Men of Affairs Part 6

"What is it you want to know?"

"I want to be told what you're doing 'cos I've a funny feeling it isn't--oh! I don't know."

"You extraordinary child. It's perfectly all right. Rather important, that's all. There's nothing for you to bother about. I was going to tell you because I shall have to be away for three weeks and I thought----"

"Three weeks? But we were going to be married on----"

"Yes, that's rotten part. Still the invitations haven't gone out--and if we were to put it off ten days to be on the safe side----"

"Our wedding!" she said.

"I wouldn't have had it happen for the world. It's frightful bad luck but----"

Isabel drew up her knees. Very little and lovely she looked. Her big brown eyes were open wide and her lower lip was drawn in. A shock of chestnut hair framed the sweet oval of her face. Tony had said she was like a serious angel and he was right.

She nodded twice.

"It must be very important," she said, "if we have to postpone our wedding. I see."

"You don't see," he said edging closer to her. "You can't because I haven't wanted to worry you with details, but it is important--enormously important."

"More important than I am?"

"'Course not."

"Yet it takes you away from me."

"Only for a little while--and look, dear, I don't want you to tell anyone I'm going."

"Why not?"

"Because--well, it mustn't be known."

"Tony, is--is what you have to do dangerous?"

He answered evasively.

"What I have to do--no."

"Then let me come too. We could be married first. I don't want a fas.h.i.+onable wedding. Let's do that."

He hesitated.

"Couldn't be done, dear. It wouldn't be----"

"Safe?"

"Practicable."

"You don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you," he said putting his arms round her. "I've trusted you from the moment we first met and I'm going on trusting you all the rest of my life. Isn't that good enough?"

"Not nearly," she answered and rose to her feet.

"Isabel," he said very seriously. "When I tell you that there are huge interests at stake--that all this is for something that--that defeats imagination, surely you will take my word."

She pressed a finger to her chin.

"Huge interests means money."

"It does," he replied, "but money on a colossal scale--illimitable.

Doesn't that appeal to you?"

"No," she said. "I've all I want and you're well enough off. What's the good of more?"

"Just listen," he said. "If I bring off this deal there is no wish in the world one couldn't gratify, and bring it off I shall."

He started to pace up and down the narrow floor s.p.a.ce of the tiny room, his hands opening and shutting and a light of enthusiasm dancing in his eyes. It was not the money face he wore as he spoke but the expression of the man of deeds, the man who joyed in accomplishment, in vanquis.h.i.+ng difficulty, in facing long odds, buoyed up and carried along by the will to win.

"You can't understand, my dear, all this means to me and will mean to you. I haven't even imagined it myself. Think! We could buy islands, build hospitals, govern nations if the mood prompted us. And all for three weeks' work. Lord, it's--Oh! if I could make you see how big it is--how magnificent."

And womanlike she responded,

"I want you, Tony, the rest only frightens me."

"Forget the money," he said, "and bear this in mind. If I succeed the world will be richer by a tremendous healing force."

"A medicine?"

"Call it a medicine. It's lying out in the open within a little march of the common ways of men and women. I tumbled on the find by a stroke of luck and a little knowledge and a word inside me that whispered, 'Look, go and look.' You've read Kipling's 'Explorer'--I read it you.

'Something lost behind the ranges--something hidden, go you there.' It was like that with me--a pringly feeling--a kind of second sense--expectancy--belief--certainty. Nature has a trick of showing the combination of her treasure safe to one man before the rest--and I was the man."

The little chestnut head shook helplessly from side to side.

"What is it you've found?" said Isabel.

He looked at her searchingly and hesitated.

"If I tell you you'll keep it secret?"

"Yes."

"Honest?"

"Honest."

He dropped his voice.