"And so you see," Holman said, and flung his coat upon the sands, and
took a pack of cards from one of the pockets and shuffled them absently,
"you don't stand to lose anyhow. If you win it's quits; if I win you
get half your losses bade and simply render me a service which will
trespass only on a few days--a week or two at most--of your time. It
strikes me as a fairly generous offer."
"It's the undeniable generosity that gives it its Blackguard look," was
the answer. "What's the nature of the service? ... You say you want me
to deliver a letter to a certain person of Dutch extraction and to bring
you back his reply. That would sound all right if there were no postal
facilities; but in view of the very excellent postal arrangements in
this country the request wears a sinister aspect. I don't want to
offend you, but--it's shady, this business? Plainly I can't go into the
thing with my eyes shut."
"I don't ask you to. At the same time, the less wide open they are the
better. There is nothing shadier in it than is customary in the gamble
of party politics. It's an attempt to overthrow the government. That,
I take it, won't disturb you particularly; you're not interested.
Despite your appreciation of the postal arrangements of this country,
there is a leakage somewhere. I don't choose to have my private
communications tapped, that is why I send important messages by hand."
Matheson pondered this, put a few questions as to the policy of the
present government and the reason for the other's objection to it, and
then lay full length on his lack on the sands and deliberated upon the
offer. Judged on its face-value it was worthy of consideration--the
whole of his losses, which were considerable, back if he won; and if he
lost half of them returned to him, with the sole obligation of carrying
a letter for a friend, who was presumably a political agitator, and to
return to him bearing a reply to his communication.
There was no danger in the undertaking; it would have appealed more
strongly had the dangerous element intruded; there was no particular
satisfaction in it beyond the pecuniary gain. Politics did not interest
him; but he was averse to this backstairs method of abetting agitators.
Agitators were insufferable nuisances. He had always felt that.
Usually they were moved by motives of personal interest; and they lacked
reasonableness. The latter placed them outside the limit of sympathy.
When one can't reason with a man one loses the desire to grasp his point
of view. It struck him as odd that Holman should be one of these
ill-balanced people; he had always regarded him as a shrewd and
peculiarly level-headed man. As a political malcontent he appeared in a
new light, a light that flared artificially about him and revealed a
queer motley of anachronistic effects--modern civilisation practising
the customs of bygone intrigue in a country that was young, in the
accepted sense of development, and more ancient than history itself. He
couldn't understand it.
After a while he ceased to concern himself with that aspect of the case,
and brought his attention to bear upon the more personal view. He would
be blind to self-interest if he could not perceive that the proposal,
apart from its unpleasant flavour of intrigue, was altogether favourable
to himself. He believed it to be prompted by purely friendly feeling,
and a desire to accommodate without humiliating him. Regarding it thus,
he could only appreciate the generosity and good feeling which dictated
it, and marvel at his own reluctance to accept this opportunity of
regaining half, or all, that he had lost. But the reluctance remained,
and revealed itself, even when he had overcome it sufficiently to decide
in favour of closing with the offer, in the ungracious acquiescence
which he gave.
"All right," he said, sitting up and fidgeting with the sand. "That
sort of thing isn't exactly in my line, but I'll do it--if I lose."
"And ask no questions?" Holman said, without moving.
"And keep my mouth shut in any circumstance..."
They cut, and Matheson dealt.
This gamble, with its odd stakes and uncertain issue, was like no other
game he had ever engaged in. He felt as a man might feel who stakes
life or liberty upon a chance without sufficient justification.
Possibly it was because in some subconscious way he realised that it was
honour that was at stake that made the issue of such tremendous
importance to him. He had to win. He would not admit the possibility
of failure.
In silence he took up his cards. His features were tense. The
perspiration started on his forehead, on the backs of his hands, on his
arms: there was an anxious look in his eyes, a suggestion of nervousness
in his laboured breathing. In striking contrast, the calm of his
opponent's manner was manifest in the deliberate way in which he looked
over his hand and calculated its value. His luck still held; the
advantage of the cards lay with him...
