Grit Lawless Part 35

"Ah! now," she cried quickly, "I have angered you, and done harm."

"Not so," he returned. "I shall cease to think of what you have told me. You've jumped to a wrong conclusion, that's all. The friend you speak of took away her friendship from me long ago. It was her own doing. She would not thank you for your intercession."

"You are hard," she said unexpectedly. The accusation hit him; it was what he had recently called himself. "And you're wrong. I understand better than you do--perhaps because I'm a woman, and have suffered myself."

"You are not a woman," he said, with sudden gentleness of manner. "You are a child almost, and to children their sorrows appear disproportionately great. As for suffering! ... Who among us can expect to escape his share? And a little suffering is not harmful. The human heart that hasn't been through the fire is inclined to be shallow.

All the pleasant pools in life are shallow; the great thoughts and the great deeds come from the deep seas."

They walked for a while in silence after his last speech. When they had covered a few yards in this manner Julie stopped and offered to take the cycle.

"Teddy will be wondering what has become of me," she said. "We are playing tennis this afternoon at Mrs Lawless'."

He stopped also and held the machine for her.

"I should like to see you again before you go," she added.

"Every evening at about five o'clock I will pa.s.s your house," he replied.

She mounted and rode off, and Lawless, wheeling about, returned to the city, his mind, for all his a.s.sertion that he would think no more of what she had said, busy with the picture she had conjured up, a picture which in his larger knowledge of the circ.u.mstances struck him as exaggerated and unreal.

Julie overtook Bolitho round the first bend. He had dismounted and was waiting for her at the roadside.

"I told you to go on," she said, when she came up with him.

"I know," he answered. "But I preferred to wait."

She slipped from her saddle to the ground, and, seating herself beside him in the hedge, to the young man's intense embarra.s.sment, dissolved into tears.

"Oh, don't, Julie!" he pleaded... "Don't! I will go on and leave you, if you wish it, dear."

"Silly!" she sobbed. "I don't wish it. You're the best fellow I ever knew. Oh, Teddy! I'm so miserable. I've made a hash of things with the best intentions in the world. There's n.o.body understands me, but you. And you don't understand altogether."

"If you'll give me the cue, I'll try," he declared earnestly, leaning towards her and encircling her with his arm. "You know that I'd do anything on earth to please you. Julie, my darling! I love you so, I can't bear to see you cry."

She suddenly sat up straighter, and laughed, and dabbed at her eyes.

"I know," she said. "I know... Oh, goodness! what a scarecrow I must look! And anyone might come along."

She put up her hands and rearranged her hat.

"Is it straight, Teddy!" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, and looked her steadily in the eyes.

"My dear, don't try to deceive me," he said... "Better hurt my feelings now than later... If it's the other fellow who wins I'll go my way."

"Stupid!" she cried, leaning her wet cheek against his shoulder.

"There's someone else for the other fellow--only he won't see it."

"I can't blame him," Teddy answered, "when there's you."

She laughed again.

"There has never been me for anyone besides yourself," she said. "If I lower the prize in your eyes by that admission I can't help it. And there's still left to you the choice of grabbing your machine out of the hedge and riding away."

Teddy Bolitho sat gravely stiff and expectant. Beneath the light banter of her manner he caught at a deeper note.

"Julie," he said nervously, "will you--If you don't mean anything, for G.o.d's sake I don't lead me to hope falsely... You know that I've loved you for years with the whole force of my nature. There's no one else for me though I live to be a hundred. I've met you... That's enough.

It's you or no one. I'm not much of a catch, but if you'll have me, such as I am, I'll spend my life in trying to make you happy."

"You make me happy as it is, Teddy," she answered quietly. "It is I who will need to spend my life in trying to satisfy you."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

Lawless' stay in Cape Town was so much longer than he had expected that he began to fear Tottie had not been so successful as her vanity had led her to suppose. He looked daily for news of her; but she was no hand at corresponding; until she had something definite to tell him he knew she would not write.

In the end it was not a letter but a telegram that reached him. It had been handed in at Ceres Road. Beyond this clue as to her whereabouts, the contents told him little.

"_go to junction hotel kraaifontein find instructions there tottie_."

He hunted up the trains. There was nothing before the morning. He packed a portmanteau in readiness, and sat down and wrote to Colonel Grey.

"Dear Sir,--I have received my summons. Am off up the line to-morrow.

Junction Hotel, Kraaifontein, will find me. I will keep you informed as to my movements.--Yours faithfully, H. Lawless."

"That will keep the old boy quiet for a time," he mused, and went out and posted it himself.

On turning away from the pillar-box he came face to face with Denzil.

It was the first time they had met since the memorable occasion on the veld, and it was evident from the expression on their faces that that last occasion was in the minds of both. The present encounter sprang upon them unawares. Denzil had known that Lawless was in Cape Town, he had written to Van Bleit to inform him of the fact; but he had not happened across him before. He would have felt infinitely happier had he not happened across him then. Doubtless he remembered Lawless'

words, when, having him at a disadvantage, he had struck him with the packet of letters across the face. He fervently wished he had refrained from allowing his feelings to get the better of discretion in the hour of triumph. Plainly, that hour no longer endured. It was not inspiriting to meet fully the man whom, when his hands were bound, he had struck in the face, and recall his words that one day when his hands were free he would repay the insult.

He eyed the tall figure nervously, and quickened his steps. Lawless glanced him over with a speculative eye. One blow from his fist would have knocked him down. And he was sorely tempted to strike out, to punish this miserable little cur who had dared to insult a better man than himself. But it was against his policy to endanger his liberty at that juncture; and to punish Denzil in the open street, with people pa.s.sing continually, and a policeman standing at the corner, was courting arrest. And so he allowed his man to slip past him; but there was in the keen grey eyes as they rested upon the foe such a look of quiet prospective vengeance that, though he pa.s.sed unmolested, Denzil was not greatly rea.s.sured. It was a temporary let-off, he felt.

He hurried on, and Lawless pursued his way in an opposite direction.

The evening was all before him. He decided that with the uncertain promise of rest the following night held, he would turn in early and take all the sleep he could procure. He might be glad during the next few days of a reserve to fall back upon. He returned to his hotel to dine. Against the kerb before the entrance a motor-car was stationed.

It occurred to Lawless that he had seen the car before; but it was not until he entered the hotel that he realised its being there concerned him in any way. A messenger was waiting for him in the vestibule with a note. He had been waiting some time, and seemed immeasurably relieved when Lawless came in.

"It requires an answer, sir," he said, as he presented the note.

Lawless ripped open the envelope, and withdrawing the contents, glanced his eye down the page.

"Very good," he said. "Tell Mrs Lawless I will be with her in about an hour's time."

The messenger looked at him calculatingly.

"There's the car outside, sir. If you'd like it to wait--"

"I shouldn't," Lawless interrupted curtly.