'It all depends. I have the gold I need, but the sporting instinct may be
too strong for me. Just now there is other work in view. Be assured, my
intentions are not honourable, however. We shall meet again. My
proposition may appeal to you later. You will not forget it.'
'Put it out of your head,' said Jim appealingly. 'Leave the country, take
the gold if you must, live luxuriously if you care to, but dig out of
your heart this devilish malice against people who have done you no
conscious wrong. Do this for your own sake; the course you have decided
upon is one of desolation and despair.'
'Least of all did I expect to find my brother a pulpiteer and a moralist
with all the popular faith in the domestic virtues, and the quaint
conviction that misery dogs the sinner,' said Ryder dryly.
'I have used no cant,' answered Jim, 'and I said nothing of sin or
virtue. I don't ask you to trust God, but to trust man. Be at peace with
your kind!'
'And this is the man they called the Hermit on board the Francis Cadman!'
'Yes; and I was wretched aboard simply because I met the free and hearty
men around me in a spirit of sullenness and suspicion. But my sick
misanthropy was not proof against the heart-quickening sunshine and the
grand enthusiasm of those fine sane men.'
'Evidently your philosophy sprang from a disordered liver. The
sea-voyage, in stimulating that, cured you of your cherished beliefs.
Another trip would probably make a devout Wesleyan of you,' said Ryder
banteringly. 'Now, my liver is a perfect instrument, and you couldn't
alter a single opinion of mine with a long course of antibilious
treatment. In defiance of all Sunday-school precedents, I can be cheerful
though wicked, and, having attained the splendid isolation of perfect
selfishness, my happiness is not dependent on the gaiety or gloom of the
crowd, My boy, you might remember that your experience is not so wide as
to justify you in asking mankind at large to accept you as the touchstone
for all human emotions. Good-bye.'
Jim gripped his brother's hand and held it. 'Good bye!' he said. 'I wish
I could do something for you, but you leave me helpless.'
Ryder went off with a laugh, and a moment later his voice came back
through the trees--a light, musical baritone, singing an Irish love-song,
and Jim, listening, troubled in spirit, wondered how much of the true man
he had been permitted to see.
Throughout the quiet months that followed Done lived a sober, methodical
life. He saw no more of his brother while they remained on the Jim Crow
diggings, but thought of him constantly, dreading to hear of some further
daring escapade on the part of Solo, fearing more the possibility of his
capture. Burton was perplexed by the note of gravity that had developed
in his mate, until he made an accidental discovery of Lucy Woodrow's
locket, and then he thought he understood all, especially as Jim's visits
to Kyley's shanty were comparatively rare of late. Meanwhile, Jim had
written once to Lucy, but had received no answer--a fact that did not
disturb him, however, as the postal service on the fields and in the Bush
was extremely erratic. He was quite satisfied now that he had been in
love with his shipmate all the time, but it was not easy to account for
Aurora. Certainly he had been very fond of her: he was fond of her still,
and could not bring himself to regret having known her. He strove
resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment,
with which, he assured himself, he had no sympathy, but little
uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to
maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange
man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident
the change in him was a source of great distress to her.
'I haven't seen you for a fortnight, Jim,' she said one evening, with a
tinge of reproach that she was striving to repress.
'No,' he said shortly.
'And absence hasn't made you particularly fond.'
He was leaning on the counter, and took her hand between his own, but was
silent.
'At least, you don't lie to me,' she continued.
Jim did not plume himself on that; he knew in his heart that if he had
not lied it was because a thoroughly satisfactory fiction had not
presented itself. He kissed her knuckles, which, in itself was a lie of
inference. Aurora pulled her hand away, and robbed him of his one
resource. He felt abashed and defenceless without it. He thrust his hands
in his pockets, and turned his shoulders to her, gazing moodily on the
floor, having a dawning sense of the differences that may suddenly
afflict two hearts that have beat as one, realizing that the ardent
affection of yesterday and yesterday's kisses count for nothing in the
present estrangement. He could, not essay the role of friendship: it was
as if they were strangers without a single affinity.
