These days had been happier for Jocelyn than for Jack, because she was conscious of the fullness of every moment, while he was merely rejoicing in comfort after hardship, in pleasant society after loneliness. Even with the knowledge that it could not last, that beyond the near future lay a whole lifetime of complete solitude and that greatest of all miseries, the desire of an obvious impossibility—even with this she was happier than he; because she loved him and she saw him daily getting stronger; because their relative positions brought out the best and the least romantic part of a woman’s love—the subtle maternity of it. There is a fine romance in carrying our lady’s kerchief in an inner pocket, but there is something higher and greater and much more durable in the darning of a sock; for within the handkerchief there is chiefly gratified vanity, while within the sock there is one of those small infantile boots which have but little meaning for us.
Jocelyn entered the drawing-room with a smile.
“He is very pleased,” she said. “He does not seem to want to see you any more, and he told me to be inhospitable.”
“As how?”
“He told me to turn you out. You are to leave by the next steamer.”
He felt a sudden unaccountable pang of disappointment at her smiling eyes.
“This is no joking matter,” he said half seriously. “Am I really as well as that?”
“Yes.”
“The worst of it is that you seem rather pleased.”
“I am—at the thought that you are so much better.” She paused and turned quite away, busying herself with a pile of books and magazines. “The other,” she went on too indifferently, “was unfortunately to be foreseen. It is the necessary drawback.”
He rose suddenly and walked to the window.
“The grim old necessary drawback,” he said, without looking towards her.
There was a silence of some duration. Neither of them seemed to be able to find a method of breaking it without awkwardness. It was she who spoke at last.
“He also said,” she observed in a practical way, “that you must not come out to Africa again.”
He turned as if he had been stung.
“Did he make use of that particular word?” he asked.
“Which particular word?”
“Must.”
Jocelyn had not foreseen the possibility that the doctor was merely repeating to her what he had told Jack on a previous visit.
“No,” she answered. “I think he said ‘better not.’ ”
“And you make it into ‘must.’ ”
She laughed, with a sudden lightheartedness which remained unexplained.
“Because I know you both,” she answered. “For him ‘better not’ stands for ‘must.’ With you ‘better not’ means ‘doesn’t matter.’ ”
“ ‘Better not’ is so weak that if one pits duty against it it collapses. I cannot leave Oscard in the lurch, especially after his prompt action in coming to my relief.”
“Yes,” she replied guardedly. “I like Mr. Oscard’s way of doing things.”
The matter of the telegram summoning Oscard had not yet been explained. She did not want to explain it at that moment; indeed, she hoped that the explanation would never be needed.
“However,” she added, “you will see when you get home.”
He laughed.
“The least pleasant part of it is,” he said, “your evident desire to see the last of me. Could you not disguise that a little—just for the sake of my feelings?”
“Book your passage by the next boat and I will promptly descend to the lowest depths of despair,” she replied lightly.
He shrugged his shoulders with a short laugh.
“This is hospitality indeed,” he said, moving towards the door.
Then suddenly he turned and looked at her gravely.
“I wonder,” he said slowly, “if you are doing this for a purpose. You said that you met my father—”
“Your father is not the man to ask anyone’s assistance in his own domestic affairs, and anything I attempted to do could only be looked upon as the most unwarrantable interference.”
“Yes,” said Meredith seriously. “I beg your pardon. You are right.”
He went to his own room and summoned Joseph.
“When is the next boat home?” he asked.
“Boat on Thursday, sir.”
Meredith nodded. After a little pause he pointed to a chair.
“Just sit down,” he said. “I want to talk over this Simiacine business with you.”
Joseph squared his shoulders, and sat down with a face indicative of the gravest attention. Sitting thus he was no longer a servant, but a partner in the Simiacine. He even indulged in a sidelong jerk of the head, as if requesting the attention of some absent friend in a humble sphere of life to this glorious state of affairs.
“You know,” said Meredith, “Mr. Durnovo is more or less a blackguard.”
Joseph drew in his feet, having previously hitched his trousers up at the knees.
“Yes, sir,” he said, glancing up. “A blackguard—a damned blackguard,” he added unofficially under his breath.
“He wants continual watching and a special treatment. He requires someone constantly at his heels.”
“Yes, sir,” admitted Joseph, with some fervour.
“Now I am ordered home by the doctor,” went on Meredith. “I must go by the next boat, but I don’t like to go and leave Mr. Oscard in the lurch, with no one to fall back upon but Durnovo—you understand.”
Joseph’s face had assumed the habitual look of servitude—he was no longer a partner, but a mere retainer, with a half-comic resignation in his eyes.
“Yes, sir,” scratching the back of his neck. “I am afraid I understand. You want me to go back to that Platter—that Godforsaken Platter, as I may say.”
“Yes,” said Meredith. “That is about it. I would go myself—”
“God bless you! I know you would!” burst in Joseph. “You’d go like winkin’. There’s no one knows that better nor me, sir; and what I says is—like master, like man. Game, sir—game it is! I’ll go. I’m not the man to turn my back
