'For all the world like the wicked baronet,' cried the mocking Dick. 'Once aboard the lugger, and the gurl is mine.'
Julia reflected for a little while. She did not want to resist the admiration with which Alec filled her. But she shuddered. He did not seem to fit in with the generality of men.
'Don't you want people to remember you?' she asked.
'Perhaps they will,' he answered slowly. 'Perhaps in a hundred years, in some flourishing town where I discovered nothing but wilderness, they will commission a second-rate sculptor to make a fancy statue of me. And I shall stand in front of the Stock Exchange, a convenient perch for birds, to look eternally upon the shabby deeds of human kind.'
He gave a short, abrupt laugh, and his words were followed by silence. Julia gave Dick a glance which he took to be a signal that she wished to be alone with Alec.
'Forgive me if I leave you for one minute,' he said.
He got up and left the room. The silence still continued, and Alec seemed immersed in thought. At last Julia answered him.
'And is that really all? I can't help thinking that at the bottom of your heart there is something that you've never told to a living soul.'
He looked at her, and their eyes met. He felt suddenly her extraordinary sympathy and her passionate desire to help him. And as though the bonds of the flesh were loosened, it seemed to him that their very souls faced one another. The reserve which was his dearest habit fell away from him, and he felt an urgent desire to say that which a curious delicacy had prevented him from every betraying to callous ears.
'I daresay I shall never see you again, and perhaps it doesn't much matter what I say to you. You'll think me very silly, but I'm afraid I'm rather--patriotic. It's only we who live away from England who really love it. I'm so proud of my country, and I wanted so much to do something for it. Often in Africa I've thought of this dear England and longed not to die till I had done my work.'
His voice shook a little, and he paused. It seemed to Julia that she saw the man for the first time, and she wished passionately that Lucy could hear those words of his which he spoke so shyly, and yet with such a passionate earnestness.
'Behind all the soldiers and the statesmen whose fame is imperishable there is a long line of men who've built up the empire piece by piece. Their names are forgotten, and only students know their history, but each one of them gave a province to his country. And I too have my place among them. Year after year I toiled, night and day, and at last I was able to hand over to the commissioner a broad tract of land, rich and fertile. After my death England will forget my faults and my mistakes; and I care nothing for the flouts and gibes with which she has repaid all my pain, for I have added another fair jewel to her crown. I don't want rewards; I only want the honour of serving this dear land of ours.'
Julia went up to him and laid her hand gently on his arm.
'Why is it, when you're so nice really, that you do all you can to make people think you utterly horrid?'
'Don't laugh at me because you've found out that at bottom I'm nothing more than a sentimental old woman.'
'I don't want to laugh at you. But if I didn't think it would embarrass you so dreadfully, I should certainly kiss you.'
He smiled and lifting her hand to his lips, lightly kissed it.
'I shall begin to think I'm a very wonderful woman if I've taught you to do such pretty things as that.'
She made him sit down, and then she sat by his side.
'I'm very glad you came to-day. I wanted to talk to you. Will you be very angry if I say something to you?'
'I don't think so,' he smiled.
'I want to speak to you about Lucy.'
He drew himself suddenly together, and the expansion of his mood disappeared. He was once more the cold, reserved man of their habitual intercourse.
'I'd rather you didn't,' he said briefly.
But Julia was not to be so easily put off.
'What would you do if she came here to-day?' she asked.
He turned round and looked at her sharply, then answered with great deliberation.
'I have always lived in polite society. I should never dream of outraging its conventions. If Lucy happened to come, you may be sure that I should be scrupulously polite.'
'Is that all?' she cried.
He did not answer, and into his face came a wild fierceness that appalled her. She saw the effort he was making at self-control. She wished with all her heart that he would be less brave.
'I think you might not be so hard if you knew how desperately Lucy has suffered.'
He looked at her again, and his eyes were filled with bitterness, with angry passion at the injustice of fate. Did she think that he had not suffered? Because he did not whine his misery to all and sundry, did she think he did not care? He sprang up and walked to the other end of the room. He did not want that woman, for all her kindness, to see his face. He was not the man to fall in and out of love with every pretty girl he met. All his life he had kept an ideal before his eyes. He turned to Julia savagely.
'You don't know what it meant to me to fall in love. I felt that I had lived all my life in a prison, and at last Lucy came and took me by the hand, and led me out. And for the first time I breathed the free air of heaven.'
