powers of the first order. He congratulated Jervis in a manner quite un-tinged with self-consciousness. He congratulated Nan on having married one of the best fellows in a tight place that he ever wanted to see.
    â€œ He won’t tell you how we fought twenty brigands in Anatolia, or the story of the one-eyed commissar—but I will some day. I’ve no false modesty—it don’t pay in my profession.”
    Nan smiled at him, the smile that brought the dimples.
    â€œWhat is it?” she said. “Your profession, I mean. What are you?”
    â€œA Rolling Stone,” said Ferdinand Fazackerley with a flourish.
    He picked up the tin hat-box and the Gladstone bag.
    â€œ Lord , F.F.!” said Jervis. “Where did you get that relic? I thought the last Gladstone bag faded out before the war.”
    â€œIt’s a good little grip,” said Ferdinand, “and a real antique into the bargain. If I was to tell you that I got this grip from a man that got it from Enrico Caruso with a dossier showing it had belonged way back in Victoria’s day to the late William Ewart Gladstone himself—what would you say?”
    Nan saw Jervis laugh, and felt the thrill of a young mother whose child does something new. She hadn’t seen him laugh before. It changed his face; it softened it. It made Nan’s heart dance.
    â€œWhat would you say?” said Mr Fazackerley.
    â€œI should say you were a first-class liar, F.F.,” said Jervis.

IX
    Mr Fazackerley left Nan and Jervis standing where he had found, them. He shook them both warmly by the hand, adjured them to remember that they were dining with him at the Luxe at a quarter to eight, and left them, to be instantly engulfed by a stream of outgoing passengers exactly like the one from which he had been, as it were, thrown up. An eddy caught him, and he and his rucksack, his Gladstone bag, his camera, and his bright yellow boots were absorbed.
    Nan and Jervis looked at each other, and for a moment a shared glint of humour gave to each of them a sense of intimacy. To be able to laugh at the same things is one of the three indissoluble bonds. If only for a moment, it linked them.
    Nan said, “What a lamb !”
    And Jervis said, “Good old F.F.!”
    And then the moment passed. The laughter went out of Nan’s eyes.
    â€œYou’ll explain about my not being able to dine with him—won’t you?” she said.
    Jervis put his head back a little; it made his chin jut out. It was an obstinate chin.
    â€œWhy can’t you dine with him?”
    If Nan had assumed that she was going dine with them, Jervis would probably have felt annoyed. Since she assumed that she was not going to make an unwanted third, he at once discovered a number of good reasons why she should do so.
    â€œYou’ll have heaps to say to each other. I should be in the way.”
    â€œWell, if you don’t come, he’ll think you’re offended.”
    Nan considered this for a moment.
    â€œDo you want me to come?” she said when the moment was over.
    Jervis relaxed, smiled quite unexpectedly, and answered,
    â€œWell, I do—if it wouldn’t bore you too much.”
    â€œOh, it wouldn’t bore me.”
    â€œYou see,” he said, “if you don’t come, he’ll think it odd, or he’ll think you’re angry. I’m very fond of F.F. and I’d hate to have his feelings hurt that way, and—” He hesitated, then flashed her a look of something like appeal. “I—it struck me there isn’t really any reason why he should think there’s anything unusual about—us.”
    â€œI’ll come if you want me to,” said Nan.
    Their eyes met, and Jervis felt something that he had not