The Secret War Read Online Free Page A

traffic as it hurtled towards them, while Lovelace, naturally a rather silent man, was busy with his own thoughts.
    The car swung right after passing through Baysbore and turned in through a pair of tall gates with a lodge on one side. The drive wound through ancient trees, and ended in a wide sweep before a long, low, rambling house. Lovelace saw just enough of its front, as the headlights swept the porch and balconies, to realise that it was old, creeper-covered and mellowed by time. Actually it was the original home of Christopher’s branch of the Penn family, and except that its big stables were now garages and the house had all the additional comforts that modern science could supply, it was little altered from what it had been when Abraham Lincoln was a boy.
    As a servant came out to take over the car, the deafening roar of an aeroplane engine sounded overhead.
    â€œThat chap’s flying pretty low,” remarked Lovelace.
    â€œIt’s not a chap; it’s Valerie, I expect. Her people are our nearest neighbours. Have been for generations. She’s my fiancée, you know.”
    Lovelace looked at the young American with some surprise as they passed into the house. He could well understand any girl falling for such a handsome fellow. Women would be certain to find his black eyes beneath their curling lashes “romantic,” and his unusual pallor “interesting.” Yet he did not strike the Englishman as a woman’s man at all. It was difficult to imagine him making love. He seemed such a spiritual type—almost as though he lived in a world apart.
    â€œHardly flying weather, particularly for a girl,” Lovelace added after a moment.
    â€œOh, Valerie’s all right.” The reply was casual. “She can fly as well as most men, or better, and anyhow, she’ll have landed and be safe at home by now. Come along in.”
    He led the way into a square, book-lined room and pushed a couple of arm-chairs up to an old-fashioned open hearth, upon which a bright fire was burning. “You’ll excuse me for a moment while I give some orders, won’t you? There are the drinks and cigarettes. Help yourself. I shan’t be long.”
    â€œThanks.” Lovelace poured himself a drink and sat down, thrusting his feet forward to the blaze, but a moment later he drew them sharply up again and leaned forward to peer at a solitary photograph which occupied a prominent position on the mantelpiece.
    It was that of a girl, and he judged her to be about twenty-five. The style of hairdressing showed that it was quite a recent portrait, but it was difficult to guess if her hair were golden or brown. The eyes were large, but rather pale in the photograph, which gave them an almost magnetic look and made Lovelace suspect that they were grey. They were set under dead-straight brows, giving the young face a look of tremendouspersonality and determination. It would have been almost forbidding had it not been for the mobile mouth and for an enormous, but somehow quite incongruous dimple under the curve of the left cheek.
    Certain in his own mind that he knew the original of the portrait, he stood up to examine it more closely, but he searched his memory in vain for a clue. He was still gazing at it when his host returned.
    â€œSorry,” Lovelace apologised. “You must think me an ill-mannered fellow staring at your friend.”
    â€œOh, no. That’s Valerie, the girl we were talking about just now.”
    â€œYes, I think I guessed that; but the strange thing is I’m sure I’ve met her, and for the life of me I can’t think where.”
    Penn laughed. “That’s easily explained: she’s Valerie Lorne, the flying ace, and she holds all sorts of records. You must have seen photographs of her in the Press a hundred times.”
    â€œOf course, how stupid of me!” Lovelace shrugged. Yet although he had never seen the famous air-woman in the flesh