Antony Gray-Gardener Part 2

"Tallish man, sir; wears corduroys. Dark hair and eyes; looks straight at you, sir."

"Hmm. Very good. Perhaps I wasn't a fool," he was thinking.

"Do you know Mr. Curtis?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir." This came very shortly.

"Should you call him--er, a hard man?" asked Nicholas smoothly.

Again amazement fell on Jessop's soul, revealing itself momentarily in his features. And again the amazement was concealed.

"He's a good business man, sir," came the cautious reply.

"You mean--?" suggested Nicholas.

"A good business man isn't ordinarily what you'd call tender-like," said Jessop grimly.

Nicholas flashed a glance of amus.e.m.e.nt at him.

"I suppose not," he replied dryly.

There was a pause.

"Do the tenants ever ask to see me?" demanded Nicholas.

"They used to, sir. Now they save their shoe-leather coming up the drive."

"Ah, you told them--?"

"Your orders, sir. You saw no one."

"I see." Nicholas's fingers were beating a light tattoo on the arm of his chair. "Well, those are my orders. That will do. You needn't come again till I ring."

Jessop turned towards the door.

"Oh, by the way," Nicholas's voice arrested him on the threshold, "I fancy the middle window is unlatched."

Jessop returned and went behind the curtains.

"It was, wasn't it?" asked Nicholas as he emerged.

"Yes, sir."

Jessop left the room.

"Now how on earth did he know that?" he queried as he walked across the hall.

The curtains had been drawn when Nicholas had been carried into the room.

The knowledge, for a man unable to move from his chair, seemed little short of uncanny.

"_A man can face odds if he is a man, and remake his life._"

The words repeated themselves in Nicholas's brain. Each syllable was like the incisive tap of a hammer. They fell on a wound lately dealt.

A little scene, barely ten days old, reconstructed itself in his memory.

The stage was the one he now occupied; the position the same. But another actor was present, a big rugged man, clad in a shabby overcoat,--a man with keen eyes, a grim mouth, and flexible sensitive hands.

"I regret to tell you that, humanly speaking, you have no more than a year to live."

The man had looked past him as he spoke the words. He had had his back to the light, but Nicholas had seen something almost inscrutable in his expression.

Nicholas's voice had followed close upon the words, politely ironical.

"Personally I should have considered it a matter for congratulation rather than regret," he had suggested.

There had been the fraction of a pause. Then the man's voice had broken the silence.

"Do you?"

"I do. What has my life been for fifteen years?" Nicholas had demanded.

"What you have made of it," had been the answer.

"What G.o.d or the devil has made of it, aided by Baccarat--poor beast,"

Nicholas had retorted savagely.

"The devil, possibly," the man had replied, "but aided and abetted by yourself."

"Confound you, what are you talking about?" Nicholas had cried.

The man had still looked towards the book-cases.

"Listen," he had said. "For fifteen years you have lived the life of a recluse--a useless recluse, mind you. And why? Because of pride,--sheer pride. Those who had known you in the strength of your manhood, those who had known you as Nick the dare-devil, should never see the broken cripple. Pride forbade it. You preferred to run to cover, to lie hidden there like a wounded beast, rather than face, like a man, the odds that were against you,--heavy odds, I'll allow."

Nicholas's eyes had blazed.

"How dare you!" he had shouted.

"You've a year left," went on the man calmly. "I should advise you to see what use you can make of it."

"The first use I'll make of it is to order you from the house. You can go at once." Nicholas had pointed towards the door.

The man had got up.

"All right," he had said, looking at him for the first time in the last ten minutes. "But don't forget. You've got the year, you know."

"To h.e.l.l with the year," said Nicholas curtly.