IT CAN WAIT.
In all things evil and good, to the world, and--a thing quite rare--to
himself, Willie Ruston was an unaffected man. Success, the evidence of
power and the earnest of more power, gave him his greatest pleasure, and
he received it with his greatest and most open satisfaction. It did not
surprise him, but it elated him, and his habit was to conceal neither
the presence of elation nor the absence of surprise. That irony in the
old sense, which means the well-bred though hardly sincere depreciation
of a man's own qualities and achievements, was not his. When he had done
anything, he liked to dine with his friends and talk it over. He had
been sharing the Carlins' unfashionable six o'clock meal at Hampstead
this evening, and had taken the train to Baker Street, and was now
sauntering home with a cigar. He had talked the whole thing over with
them. Carlin had said that no one could have managed the affair so well
as he had, and Mrs. Carlin had not once referred to that lost _tabula in
naufragio_, the coal business. Yes, his attack on London had been a
success. He had known nothing of London, save that its denizens were
human beings, and that knowledge, whether in business or society, had
been enough. His great scheme was floated; a few months more would see
him in Omofaga; there was money to last for a long time to come; and he
had been cordially received and even made a lion of in the
drawing-rooms. They would look for his name in the papers ("and find it,
by Jove," he interpolated). Men in high places would think of him when
there was a job to be "put through;" and women, famous in regions
inaccessible to the vulgar, would recollect their talks with Mr. Ruston.
Decidedly they were human beings, and therefore, raw as he was (he just
knew that he had come to them a little raw), he had succeeded.
Yet they were, some of them, strange folk. There were complications in
them which he found it necessary to reconnoitre. They said a great many
things which they did not think, and, _en revanche_, would often only
hint what they did. And----But here he yawned, and, finding his cigar
out, relit it. He was not in the mood for analysing his acquaintance. He
let his fancy play more lightly. It was evening, and work was done. He
liked London evenings. He had liked bandying repartees with Adela
Ferrars (though she had been too much for him if she could have kept her
temper); he liked talking to Marjory Valentine and seeing her occupied
with his ideas. Most of all, he liked trying to catch Maggie Dennison's
thought as it flashed out for a moment, and fled to shelter again. He
had laughed again and again over the talk that Tom Loring had
interrupted--and not less because of the interruption. There was little
malice in him, and he bore no grudge against Tom. Even his anger at the
Omofaga articles had been chiefly for public purposes and public
consumption. It was always somebody's "game" to spoil his game, and one
must not quarrel with men for playing their own hands. Tom amused him,
and had amused him, especially by his behaviour over that talk. No doubt
the position had looked a strange one. Tom had been so shocked. Poor
Tom, it must be very serious to be so easily shocked. Mr. Ruston was not
easily shocked.
Unaffected, free from self-consciousness, undividedly bent on his
schemes, unheeding of everything but their accomplishment, he had spent
little time in considering the considerable stir which he had, in fact,
created in the circle of his more intimate associates. They had proved
pliable and pleasant, and these were the qualities he liked in his
neighbours. They said agreeable things to him, and they did what he
wanted. He had stayed not (save once, and half in jest, with Maggie
Dennison) to inquire why, and the quasi-real, quasi-burlesque
apprehension of him--burlesqued perhaps lest it should seem too
real--which had grown up among such close observers as Adela Ferrars and
Semingham, would have struck him as absurd, the outcome of that idle
business of brain which weaves webs of fine fancies round the obvious,
and loses the power of action in the fascination of self-created
puzzles. The _nuances_ of a woman's attraction towards a man, whether it
be admiration, or interest, or pass beyond--whether it be liking and
just not love--or interest running into love--or love masquerading as
interest, or what-not, Willie Ruston recked little of. He was a man, and
a young man. He liked women and clever women--yes, and handsome women.
But to spend your time thinking of or about women, or, worse still, of
or about what women thought of you, seemed poor economy of precious
days--amusing to do, maybe, in spare hours, inevitable now and
again--but to be driven or laughed away when there was work to be done.
