Dinner at the Lodge that night was not a very lively affair. Trent had
great matters in his brain and was not in the least disposed to make
conversation for the sake of his unbidden guests. Da Souza's few remarks
he treated with silent contempt, and Mrs. Da Souza he answered only in
monosyllables. Julie, nervous and depressed, stole away before dessert,
and Mrs. Da Souza soon followed her, very massive, and frowning with
an air of offended dignity. Da Souza, who opened the door for them,
returned to his seat, moodily flicking the crumbs from his trousers with
his serviette.
“Hang it all, Trent,” he remarked in an aggrieved tone, “you might be a
bit more amiable! Nice lively dinner for the women I must say.”
“One isn't usually amiable to guests who stay when they're not asked,”
Trent answered gruffly. “However, if I hadn't much to say to your wife
and daughter, I have a word or two to say to you, so fill up your glass
and listen.”
Da Souza obeyed, but without heartiness. He stretched himself out in his
chair and looked down thoughtfully at the large expanse of shirt-front,
in the centre of which flashed an enormous diamond.
“I've been into the City to-day as you know,” Trent continued, “and I
found as I expected that you have been making efforts to dispose of your
share in the Bekwando Syndicate.”
“I can assure you--”
“Oh rot!” Trent interrupted. “I know what I'm talking about. I won't
have you sell out. Do you hear? If you try it on I'll queer the
market for you at any risk. I won't marry your daughter, I won't be
blackmailed, and I won't be bullied. We're in this together, sink or
swim. If you pull me down you've got to come too. I'll admit that if
Monty were to present himself in London to-morrow and demand his full
pound of flesh we should be ruined, but he isn't going to do it. By
your own showing there is no immediate risk, and you've got to leave the
thing in my hands to do what I think best. If you play any hanky-panky
tricks--look here, Da Souza, I'll kill you, sure! Do you hear? I could
do it, and no one would be the wiser so far as I was concerned. You take
notice of what I say, Da Souza. You've made a fortune, and be satisfied.
That's all!”
“You won't marry Julie, then?” Da Souza said gloomily.
“No, I'm shot if I will!” Trent answered. “And look here, Da Souza,
I'm leaving here for town to-morrow--taken a furnished flat in Dover
Street--you can stay here if you want, but there'll only be a caretaker
in the place. That's all I've got to say. Make yourself at home with the
port and cigars. Last night, you know! You'll excuse me! I want a breath
of fresh air.”
Trent strolled through the open window into the garden, and breathed
a deep sigh of relief. He was a free man again now. He had created new
dangers--a new enemy to face--but what did he care? All his life had
been spent in facing dangers and conquering enemies. What he had done
before he could do again! As he lit a pipe and walked to and fro, he
felt that this new state of things lent a certain savour to life--took
from it a certain sensation of finality not altogether agreeable, which
his recent great achievements in the financial world seemed to have
inspired. After all, what could Da Souza do? His prosperity was
altogether bound up in the success of the Bekwando Syndicate--he was
never the man to kill the goose which was laying such a magnificent
stock of golden eggs. The affair, so far as he was concerned, troubled
him scarcely at all on cool reflection. As he drew near the little
plantation he even forgot all about it. Something else was filling his
thoughts!
The change in him became physical as well as mental. The hard face of
the man softened, what there was of coarseness in its rugged outline
became altogether toned down. He pushed open the gate with fingers which
were almost reverent; he came at last to a halt in the exact spot where
he had seen her first. Perhaps it was at that moment he realised most
completely and clearly the curious thing which had come to him--to him
of all men, hard-hearted, material, an utter stranger in the world of
feminine things. With a pleasant sense of self-abandonment he groped
about, searching for its meaning. He was a man who liked to understand
thoroughly everything he saw and felt, and this new atmosphere in which
he found himself was a curious source of excitement to him. Only he knew
that the central figure of it all was this girl, that he had come out
here to think about her, and that henceforth she had become to him the
standard of those things which were worth having in life. Everything
about her had been a revelation to him. The women whom he had come
across in his battle upwards, barmaids and their fellows, fifth-rate
actresses, occasionally the suburban wife of a prosperous City man, had
impressed him only with a sort of coarse contempt. It was marvellous how
thoroughly and clearly he had recognised Ernestine at once as a type of
that other world of womenkind, of which he admittedly knew nothing. Yet
it was so short a time since she had wandered into his life, so short a
time that he was even a little uneasy at the wonderful strength of this
new passion, a thing which had leaped up like a forest tree in a world
of magic, a live, fully-grown thing, mighty and immovable in a single
night. He found himself thinking of all the other things in life from a
changed standpoint. His sense of proportions was altered, his financial
triumphs were no longer omnipotent. He was inclined even to brush them
aside, to consider them more as an incident in his career. He associated
her now with all those plans concerning the future which he had been
dimly formulating since the climax of his successes had come. She was of
the world which he sought to enter--at once the stimulus and the object
of his desires. He forgot all about Da Souza and his threats, about the
broken-down, half-witted old man who was gazing with wistful eyes across
the ocean which kept him there, an exile--he remembered nothing save the
wonderful, new thing which had come into his life. A month ago he would
have scoffed at the idea of there being anything worth considering
outside the courts and alleys of the money-changers' market. To-night he
knew of other things. To-night he knew that all he had done so far was
as nothing--that as yet his foot was planted only on the threshold of
life, and in the path along which he must hew his way lay many fresh
worlds to conquer. To-night he told himself that he was equal to them
all. There was something out here in the dim moonlight, something
suggested by the shadows, the rose-perfumed air, the delicate and
languid stillness, which crept into his veins and coursed through his
blood like magic.
* * * * *
Yet every now and then the same thought came; it lay like a small but
threatening black shadow across all those brilliant hopes and dreams
which were filling his brain. So far he had played the game of life as a
hard man, perhaps, and a selfish one, but always honestly. Now, for the
first time, he had stepped aside from the beaten track. He told himself
that he was not bound to believe Da Souza's story, that he had left
Monty with the honest conviction that he was past all human help. Yet
he knew that such consolation was the merest sophistry. Through the
twilight, as he passed to and fro, he fancied more than once that the
wan face of an old man, with wistful, sorrowing eyes, was floating
somewhere before him--and he stopped to listen with bated breath to
the wind rustling in the elm-trees, fancying he could hear that same
passionate cry ringing still in his ears--the cry of an old man parted
from his kin and waiting for death in a lonely land.