That night Granby came to Laurence’s chamber, and knocking quietly asked him to go out. They went together through the courtyard and ascended the terraces that mounted up the hillside, silently; at the summit they looked down upon the broad plaza circled by the blue-gas lamps, and the orange glow of firelight out of the windows of the hall. “I suppose I am a fool; it didn’t occur to me at first any of it could really be true—still less that Hammond could really mean it to happen, and now—” Granby stopped.
“I scarcely know how to counsel you,” Laurence said, troubled; he had been no less reluctant to make himself over to be a pawn in Hammond’s negotiations in China, even if they had ended greatly to his advantage; and the present arrangement should mean a far greater upheaval for Granby.
“It’s worse than that,” Granby said. “Laurence, I can’t marry her. I know I ought to have spoken at once, and not left it so late; but there—it would scarce have made much of a difference, when Iskierka has kept the whole matter under her wing so long to begin with. Anyway, I couldn’t—cannot—tell Hammond. I won’t trust him so; but if I don’t tell him, I don’t know how to—what to—” He cut off the uncharacteristic stammer, and ran his hand down over his jaw, pulling it long and frustrate.
Laurence stared. “Are you already married?” he said, doubtfully.
“Oh! Lord, if only I were,” Granby said. “My sister wanted to settle one of her friends upon me; if only I had let her arrange it! Not even Hammond could ask me to become a bigamist, I suppose. No, Laurence—I—I am an invert.”
“What?” Laurence said, taken aback—the practice was scarcely unknown to him, coming from the Navy; he had known several fine officers addicted to the crime, their failing common knowledge and quietly ignored; but he had always understood it to stem from the lack of opportunity of a more natural congress, which could not be said to be the case for an aviator.
“Well, I don’t know what the cause of it is, but it hasn’t anything to do with opportunity; for me, anyway,” Granby said shortly, and they fell silent.
Laurence did not know what to say. He had never suspected Granby of being even ordinarily unchaste; and belatedly realized that in itself was evidence. “I am very sorry,” he said, after a moment. “—very sorry, indeed,” feeling the expression inadequate to the confession.
“Oh—” Granby shrugged, with one shoulder, “in the ordinary course of things, you know, it scarcely makes a difference. I have never seen the use for an aviator of battening on some girl who like as not cannot say boo to a dragon, and leaving her to sit in an empty house eleven months in twelve for the rest of her life, while you live in a covert with your beast. And for that matter, I had as soon have a little quiet discretion with another officer, as make my way in the ha’penny whorehouses outside the coverts like other fellows do.” He jerked a hand, as if to fling away the notion. “But now—this lunacy—”
“Ah,” Laurence said, braced himself, and asked, “Can you not?” steeling himself against the indelicacy of the question; but after all, on the Navy side he knew of at least Captain Farraway: eleven children, one for every home leave since his marriage, and his pattern-card wife unlikely to have strayed at all much less in so precise a fashion; so plainly it was not impossible as a matter of course—
“I can manage that if I must, I expect,” Granby said. “I would have to try and put myself out to stud to provide for Iskierka soon enough anyway. But once or twice is not the same thing as marriage. She must resent it; the Inca, I mean, and why shan’t she say ‘off with his head’ if she don’t like it?”
“If she should not learn—?” Laurence offered. “Not that I would counsel you to dishonesty,” he added, “but if it is no barrier to your duty to her—”
“It won’t do,” Granby said, bluntly. “Not that I would make a cake of myself, any more than I ever have, but I don’t undertake to be a monk the rest of my days, either. I would try and be discreet; but it is more than I expect that no-one should find out and blab to her: I shouldn’t be just some aviator, that no-one cares about, but the husband of their queen.”