Such was the colour of his floating thoughts, and the loose-hung
meditation brought him to his own dwelling, in a great building which
overlooked Hyde Park. He lived high up in a small, irregular,
many-cornered room, sparely-furnished, dull and pictureless. The only
thing hanging on the walls was a large scale map of Omofaga and the
neighbouring territories; in lieu of nicnacks there stood on the
mantlepiece lumps of ore, specimens from the mines of Omofaga (would not
these convince the most obstinate unbeliever?), and half-smothered by
ill-dusted papers, a small photograph of Ruston and a potent Omofagan
chief seated on the ground with a large piece of paper before them--a
treaty no doubt. A well-worn sofa, second-hand and soft, and a deep
arm-chair redeemed the place from utter comfortlessness, but it was
plain that beauty in his daily surroundings was not essential to Willie
Ruston. He did not notice furniture.
He walked in briskly, but stopped short with his hand still on the knob
of the door. Harry Dennison lay on the sofa, with his arm flung across
his face. He sprang up on Ruston's entrance.
"Hullo! Been here long? I've been dining with Carlin," said Ruston, and,
going to a cupboard, he brought out whisky and soda water.
Harry Dennison began to explain his presence. In the first place he had
nothing to do; in the second he wanted someone to talk to; in the
third--at last he blurted it out--the first, second, third and only
reason for his presence.
"I don't believe I can manage alone in town," he said.
"Not manage? There's nothing to do. And Carlin's here."
"You see I've got other work besides Omofaga," pleaded Harry.
"Oh, I know Dennisons have lots of irons in the fire. But Omofaga won't
trouble you. I've told Carlin to wire me if any news comes, and I can be
back in a few hours."
Harry had come to suggest that the expedition to Dieppe should be
abandoned for a week or two. He got no chance and sat silent.
"It's all done," continued Ruston. "The stores are all on their way.
Jackson is waiting for them on the coast. Why, the train will start
inland in a couple of months from now. They'll go very slow though. I
shall catch them up all right."
Harry brightened a little.
"Belford said it was uncertain when you would start," he said.
"It may be uncertain to Belford, it's not to me," observed Mr. Ruston,
lighting his pipe.
The speech sounded unkind; but Mr. Belford's mind dwelt in uncertainty
contentedly.
"Then you think of----?"
"My dear Dennison, I don't 'think' at all. To-day's the 12th of August.
Happen what may, I sail on the 10th of November. Nothing will keep me
after that--nothing."
"Belford started for the Engadine to-day."
"Well, he won't worry you then. Let it alone, my dear fellow. It's all
right."
Clearly Mr. Ruston meant to go to Dieppe. That was now to Harry Dennison
bad news; but he meant to go to Omofaga also, and to go soon; that was
good. Harry, however, had still something that he wished to convey--a
bit of diplomacy to carry out.
"I hope you'll find Maggie better," he began. "She was rather knocked up
when she went."
"A few days will have put her all right," responded Ruston cheerfully.
He was never ill and treated fatigue with a cheery incredulousness. But,
at least, he spoke with an utter absence of undue anxiety on the score
of another man's wife.
Harry Dennison, primed by Mrs. Cormack's suggestions, went on,
"I wish you'd talk to her as little as you can about Omofaga. She's very
interested in it, you know, and--and very excitable--and all that. We
want her mind to get a complete rest."
"Hum. I expect, then, I mustn't talk to her at all."
The manifest impossibility of making such a request did not prevent
Harry yearning after it.
"I don't ask that," he said, smiling weakly.
"It won't hurt her," said Willie Ruston. "And she likes it."
She liked it beyond question.
"It tires her," Harry persisted. "It--it gets on her nerves. It absorbs
her too much."
His face was turned up to Ruston. As he spoke the last words, Ruston
directed his eyes, suddenly and rapidly, upon him. Harry could not
escape the encounter of eyes; hastily he averted his head, and his face
flushed. Ruston continued to look at him, a slight smile on his lips.
"Absorbs her?" he repeated slowly, fingering his beard.
"Well, you know what I mean."
Another long stare showed Ruston's meditative preoccupation. Harry sat
uncomfortable under it, wishing he had not let fall the word.
"Well, I'll be careful," said Ruston at last. "Anything else?"
Harry rose. Ruston carried an atmosphere of business about with him, and
the visit seemed naturally to end with the business of it. Taking his
hat, Harry moved towards the door. Then, pausing, he smiled in an
embarrassed way, and remarked,
"You can talk to Marjory Valentine, you know."
