The Pursuit Part 19

She made a quick, restless movement.

"Suspect you!" she cried. "You!"

"Yes," he said slowly. "That day in the town, and on the pier, at the Tent Club meeting, even--was not that in your mind?"

His voice was not reproachful, merely inquiring.

She flushed.

"The first time I suspected every one," she answered. "The second time I discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, your name."

He nodded.

"And now?" he questioned. "And now?"

"Now?" she repeated. "Have you not given me my proofs?"

"Have I?" His voice was eager. "I can reckon that barrier down then? The taint of the name is cleared away? I start with no handicap of prejudice?"

Again the form of words half bewildered, half exasperated her. Start?

Start whither, in what race, to what goal? And were there barriers to be won, too? Between him and--what?

Her instinct gave her the answer as it had done the day before. But she shrank from the acknowledgment, even to herself. The thought was too monstrous. An Aylmer and--and that! The blood rushed to her forehead on the tide of her resentment. And then as suddenly ebbed. After all, was it not the name alone which sent that surging throb of repulsion through her veins? Supposing she had met this man, in ignorance. She started again. Had she not so met him, at first? She cudgelled her brains in reflection. How did she regard him that morning at the Tent Club, before she knew? Had he not seemed a personable, even a gallant and courageous soldier, worthy of a woman's regard? She looked at him suddenly, curiously, with a sort of speculation in her eyes.

And he met the glance quietly, watchfully, and--so she told herself with a recurrent thrill of exasperation--relentlessly as well. It was as if he was forcing her to be won from prejudice to impartiality. As if he willed her into just thinking against herself. A tiny spasm of fear pulsed through her. In a clash of purpose who would win, she or this man?

She made him a gesture which had about it the sense of appeal.

"One cannot dismiss prejudices; one can fight them," she faltered.

"Ah!"

He sighed, not with weariness, but with a sort of patience, with restraint. "I think perhaps women do not accept mere justice as a plea so easily as men," he debated. "So I must not presume on that footing. I have still to win my way from ... dislike?"

"No!" she cried sharply. "No! I can be just to what you have done. What you are--that I have yet to learn, have I not?"

He smiled a little bitterly.

"I am an Aylmer. That is the lesson you have got by heart. I ask you to begin by unlearning."

She caught her breath a little quickly. Then she gave a decided little nod.

"Very well," she answered. "I--I will forget everything but the fact that you saved the boy once and that you--"

"Will do it again," said Aylmer. "That is a bargain?"

Again she hesitated over the form of words. A bargain? What was her side of the contract. If he fulfilled the purpose of which he spoke so confidently, what did it mean, from her point of view? She avoided the issue.

"You will find the child, you will bring him back?" she wondered.

"Of course!" He sat very erect in his chair. He smiled confidently. "In a fight between a rogue and honest men, the honest men win ultimately, and always. The green bay tree of the unrighteous grows with luxuriance but withers in time inevitably. I shall follow him till I win."

"And your career?" she asked incredulously. "Your profession?"

He smiled.

"That will be my career--to defeat Landon. Is it a reputable one for a gentleman?"

She made a motion of protest.

"But--but that is self-sacrifice, one which we couldn't accept. Why should you do this for us?"

He shook his head again.

"No," he said. "I must repeat it, I work for myself. I seek my own interest, and that, in the first place, is to make you just. I see but the one way to do it. I have to convince you that I am in earnest, have I not?"

Again that baffling allusion. In earnest in what? In defeating Landon, in attempting the rescue of the child? Surely he had proved that already. And yet how could she counter a point which she could not help allowing she now understood; how could she do it without the loss of dignity implied in an explanation? But it was grotesque. He had known her a bare week. He had met her on four occasions.

She looked up, met his eyes, and dropped her own. A tiny sense of panic overtook her. He sat there, indomitable. Suppose--suppose he ultimately made his purpose good. She made herself look at him again. He had, at any rate, good looks to recommend him. And courage and the respect of his fellows. But--again a wave of exasperation flowed over her mind. Oh, it was outrageous, unthinkable. An Aylmer--another Aylmer. Unconsciously her lips curved in a half sarcastic smile. Why, the very newspapers of the world would pile headline upon headline over such a fiasco. She stiffened with resentment, with a sense of being played with. Her voice was chill with a note of dignity outraged.

"I think the fact of your proposing to devote time and strength to the pursuit of--of your cousin is a very convincing one, Captain Aylmer,"

she answered. "The point is that we have no right to accept so much from you."

He smiled joyously.

"I shall always want to be giving, to you. Always, always. Please understand that. My service is to you, and so to myself. Try to think of me in that light, patiently."

And then a sort of desperation seized her. She probed her mind for a form of words which should give him no further loophole to persist in his veiled menaces, for she could call them no less, one that should seize a meaning out of his allusions and crush it with a directness which could not be misunderstood. Her eyes grew hard; she rose to her feet.

A step sounded in the hall, and the hangings were pushed aside. Her father stood before them.

He looked at Aylmer with amazed reproach. His face, already haggard with anxiety, took on new lines of concern.

"My dear sir!" he protested. "My dear sir!"

And Aylmer could not resist a smile. It was the form of protest which he had used at their former meeting to veil--what? Antipathy? And now? The words were full of genuine concern. He read no longer dislike in Mr. Van Arlen's glance. The elder man's eyes had softened as they reached his.

He warded off further reproaches with a question.

"The news?" he cried eagerly. "The news is what?"

"Good, in so far that we can gauge the direction of their flight. They have been seen pa.s.sing Arzeila; the morning's gale has prevented their attempt to reach any port of Spain."

"And so--?"

"And so we start in pursuit with my yacht, within the hour."

Aylmer stood up.