The Man in the Twilight Part 34

"What d'you mean?"

The Swede had less command of his feelings than the other. He had never learnt the methods of the forest as Bull had learned them.

"Why, I can't set a price on Sachigo till I know the price you set on the Skandinavia," Bull's eyes were smiling. "You see I should need to double it for--Sachigo."

The man from Labrador had driven home to the quick, and the Teutonic vanity of the Swede was instantly aflame. Peterman had committed the one offence which the younger man could not forgive. He had dared, in his vanity, to believe that the situation between them was a question of price.

"I didn't invite you here to sell you--the Skandinavia," Peterman bl.u.s.tered, giving way to anger he could not restrain.

"No. And I didn't accept your invitation for the purpose of selling--Sachigo. If there's any buying and selling going on you'd best understand quite clearly I am the buyer."

There was a dangerous light in Bull's eyes levelled so steadily on the angry face of the Swede.

"Then--it's war?"

Bull shrugged at the challenge.

"I'm quite indifferent," he said coldly.

There was a moment of tense silence. Then the Swede smiled.

"You're ready then to let the fool public benefit at your expense?"

"No." A smile of real humor flashed in Bull's eyes. "At yours."

"You mean--you think to--smash us?"

"Just as sure as the sun'll rise to-morrow. Just as sure as Providence set up forest and water powers on Labrador such as you've never dreamed of since you forgot your boyhood. Just as sure as your s.h.a.gaunty's played out and you need to start in on fresh limits you aren't sure of yet. Just as sure as they're going to cost you a heap more than when you were busy treating the fortune that s.h.a.gaunty handed you like the worst fool-head spendthrift who ever broke a bank at the gambling tables."

Bull rose abruptly from his chair.

"I'm obliged for this interview, Mr. Peterman," he went on. "It's suited me. That's why I came along down in a hurry. You're fortunate in that lady representative. Her tact and persuasion left me feeling you had a real proposition that was worth considering. I guess she'll go a long way for you, and if there's any live person can help your ship along, she's that live person. But you can't buy me, and you can't smash me. I mean that. You see, I know your position. It's my job to know the position of any possible compet.i.tor, and naturally I know yours. Your s.h.a.gaunty's run dry, and, well, I don't need to tell you all that means to you." He dropped the stump of his cigar into an ash tray. "That's a good cigar," he went on with a derisive smile. "Thanks. Good-bye."

Bull was at the telephone again. He was again smiling at the insurance advertis.e.m.e.nt. But now his smile was of a different quality. It was full of delighted antic.i.p.ation.

"Oh, yes," he was saying. "I spent quite a pleasant ha'f hour with him.

I enjoyed it immensely. Yes. He seems to be the man to run an enterprise like yours. He certainly has both initiative and confidence. A little hasty in judgment, I think. But--yes, I'd like to tell you all about it.

What are you doing this evening? Oh, resting. I suppose you eat while resting. Yes. It's necessary, isn't it? Anyway I find it so. Eh? Oh, yes. You see, I've a big frame to support. Will you help me to support it this evening? I mean dinner here? Will you? Oh, that's fine. I'd love to tell you about it all. Fine. Right. Eight o'clock then. I'll go and arrange it all now. It shall be a very special dinner, I promise you.

Good-bye."

He put up the receiver and turned away. His smile remained, and it had no relation to anything but his delight that Nancy McDonald had consented to dine with him.

CHAPTER XII

AT THE CHATEAU

Nancy was standing before the mirror which occupied the whole length of the door of the dress-closet with which her modest bedroom had been provided by a thoughtful architect.

She was studying the results of her preparations. She was to dine with Bull Sternford, the man who had caught and held her interest for all she knew that they belonged to camps that were sternly opposed to each other. She wanted to look her best, whatever that best might be, and she was haunted by a fear that her best could never rank in its due place amongst the superlatives.

However, she had arrayed herself in her newest and smartest party frock.

She had spent hours, she believed, on her unruly ma.s.ses of hair, and furthermore, she had a.s.siduously applied herself to obliterating the weather stain which the fierce journey from Labrador had inflicted upon the beautiful oval of her cheeks. Now, at last, the final touches had been given, and she was critically surveying the result.

