Brandon of the Engineers Part 33

"Then if I have no more use for you here, I think I can promise to find you as good or better job. Is that enough?"

d.i.c.k gave him a grateful look. "It's difficult to tell you how I feel about it, but I'll do my best to make good and show that you have not been mistaken."

"That's all right," said Fuller, getting up. "Sign the doc.u.ment when you can get a witness and let me have it."

He went away and d.i.c.k sat down and studied the agreement with a beating heart. He found his work engrossing, he liked the men he was a.s.sociated with, and saw his way to making his mark in his profession, but there was another cause for the triumphant thrill he felt. Clare must be separated from Kenwardine before she was entangled in his dangerous plots, and he had brooded over his inability to come to her rescue. Now, however, one obstacle was removed. He could offer her some degree of comfort if she could be persuaded to marry him. It was obvious that she must be taken out of her father's hands as soon as possible, and he determined to try to gain her consent next morning, though he was very doubtful of his success.

When he reached the house, Clare was sitting at a table in the patio with some work in her hand. Close by, the purple creeper spread across the wall, and the girl's blue eyes and thin lilac dress harmonized with its deeper color. Her face and half-covered arms showed pure white against the background, but the delicate pink that had once relieved the former was now less distinct. The hot, humid climate had begun to set its mark on her, and d.i.c.k thought she looked anxious and perplexed.

She glanced up when she heard his step, and moving quietly forward he stopped on the opposite side of the table with his hand on a chair. He knew there was much against him and feared a rebuff, but delay might be dangerous and he could not wait. Standing quietly resolute, he fixed his eyes on the girl's face.

"Is your father at home, Miss Kenwardine?" he asked.

"No," said Clare. "He went out some time ago, and I cannot tell when he will come back. Do you want to see him?"

"I don't know yet. It depends."

He thought she was surprised and curious, but she said nothing, and nerving himself for the plunge, he resumed: "I came to see you in the first place. I'm afraid you'll be astonished, Clare, but I want to know if you will marry me."

She moved abruptly, turned her head for a moment, and then looked up at him while the color gathered in her face. Her expression puzzled d.i.c.k, but he imagined that she was angry.

"I am astonished. Isn't it a rather extraordinary request, after what you said on board the launch?"

"No," said d.i.c.k, "it's very natural from my point of view. You see, I fell in love with you the first time we met; but I got into disgrace soon afterwards and have had a bad time since. This made it impossible for me to tell you what I felt; but things are beginning to improve----"

He stopped, seeing no encouragement in her expression, for Clare was fighting a hard battle. His blunt simplicity made a strong appeal. She had liked and trusted him when he had with callow but honest chivalry offered her his protection one night in England and he had developed fast since then. Hardship had strengthened and in a sense refined him. He looked resolute and soldierlike as he waited. Still, for his sake as well as hers, she must refuse.

"Then you must be easily moved," she said. "You knew nothing about me."

"I'd seen you; that was quite enough," d.i.c.k declared and stopped. Her look was gentler and he might do better if he could lessen the distance between them and take her hand; he feared he had been painfully matter-of-fact. Perhaps he was right, but the table stood in the way, and if he moved round it, she would take alarm. It was exasperating to be baulked by a piece of furniture.

"Besides," he resumed, "when everybody doubted me, you showed your confidence. You wrote and said----"

"But you told me you tore up the letter," Clare interrupted.

d.i.c.k got confused. "I did; I was a fool, but the way things had been going was too much for me. You ought to understand and try to make allowances."

"I cannot understand why you want to marry a girl you think a thief."

Pulling himself together, d.i.c.k gave her a steady look. "I can't let that pa.s.s, though if I begin to argue I'm lost. In a way, I'm at your mercy, because my defense can only make matters worse. But I tried to explain on board the launch."

"The explanation wasn't very convincing," Clare remarked, turning her head. "Do you still believe I took your papers?"

"The plans were in my pocket when I reached your house," said d.i.c.k, who saw he must be frank. "I don't know that you took them, and if you did, I wouldn't hold you responsible; but they were taken."

"You mean that you blame my father for their loss?"

d.i.c.k hesitated. He felt that she was giving him a last opportunity, but he could not seize it.

"If I pretended I didn't blame him, you would find me out and it would stand between us. I wish I could say I'd dropped the papers somewhere or find some other way; but the truth is best."

Clare turned to him with a hot flush and an angry sparkle in her eyes.

"Then it's unthinkable that you should marry the daughter of the man whom you believe ruined you. Don't you see that you can't separate me from my father? We must stand together."

"No," said d.i.c.k doggedly, knowing that he was beaten, "I don't see that.

I want you; I want to take you away from surroundings and a.s.sociations that must jar. Perhaps it was foolish to think you would come, but you helped to save my life when I was ill, and I believe I was then something more to you than a patient. Why have you changed?"

She looked at him with a forced and rather bitter smile. "Need you ask?

