Grit Lawless Part 9

"Where's your partner?" he asked abruptly.

She explained, and he turned and walked beside her away from the bright light and the sight and sound of the dancers. His own partner had been compelled to retire to the dressing-room to have some damage to her frock repaired. She would not be back to finish the dance, which was practically finished then; the music was getting faster and faster, and so were the hurrying feet.

"Do you care to sit down?" he asked, pausing before a couple of low chairs arranged in a sheltered corner of the less-frequented side of the stoep. She seated herself in one, and he took up a position behind the second, leaning forward with his arms on the back of it.

"Shall I stay... until Van Bleit returns?" he asked.

"Please do."

She clutched at the arm of her chair, grasping it firmly. There were so many things she wanted to say to this man, and time was so short; at any moment they might be interrupted... The precious moments were slipping away... And he gave her so little help. His manner was so curt as to be almost repellent.

"Do you think it necessary," she asked, "that when we meet it should be as strangers--almost enemies?"

"Aren't we that?" he said. "I understood that I represented both to you."

She was silent because his last words had recalled a hard thing she had once in the years gone by written to him in an hour of wounded anger: "I do not know you... I think I have never known you. You are a stranger to me, and, I see now, my greatest enemy..."

"It is for you," he added, filling in the pause, "to determine our future relations... I am a little surprised that you should meet me as you have done. And I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been happier for both if you had acted differently... The fires of yesterday are ashes on the hearth of to-day... I don't know how it is with you, but the sight of greying embers chills me."

She sat leaning forward, her eyes fixed unseeingly straight before her as though they sought to pierce the blackness that lay beyond the stoep.

Some of the pain and bitterness that was in her heart shone through them, so that they looked tortured in the soft glow of the artificial lights. She gripped the arm of her chair more tightly, and, still staring into the darkness, said tonelessly:

"With women it is not usual to leave ashes lying on the hearth."

"You sweep them up and throw them away," he answered. "It is wiser so... One forgets."

"Some do," she rejoined slowly. "And others--collect their ashes carefully and kindle them anew."

He looked at her closely.

"Foolish and futile," he said. "Ashes can never give forth the glow and the heat of unspoilt fuel. A thing that is dead has served its end. It should then be applied to other uses; for it is impossible that it should ever again serve its original purpose."

"If that is your philosophy," she began.

"It is," he interrupted shortly.

"Then with you the ashes remain ashes to despoil the hearth of to-day!"

"I brush them out of sight," he returned lightly. "I have lived so long now amid the dust of such memories that I have learnt to turn my back upon the muddle till it no longer inconveniences me..." He smiled cynically, and added: "There was room for a retort there. You might have flung out at me that I have always shown a propensity for turning my back."

She winced. His speech cut her more than he would have believed any words of his could wound her. It was with great difficulty that she kept back the tears.

"That wasn't worthy of you," she said.

He reddened suddenly.

"I beg your pardon... It was an ill-considered remark. But it's one of the memories that sticks closest... The dust of it lies thick upon everything and clouds the rest of life."

She sat back in the depths of her chair and turned her white face up to his; a great sadness and a great yearning showed in the beautiful eyes.

"I think you make too much of it," she said... "The accident of a moment!"

"An accident that ruined my career," he returned with great bitterness.

"Not ruined it," she expostulated,--"checked it. You could have made a name and a place for yourself in spite of it."

"And I didn't."

"And you have not," she corrected,--"yet."

He laughed abruptly.

"Think of the time that has been wasted," he said. "You might have said all this to me years ago. I don't say it would have made any difference... unless it were to keep green some corner of my heart. But encouragement to be efficacious should be given when life is hardest, not when one has learnt to adapt it to one's needs. But it's generous of you to offer even a belated encouragement. I don't wish to appear ungrateful. It's more than I have deserved--or, indeed, expected of you."

She stretched out a hand and laid it on his arm.

"Don't be bitter, Hugh... We both have made mistakes."

He looked down at the white glove that rested on his sleeve, and his lips tightened. The arm inside the sleeve was tense. There was no more response than if she had touched instead the stuffed arm of the chair.

"Perhaps," he allowed. "But we won't add to our mistakes by growing sentimental."

She removed her hand without speaking, and sat silent with strained face, curiously still and composed. He watched her in his aloof fashion. If he felt any interest in her beyond the ordinary interest that a man experiences in a beautiful woman, he concealed it admirably.

He betrayed not the slightest regret when Van Bleit came hurrying up to them with a light wrap over his arm. He had had some difficulty in finding it. Mrs Smythe eventually a.s.sisted in the search. He was voluble and apologetic. He shot a suspicious glance at Lawless, standing at the back of the chair in the same position, leaning forward with his arms on the top of it, and then turned again to the quiet figure of the woman who had not spoken after the first smiling word of thanks.

"You moved," he said. "I looked for you where I left you, but the seat was unoccupied."

"It was quieter here," she explained. She rose and stood while Van Bleit put the wrap around her shoulders, and, with an exaggerated air of devotion, drew it close about her throat. Lawless bowed to her and moved away, making a slow progress along the stoep against the stream of dancers, pouring forth from the ball-room in quest of air.

"G.o.ds!" he mused, avoiding the stream mechanically while seeming not to see it. "What a queer trick of fate! What has brought her out here, I wonder? ... That's what I should like to get at... What has brought her out here?"

When in the early hours of the morning Mrs Lawless appeared on the pavement on Van Bleit's arm, Lawless was standing on the kerb beside the waiting motor in the act of lighting a cigar. He tossed away the match, and opened the door for her. Then he raised his hat, and turning silently, disappeared into the blackness beyond the lights of the car.

She turned her head to look after him; but the darkness had swallowed the tall figure, and the throbbing of the engine drowned the sound of his rapidly retreating steps.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Colonel Grey sat alone on his stoep in the darkness and listened, as once before he had listened, to the quick, measured step of the man whose claim upon his consideration had rested solely on a reputation for valour.

The Colonel had believed strongly hitherto in his own discernment. Now he doubted, not only his judgment in human affairs, but his qualification for the responsible mission he had undertaken to carry successfully through. Twice he had been mistaken in the persons he had employed. He had paid off the one a month before, and had satisfied himself that the boy had taken his pa.s.sage to Durban, and gone aboard with his broken head still encased in bandages, and with more money in his pockets than was good for him. The other case could not be disposed of in the same manner. In so far as their dealings together went, the man had given no cause either for satisfaction or complaint. Up to the present nothing definite had been accomplished. Colonel Grey doubted that anything would be accomplished. He mistrusted his man--the man whose reputation for courage he now knew to be spurious,--who was further accredited with being a traitor. The thing stuck in the Colonel's mind and inflamed it. In a quiet, controlled way he was furious that he should have been led into having anything to do with the scoundrel. He was impatient to face him, to confound him with the knowledge of his disgrace. He wondered whether the fellow would try to bluff it, or if he would cave in...

And then the man he was thinking about arrived, and stepping up to the stoep with his firm, decided tread, stood before him, as he had stood on the night of their first meeting, looking at him inquiringly with those strangely penetrating, inscrutable grey eyes.

"You sent for me," he said briefly, and waited to learn the reason of the summons.

The other man rose without speaking, and led the way into the house, closing the French windows behind them as he had done before.

"You are sure you were not followed?" he asked, as he drew a chair out from the table and seated himself.

"I think not. I saw no one."