CHAPTER VIII
THE LADY--AND THE GENTLEMAN
Apparently each of the pair was equally surprised. Each stared at theother as if tongue-tied; Mr Holland motionless, holding the ring alittle in front of him, as if suffering from at least temporaryparalysis; Miss Bewicke, equally rigid, with her fingers up to herthroat, just as she had raised them intending to remove the boa whichwas about her neck. It was she who first regained the faculty ofspeech.
'Guy!' The word came with a little gasp, as if she uttered itunwittingly. He was still; staring at her as if he were powerless toremove his eyes from off her face. 'What are you doing?'
Still silence from the man. His incapacity seemed to inspire her withconfidence. She removed her boa, smiling as she did so. She saunteredhere and there, eyeing things. She walked right round him, peering athim as she went. He might have been some mechanical figure, he enduredso stolidly her ostentatious curiosity. Only he followed her with hisglance as she passed round.
She did not speak when she had finished her inspection; with apparentindifference to his presence she took off her hat and coat. Unable,perhaps, to endure the situation any longer he struggled to obtainpossession of his voice. It sounded harsh and husky.
'I thought you had gone to Brighton?'
'So you keep an observation on my movements, I see?' The words wereaccompanied by a smile which made him clench his fists so tightly thathe drove the nails into the palms. She was folding up a veil, with adainty show of peculiar care. 'I ought to be at Brighton; but I'm not.I meant to go; but I didn't. It was so late that I put off my journeytill tomorrow; so I went to see some people instead. It was painfullyslow; this promises to be better.'
Her airy manner, which seemed to him to be so pregnant with contempt,tried him more than reproaches might have done, or rage. He was soconscious of his position that indifference stung more than lashes. Apoliceman he could have faced, but not this smiling girl. All hisself-respect had gone clean out of him; he felt she knew, andfloundered in his efforts to regain some part of it.
'Miss Bewicke, you know why I am here.'
'To see me, I suppose. So good of you, Guy. Especially as I take itthat you intended to wait for me till I returned from Brighton.'
'I came to take my own.'
'Your own?'
'This.'
He held out the ring between his finger and thumb. She came nearer, sothat she might see what it was he held, smiling all the time.
'That--that's mine!'
'It was bequeathed me by my uncle.'
'Your uncle? Impossible; it wasn't his to bequeath.'
'You know the conditions which were attached to its possession. Sinceyou declined to give it me--'
'I did not decline.'
'I don't know what other construction you put upon your conduct oflast night. I gathered that you declined. Therefore, since itsimmediate possession was of capital importance, I came and took it.'
'How nice of you. And you waited till you thought I was at Brighton toshow your mettle? How discreet! Guy, weren't you once to have been myhusband?'
Nothing was further from his desire than to become involved in atangle of reminiscences, so he became a little brutal.
'I have the ruby; that is the main point.'
'Are you proud of having robbed me--the girl who was to have been yourwife?'
'You would have robbed me.'
'Even supposing that to be true, does that entitle you to throw asideall those canons of honour to which you have always given me tounderstand you were such a stickler, and become--a thief? Oh, Guy!'
'I do not propose to bandy words with you. I know of old your capacityto make black seem white--you were ever an actress, May. How the rubyoriginally came into your possession I cannot say.'
'It's not a pretty story, Guy; scarcely to your uncle's credit.'
'But you were perfectly well aware that morally it was mine. It wasnothing to you; it was all the world to me. I believe that you refusedto let me have it precisely because you knew that your refusal mightentail my ruin; and so your cup of revenge might be filled to thefull. Under those circumstances I hold that I was justified in usingany and every means to save myself from being utterly undone by thewhim of a revengeful woman.'
'I meant to let you have it.'
'That was not the impression you left upon my mind last night.'
'You took me unawares--I had to think things over.'
'Then if it was your intention that I should have it you cannot but bepleased to find that my action has kept abreast of your intention.'
Miss Bewicke was silent. She was drawing imaginary pictures with herfinger-tip on the table by which she was standing, looking down as shedid so. His desire was to get away; it was not an interview which hewished to have prolonged. But his departure was postponed.
'Why do you say I am revengeful?'
'You know better than I.'
'Do you think I wish to be revenged on you because once you pretendedto love me, and now you keep up that pretence no longer?'
'It was no pretence.'
'I am glad to hear that, because, Guy, I love you still.'
She looked up at him in such a way that she seemed to compel him tomeet her eyes. He shivered.
'I wish you wouldn't say such things.'
