Mrs Lawless was like a sick woman whose illness increased as the day
advanced. She had recognised the finality of things on the night when
Lawless walked out of her presence--out of her house, to return to the
woman with whose lot he had thrown in his own. It was another of the
mad, reckless acts that had governed his undisciplined nature. But
to-day, with her mind disturbed with thoughts of death and deeds of
violence, the memory of how she had let him go without exerting every
effort to persuade him to reconsider his decision troubled her greatly.
Why had she not humbled her pride and pleaded with him? ... Why had she
let the thought that it would be derogatory to her dignity deter her
from freely avowing her love for him? ... Might not the strength of her
love have stood between him and this evil? ... She felt as though hers
had been the hand to thrust him forth into the darkness for the second
time. Once before, in the years that were gone, she had thrust him
forth; and in the empty years that had succeeded she had learnt bitterly
to regret the hard unforgivingness of that act. Her one cry then had
been: "I didn't understand... Oh! if only I could have the chance
again." The opportunity had been given her, and she had failed to
recognise it. "He was so cold," she excused herself. "I was afraid of
him." And then: "I could not have prevented him from doing what he had
made up his mind to do... My power over him is dead..."
In that knowledge lay the bitterness of the sting...
In the afternoon, according to her promise, Julie Weeber arrived. She
was somewhat diffident of intruding, uncertain how Mrs Lawless felt the
news of Van Bleit's arrest. Julie shared the popular belief that it
would be a grievous shock to the woman whose name had been bandied about
in connection with his for months. To make sure, she inquired of the
native who opened the door to her whether Mrs Lawless were receiving.
"I would come another day, if it were more convenient," she said.
"Missis is expecting you," he answered, and showed her into the
drawing-room.
Zoe Lawless was seated in a low chair near one of the windows, with her
hands lying idly in her lap. She was very pale. Julie decided that she
looked ill, and imagined that she understood the reason of her pallor.
"I came," she explained, "because I said I would. But if you'd rather
have me some other day, I'll go away again."
"I'd rather that you stayed," Mrs Lawless answered, rising and shaking
hands. "You see, I'm lonely. Why should you condemn me to my own
society to-day?"
"I thought perhaps--"
Julie stammered and came upon an awkward pause, whereupon Mrs Lawless
went quickly to her assistance.
"I know," she said. "This shocking news is all so fresh. But,
obviously, I cannot assist my friends by becoming a recluse, can I? We
won't speak of the subject, if you don't mind. It is sufficiently
painful to make the discussion of it depressing. My sympathy with Mrs
Smythe is great. She is very fond of her cousin, and feels this deeply.
And I am very fond of her... Sit here--will you?--with your back to
the light. It's more restful."
Julie sat down wondering. She was beginning to reconstruct her ideas.
There was nothing in Mrs Lawless' manner to bear out the supposition
that she was in love with Van Bleit. She did not suspect that Mrs
Lawless was intentionally correcting her error, nor did she guess how
her assumption of the truth of the common report embarrassed her
hostess. This ugly misapprehension had struck at her on three separate
occasions that day. It was strange that she had not realised before the
construction that might be put on her friendship with Van Bleit. She
wondered whether Lawless had shared the same belief. And then she
remembered how in her first interview with him he had warned her against
the man. Why, if he was so entirely indifferent, need he have concerned
himself about her acquaintance?
She looked up suddenly and surprised Julie's inquisitive eyes studying
her intently. The girl smiled.
"It's awfully sweet of you to have asked me to come and see you," she
said. "I've wanted to know you--oh! for ever so long."
"Why?"
"I don't know--unless it is because you are so beautiful. Women do
admire other women whatever's said to the contrary. I've watched you
motoring past our house... I saw you pass this morning."
She did not add that she had thought how sad she looked.
"Yes," Mrs Lawless answered. "I went to see Mrs Smythe. If my
thoughts had not been so occupied with other matters I would have
stopped and driven you out with me then. It's rather selfish to let you
cycle out here when I have a car."
"Oh no!" Julie contradicted eagerly. "I make nothing of this journey."
"Nevertheless, I shall drive you next time. I want you to come out
often. You play tennis, of course? There is a beautiful lawn there--
wasting... Nobody plays on it."
She pointed through the window to a stretch of green sward which the
Hottentot gardener kept surreptitiously watered during the dry season,
so that whatever else suffered from the long droughts the grass was
always green.
"I should like that," Julie said. "Do you play?"
"Not much. I'm a lazy person. But I have thought I should like to get
a few young people out for a game occasionally. I enjoy looking on. If
you would bring Mr Bolitho, I could manage to make up the numbers."
Julie did not answer immediately. She sat looking out into the garden
with heightened colour and vaguely perplexed eyes. She wondered why
Mrs Lawless should have singled out Teddy Bolitho from the host of
young men who would all have been willing to come. She wished that she
had mentioned any name rather than his.
