"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 some day."
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 to fend it off; but Jack Meredith, with his keener perception, saw that Jocelyn was determined--that further delay would only make the matter worse.
"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 circ.u.mstances 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 d.a.m.ned 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."