The Man in the Twilight Part 36

"We're out to buy you or break you, and I shall play the part they a.s.sign me in the game. Oh, I've nothing to hide. I've no excuse to make.

You will fight your battle, and we shall fight ours. Maybe we shall learn to hate each other in the course of it. I don't know. Yet there's nothing personal in the fight. That's the queer thing in commercial warfare, isn't it? I'd be glad for our two concerns to run right along side by side. But they can't. They just can't. And, as I understand, one or the other's got to go right to the wall before we're through. Can't all this be saved? Must all this sort of--bloodshed--go on? We're two great enterprises, and, combined, we'd be just that much greater.

Together we'd rule the whole world's markets and dictate our own terms.

And then, and then--"

"We'd be doing the thing I'm out to stop--if it costs me all I have or am in this world."

For a moment the man's eyes forgot to smile, and Nancy was permitted to gaze on the great, absorbing purpose his manner had hitherto held concealed. She was startled at the pa.s.sionate denial, and robbed of all desire to reply.

"Here!" Bull set his elbows on the table and supported his chin on his hands. "Get this. Get it good, and all the time. I wouldn't work with the Skandinavia for all the dollars this country's presses could print.

I'm not going to hand you the reason. Some day, maybe when your folks have smashed me, or I've smashed them, I'll tell you about it. But I tell you this now, there's no sort of business arrangement I ever figgered to enter into with Elas Peterman, and there's no sort of thing in G.o.d's world ever could, or would, induce me to come to any terms of his."

Then his manner changed again, and his pa.s.sionate moment became lost in a great laugh.

"Maybe you'll want to know why I changed my plans so easily, and came along down in a hurry to see Peterman. Why I seemed ready to fall for his proposition. Well, I guess I won't hand you the reason of that, either. I'd like to, but I won't." He shook his head and his laugh had gone again. "Anyway, it served my purpose, and Peterman knows just how things stand--and are going to stand--between us."

"Then it's war? Ruthless, implacable--war?" There was awe in the girl's tone and her lips were dry. She sipped her wine quickly to moisten them, and set the gla.s.s down with a hand that was not quite steady. Bull saw the signs of distress.

"Oh, yes, it's war all right," he said quietly. "Maybe it's ruthless, implacable. But it's part of the game. Don't worry a thing. You're in the enemy lines. You've got your duty. So far you've done your duty; and you've made good, and will get the reward you need. Well, go right on doing that duty, and there isn't a just creature on G.o.d's earth that'll have right to blame you. I won't blame you. Go right on; and when it's all through, I'll be ready to sit here with you again, and talk and laugh over it, as we've been doing--"

He broke off. A frightened look had leapt into Nancy's eyes. She was no longer attending to him. She was watching the tall, squarely military figure of a man moving down one of the aisles between the softly lit tables. The man's dark eyes were searching over the room, as he followed the head waiter conducting him to the table that had been reserved for him. Bull turned and followed the direction of the girl's gaze. And as he did so he encountered the cold, unsmiling glance of the other man's eyes. It was only for an instant. Then he turned back to the girl.

"Friend Peterman," he said.

Nancy made a pretence of eating.

"Yes," she said, without raising her eyes.

Nancy's emotion was painfully obvious. Bull realised it. She was afraid.

Why? A swift thought flashed through the man's mind, to be followed by a feeling such as he had never known before. Hitherto Elas Peterman had represented only a sufficiently worthy adversary who must be encountered and defeated. Now, all in a moment, that was changed into something fiercer, more furiously human and abiding.

"Does it matter?" he asked very quietly.

Nancy looked up from her plate. There was a flicker of a smile in the eyes that a moment before had expressed only apprehension. She shook her head.

"I don't know--yet," she said. Her smile deepened. "You see, I refused to dine with him here to-night. I excused myself on a plea of weariness.

I really did want rest. But--well, I didn't want to dine with him, anyway. He's seen me--with you."

"Do you often dine with him?"

The man had no smile in response, and his question came swiftly.