"You don't like my plan?" Mrs Lawless said quietly.
Julie looked up.
"Yes... Yes, I do," she said. "I was only--thinking. Of course Teddy
Bolitho would come--anybody would, if you asked them. And it's heavenly
playing on a grass court; there are so few in the Colony. It'll spoil
it, though."
"I would rather it were spoilt with use than wasted," Mrs Lawless
said... "We waste so much."
She had risen, and now, moving nearer to the girl, she laid a strong,
well-shaped hand upon her shoulder.
"Don't you make waste too," she added gently. "I did when I was
young... and it leaves me full of vain regrets. Some people think that
youth is the best gift of the gods: but it is far from a perfect gift;
for the proper appreciation of it is withheld. It is only when the gift
is withdrawn that we realise all that it meant. If one could have one's
youth a second time, one would get the full value of the hours. You've
got it now--that priceless gift; and you are inclined to be careless of
it."
"I wonder why you say this to me?" Julie murmured.
"Because I've been looking on. You say you have observed me...
Interest is usually mutual. I have certainly felt interested in you."
Julie coloured awkwardly, and looked down. She wondered whether Mrs
Lawless had observed her friendship for the man whose name was the same
as her own, and if she disapproved of it.
"I don't think it altogether depends on oneself what one makes of one's
youth," she said.
"There is much to be said for that argument," Mrs Lawless answered.
"But I could wish you had not found it out so soon."
Julie looked up quickly.
"You mustn't pity me," she said. "I wouldn't retrace one step of the
past... It's the future I would alter, if I could."
"And how can you tell," Mrs Lawless inquired, "what the future holds?"
The girl smiled drearily.
"I know very well what it doesn't hold," she answered. "That's as far
as I care to go."
And then suddenly her wandering gaze fell on a photograph that stood in
a silver frame on the piano, and she became silent, regarding it with an
intensity that drew Mrs Lawless' eyes to the object that excited her
interest.
"You recognise it?" she said, and there was a quality in her voice such
as Julie had never heard in any voice before. "That was taken before--
he left the Army."
It was a portrait of Lawless in regimentals, younger and handsomer than
the man Julie knew; but there was lacking in the younger face something
which the older face possessed. Julie could not determine what that
something was.
"Yes, I recognise it... But I miss--the scar," she said.
She blushed violently. It was the scar that had appealed so strongly to
her youthful imagination. And then, raising her glance furtively to see
whether her embarrassment were observed, she was profoundly disconcerted
at the sight of the tears that were standing in the other woman's eyes.
Mrs Lawless moved away.
"I don't know," she said, "why I put that portrait there to-day...
There's a connection, I suppose, between it and one's wasted youth. The
portrait stands for waste... It is the sight of it that has set me
thinking back."
She crossed to the piano and lifted the frame as though her purpose were
to remove it. Then, changing her mind, she set it again in its place,
and came slowly back.
"I wonder what you think of my getting you here and depressing you with
my reminiscences," she said in a lighter tone. "It wasn't my intention.
I suppose it's due to reaction following the shock of recent events.
We'll flee from gloomy subjects, shall we? ... Come out with me. I
want to show you my garden..."
Whether it was owing to Mrs Lawless' display of emotion, or the
unexpected sight of the photograph in her room, or to both reasons
combined, added to the strange new quality in her voice when she spoke
of the portrait's original, Julie conceived the idea that she too loved
this man with the dominating personality,--the strangely aloof manner,--
the air of quiet detachment that made him at once a figure attractive
and unapproachable, so that women, while desirous of knowing him,
hesitated to solicit an introduction. It was not strange that she
should love him--that to Julie was a natural, almost an inevitable,
consequence of knowing him--but it was incredible that he could remain
indifferent to her regard. The only explanation she could arrive at was
that he was ignorant of it. Julie understood at last the tragedy that
occasionally looked out from Mrs Lawless' beautiful eyes; and in her
sympathy with her the pain at her own heart grew less. She had no
thought of competing against this peerlessly lovely woman. It was
unaccountable to her by the light of her new understanding that Lawless
should have troubled to show any interest in her at all. She wondered
whether, if she ever saw him again, she would find the courage to tell
him the secret she had surprised...
That evening, after Julie had left her, Mrs Lawless took the portrait
of Lawless from the piano, and sat with it in her hands examining it
closely. She was wondering whether the woman he had gone away with now
was the same woman he had wrecked his happiness for eight years ago--
wondering in a quite impersonal, dulled sort of way. The thing was past
remedying and altogether beyond her control. She remembered that in the
past it had been the wound to her self-esteem she had felt the most
bitterly. Her feelings had changed during the long years. She
experienced little of the grief, the anger, the disgust that had moved
her then. Her present sorrow was less a selfish emotion than sorrow for
the man because of the waste he was making of life. She scarcely
considered the woman outside her connection with Lawless, save, after
the tragedy of the previous night, to be relieved that, since she was to
influence him, she had removed him from other influences of a more
actively dangerous nature. She was glad that he was out of Cape Town,
otherwise she knew he would have been concerned in the affair that had
cost one life and might yet cost another.
