The Great Amulet Part 66

"You're a long way ahead of that, I fancy," Lenox remarked, with an odd change of tone.

For a statement of that kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water'

just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely written sheet of foolscap at his elbow, was casting about in his mind for the best means of saying that which must be said; while Lenox, watching him keenly, arrived at the masculine conclusion that d.i.c.k had 'come a cropper' over something, and possibly needed his help.

"Anything on your mind, old chap?" he asked bluntly, when the silence had lasted nearly five minutes. And Richardson, taking his resolution in both hands, looked up from the meaningless page.

"Yes, that's about it. Don't misunderstand me, Lenox. I'd sooner work with you than with any man in creation; but--there are difficulties . . . I can't put it plainer--and I'm thinking of applying for a Staff appointment. My uncle in the Secretariat would give me a helping hand, if you'd forward the thing with a decent recommendation. But if you think me too much of a duffer for Staff work, I must try--for an exchange----"

He could get no further; and Lenox, leaning across the corner of the table, scrutinised his face with eyes that penetrated like a searchlight.

"Well . . . I'm d.a.m.ned!" he said slowly. "Am I to understand that after all we've pulled through together, you want to get away from the Battery at any price?"

"It's not a question of what I want to do; it's what I've got to do,"

the other answered, averting his eyes.

"My good d.i.c.k, you're talking in riddles. Have you taken temporary leave of your senses? Or is it a case of 'urgent private affairs'?"

Lenox's tone had an edge to it. Of course the man was free to go where he chose. But it had grown to be an understood thing between them that they would work together as long as might be, and he could not conceal his disappointment. Richardson knew this, and looked up quickly. It was the worst quarter of an hour he had ever known. Facing Waziri bullets was a small matter compared with this despicable business of disappointing and deceiving his friend.

"It's urgent enough, G.o.d knows!" he answered desperately. "I can't say more than that, Lenox. I swear I can't."

He looked straight at Lenox in speaking. And this time the older man's gaze held him, in spite of himself, till the blood burned under his fair skin; till he perceived, between shame and relief, that his secret was his no longer; that Lenox had seen, and understood. His first instinct was--to escape. Such knowledge shared was enough to strike any man dumb.

"You _will_ recommend me, won't you, old chap?" he asked all in a breath, with a forward movement, as if to rise and depart.

But Lenox reached across the table, and a heavy hand on his shoulder pressed him back into his seat.

"No need to hurry away, Max. We've settled nothing yet."

The a.s.surance of unshaken friendship in his altered manner, and in the sudden use of Richardson's first name, automatically readjusted the situation, without need of so much as a glance of mutual understanding, which neither could have endured.

"I'm afraid I can't recommend you for Staff work," Lenox went on quietly, as though dealing with a mere official detail, submitted for his approval. "Not because you are a duffer, but because I can't spare my right-hand man. I'm not an easy chap to work with, as you know.

But we've learnt one another's ways by now, and, unless political work claims me, we can't do better than run the Battery together till you get a command--and that's not far off now. As for your urgent need of a change, if six months at home would suit you, I'll do my best to square it. We might manage sick-leave, on the strength of your leg, eh?"

Richardson breathed deeply.

"Thank you, Lenox. It's splendid of you. I'd be awfully glad of the change."

"That's all right. And I tell you what, d.i.c.k," he paused, and smiled upon his friend. "Hope I'm not taking an infernal liberty! But if you can afford it--and if you can hit on the right girl--you might do worse than bring a wife back with you. You're the sort that's bound to marry some time, and you may take my word for it, thirty's a better age to start than thirty-five."

Richardson laughed, and coloured again, hotly.

"It takes two to make that sort of start," he said, "And if a fellow hits on the wrong one, it must be the very devil."

"Yes, by Jove, it must!" Lenox answered feelingly; adding in his own mind that even with the right one, it could be the very devil, now and again. "Think of poor Norton. But you'll have better luck, I hope.

About stopping on for the present, of course you must please yourself.

You'd be very welcome; and if you're afraid of taking up too much of my wife's time, you can easily give me more of your company than you have done so far. See how you feel about it to-morrow."

"Thanks, I will."

He rose now unhindered; and stood a moment hesitating, fired with a very human wish to express his grat.i.tude. But Lenox had accepted and dismissed the whole incident in a fashion at once so impersonal, so chivalrous, that his aching sense of disloyalty and unworthiness seemed to have been tacitly wiped out, leaving one only course open to him--to act as though that culminating hour of madness had never been.

"See you again before I start for mess," he said, as Lenox looked up.