"I've never dined with him."

Bull sat back. His eyes were smiling.

"Well, I guess the answer's easy. You're here fighting for the Skandinavia. And I'd say you've been doing it mighty well. Maybe Peterman'll feel sore, but he'll see it that way after--awhile."

CHAPTER XIII

DEEPENING WATERS

Nancy thought long and earnestly over her breakfast. She thought deeply as she proceeded to her office. Even the business of again taking up the thread of her work failed to absorb her.

Apprehension disturbed, and a certain sense of guilt weighed upon her.

The vision of the tall figure of Elas Peterman as it moved down the dining-room at the Chateau remained with her. She had caught the glance of his dark eyes. She knew he had recognised her; and there had been neither smile nor recognition in the swift exchange that had pa.s.sed between them.

So she answered the usual morning summons of her chief without any pleasant antic.i.p.ation. She expected a bad time, and strove to prepare herself for it.

But alarm vanished the moment she ushered herself into the man's presence. He was not at his desk poring over his littered correspondence. She found him standing before his favourite window, gazing out reflectively upon the grey light of the early winter day. He turned at the sound of her entry, and his smile of greeting lacked nothing of its usual cordiality.

Had she observed him a moment before it must have been different. But she had been spared all sight of the mood that had driven him to abandon urgent correspondence in favour of the drab outlook beyond the window.

It was a bad expression. It was the expression of a man of fierce cruelty. It was not an expression of open, hot anger, which flares up, pa.s.ses, and is forgotten like the fury of a summer storm. It was rather the slowly banking clouds of winter, piling up for a climax that should be devastating. And through it all he had smiled, smiled with angry eyes that seemed to grow colder and harder every moment.

Nancy knew little of the world, and less of men and women. It could not have been otherwise. Vital with a youthful optimism and strong purpose, she had devoted herself to work to the exclusion of everything else. And before that there had only been the scrupulous care of the good matrons of Marypoint. A wider experience, a maturer mind would have yielded her doubt as she beheld the man's smiling greeting now. She would have reminded herself of her offence, and understood its enormity in the eyes of a man. She would have had a better appreciation of her own attractions, and would have long since understood this man's regard for her.

As it was she s.n.a.t.c.hed at the relief his smile inspired.

The man laughingly shook his head as the girl approached.

"Nancy, my dear, I hope Mr. Bull Sternford gave you as good a dinner as I would have given you, and--as good a time generally. You look well rested, anyway."

There was a sting in the words that all the man's care could not quite shut out. But the tone was of intended good-nature. In a moment Nancy was explaining.

"Oh, I know you must think me terribly mean," she cried impulsively.

"You must think I was just lying to you when you asked me to dine yesterday. But it wasn't so. It surely wasn't. May I tell you about it?"

The man came back to his desk, and indicated the empty chair beside it.

"Sure, if you feel that way," he said, dropping into his seat while Nancy took hers. "But I'm not angry. Truth I'm not." For a moment he gazed smilingly into the girl's troubled eyes. "Here," he went on. "I'll tell you just how I think. Maybe you won't figger it flattering, but it's just plain truth. Now I'm a married man and you're a young girl.

Well, the Chateau isn't the sort of place for you and me to be seen together in. I didn't think of it when I asked you. I just wanted to hand you a good time for the good work you've done. Sort of prize for a good girl, eh? I hadn't another thought about it. And when you refused me, and I thought it over, I was kind of glad--I might have compromised you, and I certainly would have compromised myself. You get that? You understand me? Of course you do. That's what I like. You're so darn sensible. Now you tell me--if you fancy to?"

Nancy sighed her relief. Her last cloud had pa.s.sed away.

"Oh, yes," she began at once. "I do want to tell you. You see I think it's all-important."

"Yes."

The man's smile was unchanged. But there was a dryness in his monosyllable that only Nancy could have missed.

"Mr. Sternford 'phoned me after his interview with you."

"He had your 'phone number?"

"Surely, I gave him that before he left me after driving up from the docks."