Later, with the excitement of the play past, the eager curiosity of
indeterminate results changed to the unpleasant actuality of accepted
defeat, Matheson was aware that he had lost more than a mere game, even
a game with big stakes depending thereon. Although he had regained
one-half of his former losses, he felt poorer than when on the previous
day he had acknowledged that he was cleaned out. He stood pledged now
to a service about which he knew nothing save its undeniably shady
nature; he had agreed, moreover, not to attempt to learn more concerning
it. The unwisdom of the undertaking struck him as it had not done when
upheld with the belief that he would win and so be relieved of the
obligation. He was committed to the carrying out of a piece of
egregious folly which might lead to any wild complication, and force him
into an unwilling co-operation with persons whose views were opposed to
his own. Distrust of Holman grew in him. He could not give a name to
his doubt, but the doubt existed: he resented having allowed himself to
become the man's tool.
Holman made some comment on the unaccountability of luck, and, looking
up to answer him, Matheson became aware of a small face, flushed and
half averted, of a pair of disapproving brown eyes surveying their
grouping with disfavour, as their owner passed close by the scene of the
gamble and continued her way over the hot sands. Matheson got up.
"I'll see you at the hotel," he said, slipping into his coat. And
without waiting for any response, he followed the girl and speedily
overtook her.
"So the injury didn't amount to much after all," he said, meeting her
eyes with a smile as she turned an inquiring face in his direction, and
then halted and shook hands with him. "I am glad to see you are able to
walk without inconvenience."
"Oh! the bite was nothing. I rested yesterday; but it wasn't really
necessary. However, I don't mean to walk far; it is too hot."
"The best time is the evening," he said, keeping beside her when she
started to walk again. "It was jolly on the beach last night. I
tramped out after dinner," he explained, observing her surprise. "Do
you ever come down here in the dusk?"
"No. I don't often get the opportunity," she answered; and there was,
he fancied, a note of regret in her voice. "Mrs Graham likes to be
read to after dinner--or we work."
The description of the manner in which her evenings were passed did not
sound enlivening. He wondered that any girl should submit to these dull
conditions, that girls could be found to fill such servile posts.
"Do you never get any time off?" he asked.
"It's off-time to-day," she admitted, smiling suddenly. "Mrs Graham
has a sick headache. When she has a headache no one is allowed near
her. Sometimes they last three days. She is subject to them."
"Then," he said promptly, in the manner of one making a statement which
admits no contradiction, "you can come to-night... Will you?" he added
tentatively.
"Will I come--on the beach?" she asked in an undecided tone, as though
uncertain that she apprehended him rightly. "You mean after dinner?"
"Yes," he returned. "It will be jolly if you do."
She hesitated; and he noticed in her eyes, before she averted them and
looked seaward, a shadow like a tiny doubt passing over the clear
surface of her mind.
"I... It is a little unusual," she said, the perplexed eyes in the
glittering distance.
"That's tantamount to a refusal, I suppose?" he said, feeling nettled
and unaccountably disappointed. "Perhaps I ought not to have proposed
it; but it occurred to me that it would be pleasant. I'm sorry. I
didn't wish to embarrass you."
Immediately, with his inference of refusal, her disinclination to adopt
the suggestion faded. She wanted to come. He had said he thought it
would be pleasant; she, more positive in her opinions, knew that it
would be pleasant, wonderfully pleasant. Very few pleasant adventures
happened in her life; it was ridiculous to reject anything that offered
for so feeble a reason as a sense of the unusual. Was that not after
all recommendation in itself? She sought about in her mind for words in
which to convey to him without appearing eager that she would like to
come, but her vocabulary failed her; seldom had she been at so great a
loss for words. Unexpectedly he came to her relief.
"I am infected with the holiday mood," he said. "I want to enjoy
things. And my holiday is very near the finish. I may leave any day--
perhaps to-morrow. You too must know the holiday mood. We don't leave
it altogether behind with our childhood. I want to talk to you. We
happened upon the acquaintance by accident--it is part of the holiday.
That must be my apology for seeming intrusive."
She turned towards him deliberately with a friendlier look in her eyes.
"I think my gaucherie needs some apologia too," she confessed.
"Why not make it in the form of a concession?" he suggested hopefully,
and experienced a curious satisfaction when suddenly she laughed.
Somehow he did not need any assurance in words that she would be on the
beach that evening. Instinctively he felt that the reason which had
been responsible for her reluctance to accede to his request no longer
existed. Whatever it had been she had ridded herself of it. He liked
to think that if she had felt a want of confidence in him, her feminine
intuition had made it possible to conquer this mistrust. It was the
first step towards that better understanding which he wished, he did not
know why, to establish between them.