Can't you, or won't you, understand? Could I marry my victim, which is what you are if your suspicions are justified? If they are not, you have offered me an insult I cannot forgive. It is unbearable to be thought the daughter of a thief."

d.i.c.k nerved himself for a last effort. "What does your father's character matter? I want you. You will be safe from everything that could hurt you if you come to me." He hesitated and then went on in a hoa.r.s.e, determined voice: "You must come. I can't let you live among those plotters and gamblers. It's impossible. Clare, when I was ill and you thought me asleep, I watched you sitting in the moonlight. Your face was wonderfully gentle and I thought----"

She rose and stopped him with a gesture. "There is no more to be said, Mr. Brandon. I cannot marry you, and if you are generous, you will go."

d.i.c.k, who had been gripping the chair hard, let his hand fall slackly and turned away. Clare watched him cross the patio, and stood tensely still, fighting against an impulse to call him back as he neared the door. Then as he vanished into the shadow of the arch she sat down with sudden limpness and buried her hot face in her hands.

CHAPTER XXII

THE OFFICIAL MIND

On the evening after Clare's refusal, d.i.c.k entered the princ.i.p.al cafe at Santa Brigida. The large, open-fronted room was crowded, for, owing to the duty, newspapers were not generally bought by the citizens, who preferred to read them at the cafes, and the _Diario_ had just come in.

The eagerness to secure a copy indicated that something important had happened, and after listening to the readers' remarks, d.i.c.k gathered that the French liner had sunk and a number of her pa.s.sengers were drowned.

This, however, did not seem to account for the angry excitement some of the men showed, and d.i.c.k waited until a polite half-breed handed him the newspaper.

A ship's lifeboat, filled with exhausted pa.s.sengers, had reached a bay some distance along the coast, and it appeared from their stories that the liner was steaming across a smooth sea in the dark when a large vessel, which carried no lights, emerged from a belt of haze and came towards her. The French captain steered for the land, hoping to reach territorial waters, where he would be safe, but the stranger was faster and opened fire with a heavy gun. The liner held on, although she was twice hit, but after a time there was an explosion below and her colored firemen ran up on deck. Then the ship stopped, boats were hoisted out, and it was believed that several got safely away, though only one had so far reached the coast. This boat was forced to pa.s.s the attacking vessel rather close, and an officer declared that she looked like one of the Spanish liners and her funnel was black.

d.i.c.k gave the newspaper to the next man and sat still with knitted brows, for his suspicions were suddenly confirmed. The raider had a black funnel, and was no doubt the ship he had seen steering for Adexe. An enemy commerce-destroyer was lurking about the coast, and she could not be allowed to continue her deadly work, which her resemblance to the Spanish vessels would make easier. For all that, d.i.c.k saw that anything he might do would cost him much, since Clare had said that she and Kenwardine must stand together. This was true, in a sense, because if Kenwardine got into trouble, she would share his disgrace and perhaps his punishment. Moreover, she might think he had been unjustly treated and blame d.i.c.k for helping to persecute him. Things were getting badly entangled, and d.i.c.k, leaning back in his chair, vacantly looked about.

The men had gathered in groups round the tables, their dark faces showing keen excitement as they argued with dramatic gestures about international law. For the most part, they looked indignant, but d.i.c.k understood that they did not expect much from their Government. One said the English would send a cruiser and something might be done by the Americans; another explained the Monroe Doctrine in a high-pitched voice. d.i.c.k, however, tried not to listen, because difficulties he had for some time seen approaching must now be faced.

He had been forced to leave England in disgrace, and his offense would be remembered if he returned. Indeed, he had come to regard America as his home, but patriotic feelings he had thought dead had awakened and would not be denied. He might still be able to serve his country and meant to do so, though it was plain that this would demand a sacrifice. Love and duty clashed, but he must do his best and leave the rest to luck. Getting up with sudden resolution, he left the cafe and went to the British consulate.

When he stopped outside the building, to which the royal arms were fixed, he remarked that two peons were lounging near, but, without troubling about them, knocked at the door. There was only a Vice-Consul at Santa Brigida, and the post, as sometimes happens, was held by a merchant, who had, so a clerk stated, already gone home. d.i.c.k, however, knew where he lived and determined to seek him at his house. He looked round once or twice on his way there, without seeing anybody who seemed to be following him, but when he reached the iron gate he thought a dark figure stopped in the gloom across the street. Still, it might only be a citizen going into his house, and d.i.c.k rang the bell.

He was shown on to a balcony where the Vice-Consul sat with his Spanish wife and daughter at a table laid with wine and fruit. He did not look pleased at being disturbed, but told d.i.c.k to sit down when the ladies withdrew.

"Now," he said, "you can state your business, but I have an appointment in a quarter of an hour."

d.i.c.k related his suspicions about the coaling company, and described what he had seen at Adexe and the visit of the black-funnel boat, but before he had gone far, realized that he was wasting his time. The Vice-Consul's att.i.tude was politely indulgent.

"This is a rather extraordinary tale," he remarked when d.i.c.k stopped.

"I have told you what I saw and what I think it implies," d.i.c.k answered with some heat.