'The fact is, Aurora,' he said desperately, 'I'm a good deal changed.
I've experienced a great shock lately, and it has pulled me up short.'
'And the woman?'
He turned upon her again with genuine surprise. 'The woman! The woman!'
he cried. 'It has nothing to do with a woman. Upon my soul, no! Something
has been revealed to me that has hit me hard. I don't get over it easily;
it clings in my mind. If I could tell you, old girl, you'd sympathize;
but I can't--the secret is not my own.' He spoke with emotion, and
Aurora, watching him sharply, was touched. She put a hand on his arm.
'Not another word, Jimmy,' she said. 'I won't bother you. Sure,' she
continued lightly, we weemin 're niver contint wid the throubles of the
day. We're that curious we must be wonderin' how much more's comin'. We
may boast iv bein' sensible an' sthrong, but we're alwiz pushin' our
tentacles out to feel the sorrow iv to-morrow. I reckoned you'd be hatin'
me in a week, ma bouchal.'
Done felt himself justified in kissing her there and then, but the kiss
partook a good deal of the nature of a benediction.
This explanation did not serve to restore confidence; the constraint
remained, and increased with time. Jim noted its effect on Aurora with
some misgiving. His appearance in the tent was the signal for a display
of boisterous animation on her part. If she had been depressed before,
she suddenly became gay; if she had been animated, she became jubilant.
She sang, and joked, and danced, and played, with an excess of jocosity
that jarred him painfully. He gave her credit for uncommon intelligence,
and undoubtedly she had been educated above the position in life she was
content to occupy. Why should she resort to the shallow and obvious
subterfuges of the most foolish and frivolous of her sex? He had no
perception of the extent of her sufferings, and would not, in any case,
have understood how independent are the workings of the head and the
heart of a loving woman. On such occasions she flirted audaciously with
the miners, and her blood burned in her veins because Done showed no
disposition to be moved by it.
Tim Carrol imagined himself to be the specially favoured man, and was
Aurora's most devoted slave, and the girl played upon his big,
affectionate heart, with no object but to awaken in Done a sparkle of the
recent fire. One night Aurora danced with him through a lively reel, and
at its conclusion, in a spirit of mirthless mischief, put up her red
mouth to be kissed. Not for all the powers of good and evil would Tim
have foregone that delight. He kissed her, but this time Done offered no
objection. Indeed, he gave no indication of having seen what was passing,
although in reality he had been watching Aurora, impressed with the idea
that she was drinking. Never since the first night he met her had she
seemed to him to be under the influence of drink, and he admitted to
himself that he might have been mistaken then, and was probably deceived
now by the fervour of her character.
Done's indifference struck a chill to the girl's heart. She went back to
her place silent, but feeling within her the stirring of a tempest. A
quarter of an hour later she confronted Jim as he stood talking with
Harry Peetree. For a moment she looked into his face, and all eyes were
upon her. Then she struck him in the mouth with her right hand, and her
eyes, cheeks, and whole being seemed to blaze into passion at the same
moment.
'I have something belonging to you. Is it that you are waiting for?' She
threw the small nugget in his face with her other hand.
The gold cut his temple, but he did not flinch; his eyes met hers without
passion; his cultivated power of control helped him now. Taking out a
handkerchief, he wiped the blood from his eye, and then, picking up the
nugget, offered it to her.
'Aurora,' he said, 'you know in your heart that is a lie.'
His quietness made her action ridiculous, whatever his intention may have
been, and the girl felt it with an access of frenzy; but at this point
Tim Carrol felt himself called upon to intervene in his new character as
knight-errant.
'D'ye mean to call the lady a liar?' he cried hotly.
Jim, who had a real liking for the cheerful young Irishman, evaded the
awkward blow aimed at his head, and stood back, and Ben Kyley saved
further trouble by seizing Tim and hustling him into a corner.
'I'm the on'y man what's permitted to punch the customers in this tent,'
said Ben.
At the same time Mrs. Ben descended upon Aurora and bore her off with a
mighty hug, much as if she were a rebellious infant.