“Then you knew I was ill?” he said, almost suspiciously.
“Yes, Joseph telegraphed.”
“To whom?” sharply.
“To Maurice.”
Jack Meredith nodded his head. It was perhaps just as well that the communicative Joseph was not there at that moment.
“We did not expect you for another ten days,” said Meredith after a little pause, as if anxious to change the subject. “Marie said that your brother’s leave was not up until the week after next.”
Jocelyn turned away, apparently to close the window. She hesitated. She could not tell him what had brought them back sooner—what had demanded of Maurice Gordon the sacrifice of ten days of his holiday.
“We do not always take our full term,” she said vaguely.
And he never saw it. The vanity of man is a strange thing. It makes him see intentions that were never conceived; and without vanity to guide his perception man is as blind a creature as walks upon this earth.
“However,” he said, as if to prove his own density, “I am selfishly very glad that you had to come back sooner. Not only on account of the delicacies—I must ask you to believe that. Did my eye brighten at the mention of Fortnum and Mason? I am afraid it did.”
She laughed softly. She did not pause to think that it was to be her daily task to tend him and help to make him stronger in order that he might go away without delay. She only knew that every moment of the next few weeks was going to be full of a greater happiness than she had ever tasted. As we get deeper into the slough of life most of us learn to be thankful that the future is hidden—some of us recognise the wisdom and the mercy which decree that even the present be only partly revealed.
“As a matter of fact,” she said lightly, “I suppose that you loathe all food?”
“Loathe it,” he replied. He was still looking at her, as if in enjoyment of the Englishness and freshness of which he had spoken. “Simply loathe it. All Joseph’s tact and patience are required to make me eat even eleven meals in the day. He would like thirteen.”
At this moment Maurice came in—Maurice—hearty, eager, full of life. He blustered in almost as Joseph had prophesied, kicking the furniture, throwing his own vitality into the atmosphere. Jocelyn knew that he liked Jack Meredith—and she knew more. She knew, namely, that Maurice Gordon was a different man when Jack Meredith was in Loango. From Meredith’s presence he seemed to gather a sense of security and comfort even as she did—a sense which in herself she understood (for women analyse love), but which in her brother puzzled her.
“Well, old chap,” said Maurice, “glad to see you. I am glad to see you. Thank Heaven you were bowled over by that confounded malaria, for otherwise we should have missed you.”
“That is one way of looking at it,” answered Meredith. But he did not go so far as to say that it was a way which had not previously suggested itself to him.
“Of course it is. The best way, I take it. Well—how do you feel? Come, you don’t look so bad.”
“Oh—much better, thanks. I have got on splendidly the last week, and better still the last five minutes! The worst of it is that I shall be getting well too soon and shall have to be off.”
“Home?” inquired Maurice significantly.
Jocelyn moved uneasily.
“Yes, home.”
“We don’t often hear people say that they are sorry to leave Loango,” said Maurice.
“I will oblige you whenever you are taken with the desire,” answered Jack lightly; “Loango has been a very good friend to me. But I am afraid there is no choice. The doctor speaks very plain words about it. Besides, I am bound to go home.”
“To sell the Simiacine?” inquired Maurice.
“Yes.”
“Have you the second crop with you?”
“Yes.”
“And the trees have improved under cultivation?”
“Yes,” answered Jack rather wonderingly. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Of course I do,” replied Maurice boisterously.
“From Durnovo?”
“Yes; he even offered to take me into partnership.”
Jack turned on him in a flash.
“Did he indeed? On what conditions?”
And then, when it was too late, Maurice saw his mistake. It was not the first time that the exuberance of his nature had got him into a difficulty.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied vaguely. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it someday.”
Jack would have left it there for the moment. Maurice Gordon had made his meaning quite clear by glancing significantly towards his sister. Her presence, he intimated, debarred further explanation.
But Jocelyn would not have it thus. She shrewdly suspected the nature of the bargain proposed by Durnovo, and a sudden desire possessed her to have it all out—to drag this skeleton forth and flaunt it in Jack Meredith’s face. The shame of it all would have a certain sweetness behind its bitterness; because, forsooth, Jack Meredith alone was to witness the shame. She did not pause to define the feeling that rose suddenly in her heart. She did not know that it was merely the pride of her love—the desire that Jack Meredith, though he would never love her, should know once for all that such a man as Victor Durnovo could be nothing but repugnant to her.
“If you mean,” she said, “that you cannot tell Mr. Meredith because I am here, you need not hesitate on that account.”
Maurice laughed awkwardly, and muttered something about matters of business. He was not good at this sort of thing. Besides, there was the initial handicapping knowledge that Jocelyn was so much cleverer than himself.
“Whether it is a matter of business or not,” she cried with glittering eyes, “I want you to tell Mr. Meredith now. He has a right to know. Tell him upon what condition Mr. Durnovo proposed to admit you into the Simiacine.”
Maurice still hesitated, bewildered, at a loss—as men are when a seemingly secure secret is suddenly discovered to the world. He would still have tried