The longer she studied her reflection the deeper grew the discontent in her pretty, hazel eyes. It was the same old reflection, she told herself. It was a bit tricked out; a bit less real. It was a tiresome thing which gave her no satisfaction at all. There was the red hair that looked so very red. There were the eyes, which, at times, she was convinced were really green. There was the stupid nose that always seemed to her to occupy too much of her face. And as for her cheeks, the wind and sea had left them looking more healthy, but--She sighed and hurriedly turned away. She felt that mirrors were an invention calculated to upset the conceit of any girl.

She moved quickly round the little room. Her gloves, her wrap. She picked them up. The gloves she was painfully aware had already been cleaned twice, and her cloak had no greater merits than the modest-priced frock which had strained her limited bank roll. Then she consulted the clock on her bureau, and, picked up her scent-spray. This was the last, the final touch she could not resist.

In the midst of using it she set it down with a feeling of sudden panic.

She had remembered. She stood staring down at the dressing table with a light of trouble in her eyes. The whole incident had been forgotten till that moment. She remembered she had refused to dine with Elas Peterman that night on a plea of weariness, and without a thought had unhesitatingly accepted the invitation of the man whom the Skandinavia had marked down for its victim.

For some seconds the enormity of the thing she had done overwhelmed her.

Then a belated humour came to her rescue and a shadowy smile drove the trouble from her eyes.

Suppose--but no. Her chief would be dining at home, as was his habit.

Then, anyway, there could be no harm. She was concerned in this thing.

She had a right. She even told herself it was imperative she should know what had transpired at the interview she had brought about. Besides, was there not the possibility of certain rougnnesses occurring between the two men which it might be within her power to smooth down? That was surely so. She had no right to miss any opportunity of furthering the ends of her own people.

Then she laughed outright. Oh, it was excuse. She knew. She was looking forward to the evening. Of course she was. Then, just as suddenly all desire to laugh expired. Why? Why was she looking forward to dining with Bull Sternford?

Bull! What a quaint name. She had thought of it before. She had thought of it at the time when the lonely missionary of the forest had told her of him.

Swiftly her thought pa.s.sed on to her meeting with the man himself. She remembered her nervousness when she had first looked into his big, wholesome face, with its clear, searching eyes. Yes, she had realised then the truth of Father Adam's description. He would as soon fight as laugh. There could be no doubt of it.

And then those days on the _Myra_. She recalled their talk of the sea-gulls, and of the men of the forests, and she remembered the almost brutal contempt for them he had so downrightly expressed. Then the moment of disaster to herself. It was he who had saved her, he who had fought for her, although he had been in little better case himself.

What was it they had told her? He must be bought or smashed. She wondered if they realised the man they were dealing with. She wondered what they would have felt and thought if they had listened to the confident a.s.surance of Father Adam. If they had listened to Bull Sternford himself, and learned to know him as she had already learned to know him. The Skandinavia was powerful, but was it powerful enough to deal as they desired with this man who was as ready to fight as to laugh?

She shook her head. And it was a negative movement she was unaware of.

Well, anyway, the game had begun, and she was in it. Her duty was clear enough. And meanwhile she would miss no opportunity to pull her whole weight for her side, even when she knew that was not the whole thought in her mind.

But somehow there were things she regretted when she remembered the fight ahead. She regretted the moment when this man had saved her from almost certain death against the iron stanchions and sides of the _Myra_. She regretted his fine eyes, and he had fine eyes which looked so squarely out of their setting. Then, too, he had been so kindly concerned that she should achieve the mission upon which she had embarked. It would have been so easy and even exacting had he been a man of less generous impulse. A man whom she could have thoroughly disliked.

But he was the reverse of all those things which make it a joy to hurt.

He was--

She pulled herself up and seized the pretty beaded vanity bag lying ready to her hand. Then the telephone rang.

It was the cab which the porter had ordered, and she hastily switched off the lights.

On the way down in the elevator her train of thought persisted. And long before she reached the Chateau, a feeling that she was playing something of the part of Delilah took hold of her and depressed her.

But she was determined. Whatever happened her service and loyalty was in support of her early benefactors, and no act of hers should betray them.