'Why? Because they're true? I like to tell the truth. I have alwaysloved you, and I always shall, though I shall never be your wife.'
'I thought you said you were engaged to Dumville.'
'So I am. And I daresay that perhaps one day I shall marry him. Idon't know quite why. But it certainly isn't because I love him. Ihave never pretended to. Ask him; he's frankness itself; he'llconfess. Although, as you have only told me, I am a woman withill-regulated passions and irresponsible tendencies, I'm a woman withonly one love in her life, and you are he. Good-night, and good-bye.'
Now that she had formally dismissed him he felt that it was difficultto go. He fidgeted instead.
'I know you think that I have behaved meanly.'
'Not at all. I suppose you have acted according to your lights.'
'I'm not so sure of that. But, the truth is, I was desperate.'
'Indeed? Is that so? Like the man with the twelve starving children,who steals the bottle of whisky. I know. If I were you I wouldn'ttrouble to explain. This sort of situation is not improved byexplanation. I think you had better pocket your booty and go.'
'As for the ruby'--he was holding it out on the palm of his openhand--'I will give you another for it a dozen times as good as this.'
For the first time she fired up.
'You dare to do anything of the kind--you dare! Do you think I am tobe bought and sold?'
'I simply don't wish you to suffer from my action.'
'Do you think that your giving me one piece of stone in exchange foranother piece of stone will prevent my suffering? Guy, please, go.'
He placed the ring before her on the table.
'There is the ruby.'
'Take it.'
'Do you mean that?'
'I do. If it is of the slightest use to you, by all means take it.'
'You give it to me--freely?'
'Oh, yes, so freely! Only--I wish you'd go.'
Thrusting the ruby into his waistcoat pocket, he went, without anotherword. Without it seemed darker even than before. He stumbled, blindly,down the stairs. Presently the darkness lightened; a gleam descendedfrom above. Glancing up he perceived that Miss Bewicke was leaningover the railing with a lighted candle in her hand. He said nothing;attempted no word of thanks. So far as he knew she, too, was still;but as he descended, assisted by the light she held, he felt as he wasconvinced the whipped cur must feel, which sneaks off with its tailbetween its legs. The candle was still showing a faint glimmer oflight as he passed into the street. He applied a dozen injuriousepithets to himself as he thought that he had not even acknowledgedthe courtesy he had received. But for the life of him he c
ould not, atthat moment, have uttered a word of thanks.
Now that he was out in the street he raged. In his first mad impulsehe would have taken what Miss Bewicke had called his 'booty' from hispocket and hurled it from him through the night. Prudence, however,prevailed. He told himself, again and again, that he was an ineffablething to allow it to remain a second longer in his possession. Itstayed there all the same. He was conscious that nothing could be lessromantic than the whole adventure; nothing more undignified than thepart which he had played in it. He had been throughout a merefigurehead--a counter manipulated by three women--he who thought thatif he had anything on which to pride himself it was his manhood. Hisrage waxed hotter as he strode along; he was angry even with MissBroad.
'If it hadn't been for her--' he began. Then stopped, stood still,struck with his fist at the air--his stick, it seemed, he had leftbehind him. 'What a cur I am! I try to put the blame, like somesnivelling sneak of a schoolboy, upon everyone except myself, asthough the fault was not mine, and mine alone. Am I some weak idiotthat I am not responsible for my own actions? that I do a dirty thing,and then exclaim that someone made me? Well, it's done, and can't beundone, and I stand, self-confessed, a hound; but, as I live, I'llreturn at once and make her take the ruby back again. Then off oncemore for Africa. Better to be haunted by my uncle's ghost than by myown conscience.'
He turned, prepared to put his new-born resolution immediately intoeffect, and found himself confronted by an individual by whom hissteps had been dogged ever since he left Miss Bewicke's. Had he hadhis wits about him he could hardly have helped noticing the fact, theproceedings of the person who took such a warm interest in hismovements had been so singular. To begin with, he had been on theother side of the road. When Mr Holland first appeared he had slunkback into a doorway, from which he presently issued in pursuit,keeping as much as possible in the shadow. When, however, he perceivedhimself unnoticed he became bolder. Until, at last, making a suddendash across the street, he began to follow within a few feet of theunconscious pedestrian. He carried something, which every now and thenhe gripped with both hands, as if about to strike.
The mathematical moment came when Mr Holland turned. Without givinghim a chance to speak the man swung the something which he carriedthrough the air, bringing it down heavily, with a thud, upon his head.Mr Holland dropped on to the pavement. And there he lay.