The Crime and the Criminal Part 32

"I understand you. I thank you, not only for what you say, but also for what you leave unsaid. I am not only going to turn over a new leaf, Miss Jardine; I am going to commence a new volume. Though I shall always feel, myself, that you have commenced it for me."

"I am content, so long as it is a volume of a certain kind."

What did she mean? I seldom knew quite what she did mean. She puzzled me almost as much as her father. She was not like the average girl one bit. As she looked at me with her curiously smiling eyes, with the suggestion of strength which they conveyed to me, I felt that it was probable that she knew much more of the contents of my volume, the one which I claimed to be just closing, than I was likely to know of hers.

"Do you know, Miss Jardine, that you are making of me a proselyte."

"In what sense?"

"I have never, hitherto, believed in the influence of women. You are making of me a believer."

"That certain women have influence over certain men I think there can be no doubt whatever. I have influence over you; you have influence over me. Only"--she stopped my speaking with a movement of her fan--"I should be on my guard against your influence over me until I felt that my influence over you had produced certain results."

"I suppose that any attempts on my part to guard against your influence would be vain."

"You would not attempt to make them. You are not that kind of man."

"Miss Jardine!"

"You are not. You would not attempt to resist the influence of any woman. You would rather welcome it as a sort of study in sensation, as far as it would go. But it would not go far. It would soon reach a bed-rock of resistance. As soon as it reached that rock it would vanish into nothing."

"You flatter me by making so close a study of my peculiarities."

"I do not flatter you. I take an interest in you, because, for one reason, you take an interest in me. Now, Mr. Townsend, I am sure that I should find that bed-rock of resistance at a greater distance from the surface. If ever you welcomed my influence you might find it go much farther than you had at first intended. So I warn you in advance."

I was silenced, not so much by her words as by her bearing. Her eyes had an effect on me which no eyes had ever had on me before. They mastered me, and made me conscious of a sense of satisfaction at being mastered.

"You make me afraid of you."

"Just now you said I gave you courage."

"The two things are compatible. Fear of you might give me courage."

"You mean fear of appearing contemptible to me?"

"Exactly."

"Then that sort of courage I should like to give you." A gleam came into her eyes which was almost like a flash of lightning. "Perhaps I will."

"Do I not tell you that you have given me a taste of it already?"

We might have reached delicate ground. When a man and a woman deal in personalities, and persevere in them, a situation of some sort is apt to ensue. Archie's appearance postponed the crisis which I was beginning to think was nearer even than I had supposed. Archie seemed in a condition of almost feverish exaltation. In the look with which he favoured me there was something which certainly was not altogether friendly. Dora did not seem to notice it. She welcomed him with a smile. As he sat down on the other side of her I got up. I left them together.

"Poor chap!" I told myself as I strolled off, "let him have his innings. He must be badly burned or he would make a more strenuous endeavour to avoid the fire."

Lounging into the little drawing-room beyond, I came into collision with the aunt. She had the place to herself. She appeared to be just waking up from the enjoyment of forty winks. I daresay if I had not come upon the scene she would have had another. At the sight of me she roused. She beckoned me to occupy an adjacent chair. She was the aunt, and I still was unattached. I sat beside her.

"What do you think of Dora?" Her tone was confidential. She spoke to me under cover of her handkerchief. Seeing that I was puzzled, she explained--"I mean, how do you think she's looking?"

"I think she's looking very well."

"Isn't she! Wonderfully well! Don't you think she's lovely?"

I hardly knew what to say. She could scarcely expect me to be ecstatic.

"Indeed I do."

"Of course you would!" She smiled--such a smile. "And she's all she looks, and more. She is good as she is beautiful, and so clever.

Extraordinarily so! She's a wonderful girl!" She closed her eyes, as if the wonder was too great for visual contemplation. "I often think that it is unfortunate that she was not born a man."

"You can scarcely expect me to agree with you there."

"You wicked creature!" She prodded me with her fat fingers in the arm.

Mrs. Crashaw was one of those old women who, whenever they can, punctuate their remarks on the persons of their listeners. She arranged her bracelets on her wrists. "Haselton tells me that he has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Townsend."

"I am very glad to hear it. I only hope he does not think more highly of me than I deserve."

"I hope not. Young men nowadays are so wicked. They deserve so little.

As you probably are aware, Mr. Townsend, I am Haselton's only sister.

He reposes in me his entire confidence. He has no secrets from me."

I believed her! She might be his only sister, but Sir Haselton Jardine was as likely to repose his entire confidence in a woman of Mrs.

Crashaw's type as in the first town crier. Whatever he told her would probably be told with, at least, one eye to advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"My brother Haselton is a man of peculiar gifts. A remarkable man. A man of genius if ever there was one. He is, of course, respected by all of us, by his country and his Queen. He has a marvellous knowledge of the world, and a great esteem for those sacred things which are too often disregarded. And when I learn that he has a high opinion of any person I know that that person must be all right upon the moral side. I am glad, Mr. Townsend, to be able to think this of you."

I looked down. I could not help but smile.

"Thank you, Mrs. Crashaw; you are very good."

"In this age of flippancy, the most shocking things are suffered. I hear, I a.s.sure you, of things which would astound you. I have made Haselton's hair stand up on end. It always gives me pleasure to hear of a young man who is not only clever but good. For my part, let them say what they will, I think it is better to be good than clever. I hope, Mr. Townsend, that you will always bear that in mind."

Again she prodded me in the arm. I could but bow my head.

"The man who marries Dora will be a most fortunate man. She has money of her own. She will have money from her father. She may have money from me--mind, I make no promise--I say she may have. It depends." Mrs.

Crashaw smoothed out her ample skirts in front of her. "Then there is the family influence and position. With a clever girl like Dora for a wife nothing ought to be impossible to her husband."

The dear old thing might be prosy, but it did me good to hear her talking. Such observations, coming from such a quarter, carried weight and meaning. They meant that my position looked already as if it was a.s.sured. They meant that the whole thing--spontaneously, so far as I was concerned--had been threshed out in family councils, and that then the decision had been given for me. The thing seemed too good to be true; and yet it was true--here was the living witness. I was in for a stroke of fortune so stupendous as to seem to verge on the miraculous.

If only I had known of it before last Sunday! If only I had suspected that the thing was even possible! Why had I been so blind? Why had I not seen it coming? Why had Sir Haselton not dropped a hint in time?

Oh, if he only had!

But the game was not yet lost. Lost?--it was all but gained! I had but to breast the tape, and win. The riding would do it. Luck was on my side.

I turned in early. I had had little enough of bed the night before. I wanted to get up fit, with a clear eye and steady hand. I did not want Innes to beat me too badly with the birds. One likes to hold one's own, whatever is the game.

In the corridor, as I was making for the sheets, who should I meet but Dora. She thought that I was going to make changes in my costume, to fit me for the smoking-room.

"Going to change your coat?"