With Edged Tools Part 27

The black eyes seemed to probe the good-natured, sensual face of Maurice Gordon, so keen, so searching was their glance.

"And I would be willing to do it--to make that man's fortune--provided--that he was--my brother-in-law."

"What the devil do you mean?" asked Gordon, setting down the gla.s.s that was half raised to his lips.

"I mean that I want to marry--Jocelyn."

And the modern school of realistic, mawkishly foul novelists, who hold that Love excuseth all, would have taken delight in the pa.s.sionate rendering of the girl's name.

"Want to marry Jocelyn, do you?" answered Maurice, with a derisive little laugh. On the first impulse of the moment he gave no thought to himself or his own interests, and spoke with undisguised contempt. He might have been speaking to a beggar on the roadside.

Durnovo's eyes flashed dangerously, and his tobacco-stained teeth clenched for a moment over his lower lip.

"That is my desire--and intention."

"Look here, Durnovo!" exclaimed Gordon. "Don't be a fool! Can't you see that it is quite out of the question?"

He attempted weakly to dismiss the matter by leaning forward on his writing-table, taking up his pen, and busying himself with a number of papers.

Victor Durnovo rose from his chair so hastily that in a flash Maurice Gordon's hand was in the top right-hand drawer of his writing-table.

The good-natured blue eyes suddenly became fixed and steady. But Durnovo seemed to make an effort over himself, and walked to the window, where he drew aside the woven-gra.s.s blind and looked out into the glaring sunlight. Still standing there, he turned and spoke in a low, concentrated voice:

"No," he said, "I can't see that it is out of the question. On the contrary, it seems only natural that she should marry the man who is her brother's partner in many a little--speculation."

Maurice Gordon, sitting there, staring hopelessly into the half-breed's yellow face, saw it all. He went back in a flash of recollection to many pa.s.sing details which had been unnoted at the time--details which now fitted into each other like the links of a chain--and that chain was around him. He leapt forward in a momentary opening of the future, and saw himself ruined, disgraced, held up to the execration of the whole civilised world. He was utterly in this man's power--bound hand and foot. He could not say him no. And least of all could he say no to this demand, which had roused all the latent chivalry, gentlemanliness, brotherly love, that was in him. Maurice Gordon knew that Victor Durnovo possessed knowledge which Jocelyn would consider cheap at the price of her person.

There was one way out of it. His hand was still on the handle of the top right-hand drawer. He was a dead shot. His finger was within two inches of the stock of a revolver. One bullet for Victor Durnovo, another for himself. Then the old training of his school days--the training that makes an upright, honest gentleman--a.s.serted itself, and he saw the cowardice of it. There was time enough for that later, when the crisis came. In the meantime, if the worst came to the worst, he could fight to the end.

"I don't think," said Durnovo, who seemed to be following Gordon's thoughts, "that the idea would be so repellent to your sister as you seem to think."

And a sudden ray of hope shot athwart the future into which his listener was staring. It might be so. One can never tell with women. Maurice Gordon had had considerable experience of the world, and, after all, he was only building up hope upon precedent. He knew, as well as you or I, that women will dance and flirt with--even marry--men who are not gentlemen. Not only for the moment, but as a permanency, something seems to kill their perception of a fact which is patent to every educated man in the room; and one never knows what it is. One can only surmise that it is that thirst for admiration which does more harm in the world than the thirst for alcoholic stimulant which we fight with societies and guilds, oaths and little snips of ribbon.

"The idea never entered my head," said Gordon.

"It has never been out of mine," replied Durnovo, with a little harsh laugh which was almost pathetic. "I don't want you to do anything now," he went on more gently. It was wonderful how well he knew Maurice Gordon. The suggested delay appealed to one side of his nature, the softened tone to another. "There is time enough. When I come back I will speak of it again."

"You have not spoken to her?"

"No, I have not spoken to her."

Maurice Gordon shook his head.

"She is a queer girl," he said, trying to conceal the hope that was in his voice. "She is cleverer than me, you know, and all that. My influence is very small, and would scarcely be considered.

"But your interests would," suggested Durnovo. "Your sister is very fond of you, and--I think I have one or two arguments to put forward which she would recognise as uncommonly strong."

The colour which had been returning slowly to Maurice Gordon's face now faded away again. His lips were dry and shrivelled as if he had pa.s.sed through a sirocco.

"Mind," continued Durnovo rea.s.suringly, "I don't say I would use them unless I suspected that you were acting in opposition to my wishes."

Gordon said nothing. His heart was throbbing uncomfortably--it seemed to be in his throat.

"I would not bring forward those arguments except as a last resource,"

went on Victor Durnovo, with the deliberate cruelty of a tyrant. "I would first point out the advantages; a fourth share in the Simiacine scheme would make you a rich man--above suspicion--independent of the gossip of the market-place."

Maurice Gordon winced visibly, and his eyes wavered as if he were about to give way to panic.

"You could retire and go home to England--to a cooler climate. This country might get too hot for your const.i.tution--see?"

Durnovo came back into the centre of the room and stood by the writing-table. His att.i.tude was that of a man holding a whip over a cowering dog.

He took up his hat and riding-whip with a satisfied little laugh, as if the dog had cringingly done his bidding.

"Besides," he said, with a certain defiance of manner, "I may succeed without any of that--eh?"

"Yes," Gordon was obliged to admit with a gulp, as if he were swallowing his pride, and he knew that in saying the word he was degrading his sister--throwing her at this man's feet as the price of his honour.

With a half-contemptuous nod Victor Durnovo turned, and went away to keep his appointment with Meredith.

CHAPTER XX. BROUGHT TO THE SCRATCH

Take heed of still waters; they quick pa.s.s away.

Guy Oscard was sitting on the natural terrace in front of Durnovo's house at Msala, and Marie attended to his simple wants with that patient dignity which suggested the recollection of better times, and appealed strongly to the manhood of her fellow-servant Joseph.

Oscard was not good at the enunciation of those small amenities which are supposed to soothe the feelings of the temporarily debased. He vaguely felt that this woman was not accustomed to menial service, but he knew that any suggestion of sympathy was more than he could compa.s.s.

So he merely spoke to her more gently than to the men, and perhaps she understood, despite her chocolate-coloured skin.

They had inaugurated a strange, unequal friends.h.i.+p during the three days that Oscard had been left alone at Msala. Joseph had been promoted to the command of a certain number of the porters, and his domestic duties were laid aside. Thus Marie was called upon to attend to Guy Oscard's daily wants.

"I think I'll take coffee," he was saying to her in reply to a question.

"Yes--coffee, please, Marie."

He was smoking one of his big wooden pipes, staring straight in front of him with a placidity natural to his bulk.

The woman turned away with a little smile. She liked this big man with his halting tongue and quiet ways. She liked his awkward attempts to conciliate the coquette Xantippe--to extract a smile from the grave Nestorius, and she liked his manner towards herself. She liked the poised pipe and the jerky voice as he said, "Yes--coffee, please, Marie."

Women do like these things--they seem to understand them and to attach some strange, subtle importance of their own to them. For which power some of us who have not the knack of turning a pretty phrase or throwing off an appropriate pleasantry may well be thankful.

Presently she returned, bringing the coffee on a rough tray, also a box of matches and Oscard's tobacco pouch. Noting this gratuitous attention to his comfort, he looked up with a little laugh.

"Er--thank you," he said. "Very kind."

He did not put his pipe back to his lips--keenly alive to the fact that the exigency of the moment demanded a little polite exchange of commonplace.