Grit Lawless Part 37

"At least, I did not love an ideal," he answered. "I loved the flesh and blood that is you."

She turned her head slowly and looked at him.

"That is it," she answered bitterly... "The flesh and blood! ... The fairness of the flesh... All that the flesh means you care for."

"Oh! I'm materialistic," he admitted. "I've no fancy for falling in love with a dream."

He followed her, and took up his position again close to her, with his hands behind him, looking steadily into her eyes.

"Until I met you," he said, "I never realised how closely allied vice and virtue are. You are so very virtuous that to knock up against your purity flings a man back on himself and inclines him to the other extreme. I've always looked on intolerance as a vice. ... You are intolerant--most good people are. If only intolerance realised the amount of evil it is directly responsible for! But you'll wonder at my impertinence in preaching to you... Indeed, I wonder at myself."

"Go on," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "Perhaps--when you are gone--I shall remember."

"Good Lord!" he cried. "I don't want you to remember. Put me out of your thoughts altogether."

"Ah! if we could command our thoughts," she said.

His face suddenly lost its hard look, a kinder light came into the keen eyes. For a brief moment he rested a hand on the chair-back beside hers, then, recollecting, as suddenly removed it.

"When I go out of this room to-night," he said, "I go out of your life finally. If you send for me again, I shall not obey the summons. G.o.d knows, I have injured you enough... The least that I can do is to help you to forget. This raking among the ashes is unprofitable. You can't step down from your pedestal. I can't stand with you on the heights.

We look at life from different points of view, at different elevations.

You see things from a height that obscures your perspective; I look upon life from a lower level, and behold its naked realities. What seems to me natural, you would regard as gross. It is one of the essential differences--only exaggerated--between man and woman. I can't see the use in reviving through these unsatisfactory meetings all the stresses we lived through in the past... I'll keep out of Cape Town as much as possible, and when my job here is ended I'll leave the country."

"There is no need for that," she replied in so low a voice that he only just heard what she said. "I came out because I knew you were out here.

I wanted to see you. Now that I have seen you I shall go Home."

She looked at him quite calmly and held out her hand.

"Good-bye," she said, that was all.

He felt grateful to her after he had left that she had spared him a more emotional scene. Could he have looked back into the room when he was speeding towards Cape Town he would have known that the emotion had merely been held in check.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

Lawless reached Kraaifontein to find that there was neither word from nor sign of Tottie. No person answering Tottie's description had been seen in the neighbourhood recently.

He engaged a room at the hotel and prepared to wait. Plainly, Tottie had not found Van Bleit come to heel as readily as she had supposed. He found the waiting extraordinarily dull. There was nothing for it but to tramp over the veld between meals. That, the eating of the meals, and sleeping, were the sole means of enjoyment provided by the neighbourhood, so far as he could judge. The sleeping, in Lawless'

opinion, was the most amusing of these recreations. During meals he was bored almost beyond endurance by the schoolmaster for the district, who had his lodging there; and the tramping, with no object beyond the exercise, proved a poor pastime.

"It is good to meet a man of education in a place like this," the schoolmaster observed on the first day. "Are you making any length of stay, may I inquire?"

"G.o.d forbid!" Lawless e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The other smiled a trifle deprecatingly.

"We have not much to offer--no," he admitted thoughtfully. "But if you are here for a few days I can show you some good walks, and introduce you to one or two nice families--quite nice, where you will be well received."

"Your quite nice families may not be so glad of my acquaintance as you imagine," Lawless answered.

"With my recommendation that will be all right," the other said.

"What the devil do you know about me," Lawless demanded, "that you offer me a pa.s.sport to the houses of your friends? My good sir, you should be more discreet in the matter of your introductions."

The schoolmaster, who had taken a liking to the new-comer, looked hurt.

"I don't know anything about you," he replied. "But during a fairly long and varied life I have learnt to trust my judgment of men."

Lawless suddenly smiled.

"And you judge a man as you find him," he said, "without looking beneath the surface? You countenance him, even to introducing him to your friends... _quam diu se bene gesserit_."

"What more is necessary?" inquired the schoolmaster promptly.

"True!" acquiesced Lawless. "If a man have seven devils what need their possession matter to anyone save himself so long as he keep them out of sight?"

On the second day after his arrival the letter of instructions reached him. It bore the Wellington postmark. Tottie was gradually working her way down the line. It was a scrawling, lengthy epistle, containing many interlineations and corrections and succinct marginal notes. Lawless carried it to the garden, and sat on a bench under a huge eucalyptus tree while he deciphered the contents. Properly adjusted, and omitting the evil spelling, it read:

Dear old Grit,--I know you'll be chafing horribly at the delay; but there have been difficulties, and it was no use ringing up the curtain on this act before we had got things thoroughly in order, and every man knowing the part he has to play. Poor old Karl is under the delusion he is to play hero to my heroine. I have him properly in tow. He tumbled to his part beautifully at our first accidental encounter. He pursued, and I eluded. I got him as far as Ceres Road in this manner. Then one evening in the dusk I met and had a talk with him... Such a talk! ...

He kissed me... He kept on kissing me--keep your hair on. Grit. I told him I was afraid of you,--that I'd bolted from you, and were scared to death you'd find me out. I said you were mad to get me back, but I wasn't taking any. He offered to take me under his protection. I declined, but with less firmness than virtue should have displayed. He fancied I only needed pressing. I told him my idea was to get back to Cape Town and take the first boat up the coast, only I was scared of happening across you. And then he said some fine brave manly things that made one feel your life wasn't worth an hour's purchase. Bombastic fool! Always crowing and flapping his wings when he gets among the hens...

I let him talk. The next day I left Ceres Road and came on here. Of course he turned up almost immediately. We met again in the dusk and had another talk. Karl's a hot one... The difficulty I have to keep him at arm's length! ... I gave in to his pleading after a decent show of reluctance... He fancies I was only holding out for personal gain.

We are going to a little place across the river about ten miles from Kraaifontein. It's known as Jager's Rest. By the time you get this we shall be on our road thither in a Cape cart. I've arranged with the n.i.g.g.e.r what route he drives, so if you follow my instructions all will be well; if you fail me now, devil knows what will happen.

I enclose a map I've drawn of the route. Just half-way between here and Kraaifontein--see my mark on the map--you'll take your stand, and wait for us to pa.s.s somewhere about noon. There's cover there, and one can play highwayman without risk. If I can get hold of Karl's revolver I'll spoil it for him, if I can't I'll hamper him in more feminine mode. In any case, I am not afraid you won't be equal to him. If you murder him, I'll stop and help you bury him. Tottie.

Lawless folded the letter, and carefully examined the map. Then he folded that also, put both in his pocket, and went in to breakfast. The schoolmaster, who had all but finished his meal, looked up to nod.

"You are indefatigable," he said. "You have been exercising before breakfast?"

"Only loafing in the garden," Lawless answered as he sat down.

"Yes." The other glanced wistfully at the undisturbed end of the table, and then out through the window at the brilliant sunshine. "I'd been counting on your company this morning," he said. "But of course now."

... He looked keenly disappointed. "It's going to be a hot day," he remarked.

"Looks like it."

Lawless unfolded his napkin and began on the eggs and bacon which the coloured boy placed before him. In his preoccupation he was scarcely conscious of the presence of the other man, save when he spoke, and then it was to feel a slight irritation at the inconsequent remarks that called for attention and response.

"Perhaps to-morrow," the little insignificant shabby man proceeded tentatively, "you might feel inclined to accompany me. It's a pleasant walk, and--"

Lawless looked up suddenly.

"To-morrow, I am returning to the coast," he said.

"So soon!"