And the dreaded interview--that should have broken up everything, yet had altered nothing, save his own estimate of life--was over.

Lenox, left alone again, bowed his head upon his hands, and sat a long time motionless, while the white flame of anger leaped and burned in his brain; anger such as he had never yet felt towards his wife. The spirit of his formidable uncle still so far survived in him that instinctively he blamed the woman; blamed himself also because pride and a strong distaste for self-a.s.sertion had inclined him to an att.i.tude of masterly inactivity. In this fine fashion, between them, they had rewarded d.i.c.k for an unrecognised act of gallantry that might well have cost him his life; and nothing now remained but to make such inadequate atonement as the case admitted. Strange as it may seem, he had never come so near to loving his friend as at that moment.

As for Quita--was there even the remotest chance that she also . . . ?

His brain refused to complete such a question. The thing was unthinkable. But in any case his own duty stood out crystal clear.

When he had mastered his anger sufficiently to risk speech, he and she must come to terms upon this th.o.r.n.y subject once for all. And he must take his stand upon the bare rock of principle. Let her brand him bourgeois, Covenanter, what she would. d.i.c.k's secret must be kept--at any cost!

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

"Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice, And he who suffers most has most to give."

--Hamilton King.

Dinner that evening was an oppressively silent affair. The man's white Northern anger still smouldered beneath his surface immobility; while Quita, who could not bring herself to believe in the spontaneity of Richardson's engagement at mess, was instinctively measuring and crossing swords with the husband, whose personality held her captive even while it forced her every moment nearer to the danger-point of open defiance.

Both were thankful when the solemn farce of eating and drinking came to an end; and Quita rose with an audible sigh of relief.

"Are you coming into the drawing-room at all?" she asked, addressing the question to his centre shirt-stud.

"Yes--at once. I have a good deal to say to you."

She raised her eyebrows with a small polite smile, and swept on before him, her step quickened by the fact that his words had set the blood rushing through her veins. The dead weight of his silence pulverised her. Speech, however dangerous, would be pure relief.

Before following, he locked up spirit tantalus and cigar-box with his wonted deliberation; and on reaching the drawing-room found her absorbed in contemplation of d.i.c.k's portrait, hands clasped behind her, the unbroken lines of her grey-green dress lending height and dignity to her natural grace; the glitter of defiance gone out of her eyes.

Lenox set his lips, and confounded the advantages nature and art conspire to bestow upon some women, more especially when they know themselves beloved. The mere man in him had one impulse only,--to take instant possession of her; to conquer her lurking antagonism by sheer force of pa.s.sion and of will. But he had sense enough to know that such primitive methods would not shift, by one hair's-breadth, their real point of division; would, in fact, be no less than inverted defeat. The heart of her was secure:--that he knew. It was her detached, elusive mind and spirit that were still to win; and a man's arms had small concern with that form of capture.

Quita vouchsafed him a glance as he entered. Then her gaze returned to the picture.

"One misses him," she said, presumably to the tall figure on the hearth-rug. "I think I have never known a man so uniformly cheerful and sweet-tempered. But it is selfish to grudge him a little change of atmosphere. And no doubt he is having a livelier evening than we are."

She was facing her husband now; but something in his aspect made her feel suddenly ashamed of using small weapons against a nature too magnanimous to retaliate. And, without giving him time to answer, she went on, a little hurriedly, "Eldred, if this intolerable state of things means that you really imagine I am--how does one put anything so detestable?--growing . . . too fond of Mr Richardson, you can set your mind at rest. Morality apart, you are much too masterful, too large--in every way--to leave room for any one else in a woman's heart, once she has let you in."

"Thank you," Lenox answered, in a non-committal tone. But a shadow pa.s.sed from his face, and she saw it.

"Of course I know it has been rather marked this last week. But that was simply because for the moment he and my picture were the same thing. Being absorbed in one meant being absorbed in the other. To produce a living portrait, one needs to get inside the subject of it as far as possible. At least, I do. And on the whole, I think my method is justified by the result!"

But Lenox, as he stood listening, experienced fresh proof of man's innate spirit of perversity. For many days past he had been angered by the suspicion that in this affair of portrait painting, the subject counted for too much;--and now, when he ought to have been relieved, he found his anger rekindled to white heat by Quita's frank confession that his friend--whose heart had been wrenched from him by her so-called 'method'--counted for nothing at all. For one ign.o.ble instant, he was tempted to break through every restraining consideration and lash her with the truth.

The fact that he did not answer her at once puzzled Quita.

"Do you understand now, _mon ami_?" she asked, coming a step closer.