"So I can. She's a nice girl."
Harry twirled his hat in his fingers. His brain had conceived more
diplomacy.
"It'll be a fine chance for you to win her heart," he suggested with a
tentative laugh.
"I might do worse," said Willie Ruston.
"You might--much worse," said Harry eagerly.
"Aren't you rather giving away your friend young Haselden?"
"Who told you, Ruston?"
"Lady Val. Who told you?"
"Semingham."
"Ah! Well, what would Haselden say to your idea?"
"Well, she won't have him--he's got no chance anyhow."
"All right. I'll think about it. Good-night."
He watched his guest depart, but did not accompany him on his way, and,
left alone, sat down in the deep arm-chair. His smile was still on his
lips. Poor Harry Dennison was a transparent schemer--one of those whose
clumsy efforts to avert what they fear effects naught save to suggest
the doing of it. Yet Willie Ruston's smile had more pity than scorn in
it. True, it had more of amusement than of either. He could have taken a
slate and written down all Harry's thoughts during the interview. But
whence had come the change? Why had Dennison himself bidden him to
Dieppe, to come now, a fortnight later, and beg him not to go? Why did
he now desire his wife to hear no more of Omofaga, whose chief delight
in it had been that it caught her fancy and imparted to him some of the
interest she found in it? Ruston saw in the transformation the working
of another mind.
"Somebody's been putting it into his head," he muttered, still
half-amused, but now half-angry also.
And, with his usual rapidity of judgment, he darted unhesitatingly to a
conclusion. He identified the hand in the business; he recognised whose
more subtle thoughts Harry Dennison had stumbled over and mauled in his
painful devices. But to none is it given to be infallible, and want of
doubt does not always mean absence of error. Forgetting this commonplace
truth, Willie Ruston slapped his thigh, leapt up from his chair and,
standing on the rug, exclaimed,
"Loring--by Jove!"
It was clear to him. Loring was his enemy; he had displaced Loring.
Loring hated him and Omofaga. Loring had stirred a husband's jealousy to
further his own grudge. The same temper of mind that made his anger fade
away when he had arrived at this certainty, prevented any surprise at
the discovery. It was natural in man to seek revenge, to use the nearest
weapon, to counter stroke with stroke, not to throw away any advantages
for the sake of foibles of generosity. So, then, it was Loring who bade
him not go to Dieppe, who prayed him to not to "absorb" Mrs. Dennison in
Omofaga, who was ready, notwithstanding his hatred and distrust, to see
him the lover of Marjory Valentine sooner than the too engrossing friend
of Mrs. Dennison! What a fool they must think him!--and, with this
reflection, he put the whole matter out of his head. It could wait till
he was at Dieppe, and, taking hold of the great map by the roller at the
bottom, he drew it to him. Then he reached and lifted the lamp from the
table, and set it high on the mantlepiece. Its light shone now on his
path, and with his finger he traced the red line that ran, curving and
winding, inwards from the coast, till it touched the blue letters of the
"Omofaga" that sprawled across the map. The line ended in a cross of red
paint. The cross was Fort Imperial--was to be Fort Imperial, at least;
but Willie Ruston's mind overleapt all difference of tenses. He stood
and looked, pulling hard and fast at his pipe. He was there--there in
Fort Imperial already--far away from London and London folk--from weak
husbands and their causes of anxiety--from the pleasing recreations of
fascinating society, from the covert attacks of men whose noses he had
put out of joint. He forgot them all; their feelings became naught to
him. What mattered their graces, their assaults, their weal or woe? He
was in Omofaga, carving out of its rock a stable seat, carving on the
rock face, above the seat, a name that should live.
At last he turned away, flinging his empty pipe on the table and
dropping the map from his hand.
"I shall go to bed," he said. "Three months more of it!"
And to bed he went, never having thought once during the whole evening
of a French lady, who liked to get amusement out of her neighbours, and
had stayed in town on purpose to have some more talks with Harry
Dennison. Had Willie Ruston not been quite so sure that he read Tom
Loring's character aright, he might have spared a thought for Mrs.
Cormack.