“If your sister wants it,” he said, “you had better tell me. I am not the sort of man to act rashly—on the impulse of the moment.”
Still Maurice tried to find some means of evasion.
“Then,” cried Jocelyn, with flaming cheeks, “I will tell you. You were to be admitted into the Simiacine scheme by Mr. Durnovo if you could persuade or force me to marry him.”
None of them had foreseen this. It had come about so strangely, and yet so easily, in the midst of their first greeting.
“Yes,” admitted Maurice, “that was it.”
“And what answer did you give?” asked Jocelyn.
“Oh, I told him to go and hang himself—or words to that effect,” was the reply, delivered with a deprecating laugh.
“Was that your final answer?” pursued Jocelyn, inexorable. Her persistence surprised Jack. Perhaps it surprised herself.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, he cut up rough and threatened to make things disagreeable; so I think I said that it was no good his asking me to do anything in the matter, as I didn’t know your feelings.”
“Well, you can tell him,” cried Jocelyn hotly, “that never, under any circumstances whatever, would I dream even of the possibility of marrying him.”
And the two men were alone.
Maurice Gordon gazed blankly at the closed door.
“How was I to know she’d take it like that?” he asked helplessly.
And for once the polished gentleman of the world forgot himself—carried away by a sudden unreasoning anger which surprised him almost as much as it did Maurice Gordon.
“Why, you damned fool,” said Jack, “any idiot would have known that she would take it like that. How could she do otherwise? You, her brother, ought to know that to a girl like Miss Gordon the idea of marrying such a low brute as Durnovo could only be repugnant. Durnovo—why, he is not good enough to sweep the floor that she has stood upon! He’s not fit to speak to her; and you go on letting him come to the house, sickening her with his beastly attentions! You’re not capable of looking after a lady! I would have kicked Durnovo through that very window myself, only”—he paused, recalling himself with a little laugh—“only it was not my business.”
Maurice Gordon sat down forlornly. He tapped his boot with his cane.
“Oh, it’s very well for you,” he answered; “but I’m not a free agent. I can’t afford to make an enemy of Durnovo.”
“You need not have made an enemy of him,” said Jack, and he saved Maurice Gordon by speaking quickly—saved him from making a confession which could hardly have failed to alter both their lives.
“It will not be very difficult,” he went on; “all she wants is your passive resistance. She does not want you to help him—do you see? She can do the rest. Girls can manage these things better than we think, if they want to. The difficulty usually arises from the fact that they are not always quite sure that they do want to. Go and beg her pardon. It will be all right.”
So Maurice Gordon went away also, leaving Jack Meredith alone in the drawing-room with his own thoughts.
XXXII
An Envoy
What we love perfectly
For its own sake we love, …
… That which is best for it is best for us.
“Feel like gettin’ up to breakfast, do you, sir?” said Joseph to his master a few days later. “Well, I am glad. Glad ain’t quite the word, though!”
And he proceeded to perform the duties attendant on his master’s wardrobe with a wise, deep-seated shake of the head. While setting the shaving necessaries in order on the dressing-table, he went further—he winked gravely at himself in the looking-glass.
“You’ve made wonderful progress the last few days, sir,” he remarked. “I always told Missis Marie that it would do you a lot of good to have Mr. Gordon to heart you up with his cheery ways—and Miss Gordon too, sir.”
“Yes, but they would not have been much good without all your care before they came. I had turned the corner a week ago—I felt it myself.”
Joseph grinned—an honest, open grin of self-satisfaction. He was not one of those persons who like their praise bestowed with subtlety.
“Wonderful!” he repeated to himself as he went to the well in the garden for his master’s bath-water. “Wonderful! but I don’t understand things—not bein’ a marryin’ man.”
During the last few days Jack’s progress had been rapid enough even to satisfy Joseph. The doctor expressed himself fully reassured, and even spoke of returning no more. But he repeated his wish that Jack should leave for England without delay.
“He is quite strong enough to be moved now,” he finished by saying. “There is no reason for further delay.”
“No,” answered Jocelyn, to whom the order was spoken. “No—none. We will see that he goes by the next boat.”
The doctor paused. He was a young man who took a strong—perhaps too strong—a personal interest in his patients. Jocelyn had walked with him as far as the gate, with only a parasol to protect her from the evening sun. They were old friends. The doctor’s wife was one of Jocelyn’s closest friends on the Coast.
“Do you know anything about Meredith’s future movements?” he asked. “Does he intend to come out here again?”
“I could not tell you. I do not think they have settled yet. But I think that when he gets home he will probably stay there.”
“Best thing he can do—best thing he can do. It will never do for him to risk getting another taste of malaria—tell him so, will you? Goodbye.”
“Yes, I will tell him.”
And Jocelyn Gordon walked slowly back to tell the man she loved that he must go away from her and never come back. The last few days had been days of complete happiness. There is no doubt that women have the power
