The God in the Car Part 48

"I desire you not to chatter about me, Mrs. Cormack."

"Ah, what politeness! I shall say what I please," and she rose and stood facing him defiantly.

"I wish," he said, "that I could tell you what they do to gossiping women in Omof.a.ga. It is so very disagreeable--and appropriate."

"Oh, I don't mind hearing."

"I can believe it, but I mind saying."

She flushed, and her breath came more quickly.

"No doubt you will enforce the treatment--in your own interest," she said.

"You won't be there," replied he, with affected regret.

"Well, here I shall say what I please."

"And who will listen?"

"One man, at least," she cried, in incautious anger. "Ah, you'd like to beat me, wouldn't you?"

"Why suggest the impossible?" he asked, smiling. "I can't beat every----" he paused, and added with deliberateness, "every vulgar-minded woman in London;" and turning his back on her, he sat down and took up a newspaper that lay on the table.

For full five or six minutes Mrs. Cormack sat silent. Willie Ruston glanced through the leading article, and turned the paper, folding it neatly. There was a letter from a correspondent on the subject of the watersheds of Central South Africa, and he was reading it with attention. He thought that he recognised Tom Loring's hand. The watersheds of Omof.a.ga were not given their due. Ah, and here was that old falsehood about arid wastes round Fort Imperial!

"By Jove, it's too bad!" he exclaimed aloud.

Mrs. Cormack, who had for the last few moments been watching him, first with a frown, then with a half-incredulous, half-amazed smile, burst out into laughter.

"Really, one might as well be offended with a grizzly bear!" she cried.

He put down the paper, and met her gaze.

"How in the world," she went on, "does she--there, I beg your pardon.

How does anyone endure you, Mr. Ruston?"

As she spoke, before he could answer, the door opened, and Harry Dennison came in. He entered with a hesitating step. After greeting Mrs.

Cormack, he advanced towards Ruston. The latter held out his hand, and Harry took it. He did not look Ruston in the eyes.

"How are you?" said he. "You want to see me?"

"Well, for a moment, if you can spare the time--on business."

"Is it about my letter to Carlin?"

Ruston nodded. Mrs. Cormack kept a close watch.

"I--I can't alter that," said Harry, in a confused way. "Sir George is so crippled now, so much of the work falls on me; I have really no time."

"You might have left us your name."

"I couldn't do that, could I? Suppose you came to grief?" and he laughed uncomfortably.

Willie Ruston was afflicted by a sense of weakness--a vulnerability new in his experience--forbidding him to be urgent with the renegade. Had Carlin been present, he would have stood astounded at his chief's tonguetiedness. Mrs. Cormack smiled at it, and her smile, caught in a swift glance by Ruston, spurred him to a voluble appeal, that sounded to himself hollow and ineffective. It had no effect on Harry Dennison, who said little, but shook his head with unfailing resolution. Mrs. Cormack could not resist the temptation to offer matters an opportunity of development.

"But what does Maggie say to your desertion?" she asked in an innocently playful way.

Harry seemed nonplussed at the question, and Willie Ruston interposed.

"We needn't bring Mrs. Dennison into it," he said, smiling. "It's a matter of business, and if Dennison has made up his mind----"

He ended with a shrug, and took up his hat.

"I--I think so, Ruston," stumbled Harry.

"Where is Maggie?" asked Mrs. Cormack curiously. "They told me she would be in soon."

"I don't know," said Harry. "She went out driving. She's sometimes late in coming back."

Ruston was shaking hands with Mrs. Cormack, and, when he walked out, Harry followed him. The two men went downstairs in silence. Harry opened the front door. Willie Ruston held out his hand, but Harry did not this time take it. Holding the door-k.n.o.b, he looked at his visitor with a puzzled entreaty in his eyes, and his visitor suddenly felt sorry for him.

"I hope Mrs. Dennison is well?" said Ruston, after a pause.

"No," answered Harry, with rough abruptness. "She's not well. I knew how it would be; I told you. You would go."

"My dear fellow----"

"You would talk to her about your miserable Company--our Company, if you like. I knew it would do her harm. I told you so."

He was pouring out his incoherent charges and repet.i.tions in a fretful petulance.

"The doctor says her nerves are all wrong; she must be left alone. I see it. She's not herself."

"Then that," said Ruston, "is the real reason why you're severing yourself from us?"

"I don't want her to hear anything more about it; she got absorbed in it. I told you she would, but you wouldn't listen. Tom Loring thought just the same. But you would go."

"Is she ill?"

"Oh, I don't know that she's ill. She's--she's not herself. She's strange."

The note of distress in his voice grew more acute as he went on.

"I'm very sorry," said Willie, baldly. "Give her my best----"

"If you want to see me again about it, I--you'll always know where to find me in the City, won't you?" He shuffled his feet nervously, and twisted the door-k.n.o.b as he spoke.

"You mean," asked Ruston, slowly, "that I'd better not come here?"