And while she sat there musing on these matters with the photograph in
her hands, the door of the room opened, and to her astonishment Colonel
Grey was announced. He followed quickly on his name, as though
anticipating and anxious to prevent a refusal on her part to receive
him, offering an apology for intruding on her as he entered.
Mrs Lawless laid the photograph face downwards on the sofa and rose to
greet him. Her face expressed her surprise; his was grey and tired and
haggard, and his blood-shot eyes looked like the eyes of a man who has
not slept.
"I fear I have disturbed you," he said. "I'm sorry to intrude, but I
wish to see you."
"You have disturbed me doing nothing," she answered composedly. "I was
wearied of my thoughts. Sit down and tell me what you wanted to see me
for... Will you take anything?" she added, on a sudden thought, as he
dropped wearily into a chair. "You look tired."
"Thank you, no," he answered. "I am less tired than worried. But I
won't distress you by going into that. I quite understand that the
subject is painful to you, and for that reason I regret to inflict my
company on you."
Mrs Lawless looked slightly impatient. This man too! ... Was everyone
she met to say the same thing to her, only in different words?
"Please disabuse your mind of any such impression," she said. "Of
course I feel sympathy with the trouble of my friends, but your presence
cannot possibly increase my distress. Why should it?"
"I feared you might hold me responsible for what has occurred," he said
simply. "And the sight of me cannot fail to call up painful thoughts.
I do not profess to be other than an enemy of the man you regard as a
friend. You know too much of the matter for me to impose on you--even
if I wished to do so. I can only say that I regret that our interests
are opposed."
She smiled faintly.
"You take rather much for granted, I think," she said. "Why should you
suppose I am interested in the matter at all? Women do not usually
meddle in such dangerous and discreditable enterprises--you will forgive
me for speaking of this as I feel... I cannot see that it is creditable
to be concerned in this business of yours."
"Perhaps not," he said. "But then, again, perhaps you don't fully
understand. And aren't you judging a little by results?"
"I think it is reasonable to draw conclusions from results in most
instances," she answered.
"From final results," he returned... "But not at this stage."
"I had hoped this was the last stage," she said.
"I had hoped it might be," he returned with some grimness of manner...
"But we haven't won yet."
"Nor lost?"
"We can't lose, Mrs Lawless. It has to be a fight to the finish."
He regarded her fixedly. As was usual when in her presence, the
distrust which he entertained for her at other times vanished to yield
to a liking and confidence which he admitted with some reluctance, but
which he was unable to subdue. Hers was a magnetic personality, and
this in conjunction with her beauty robbed a man of his wits. At his
age he should be impervious to the charm of women. But man is never too
old to be influenced by the sex.
"It's rather a big check we've come upon," he resumed, after a momentary
pause. "I'm sadly in need of assistance... That's why I have come to
you."
She opened her eyes wide in astonishment.
"You never supposed that I might assist you?" she said.
"I am hoping you will," he answered... "in a way in which only you can.
I want you--if you will be so kind--to furnish me with Mr Lawless'
present address. He ought to be here, on the spot."
She sat very still for a while, looking beyond him out through the
window.
"Isn't one broken head and one life sufficient?" she asked presently in
a low, strangely controlled, unemotional voice. "It seems to me that
your view of things is out of proportion, Colonel Grey, when you can
sacrifice the lives of men for a packet of scandalous letters."
"That means," he said, "that you decline to give me the information?"
"I have not the information to give," she answered with dignity.--"I
should certainly not give it, if I had. ... My one fear is that Mr
Lawless will hear of this affair and return."
"I could wish I shared your belief," he replied. "But I fancy you may
ease your mind on that score... And there is less danger in this than
you imagine... the dog that bites is chained."
He eyed her narrowly as he referred thus to Van Bleit's arrest; but he
could make nothing of the calm, unchanging face, the quiet eyes that
looked steadily back into his.
"You hate that man," she said slowly. "You will--hang him, if you can."
He sat forward and peered at her queerly from under his bent brows. He
had half expected when he went there that evening that she would make an
appeal to his clemency on behalf of the man against whom he would appear
as principal witness. That she did not, spoke well for her pride and
self-control. Such courage and restraint moved him to admiration. She
hid her feelings magnificently, he decided, ignorant of how little she
had to conceal.
"You think so," he said, rising, and standing, hat in hand, in front of
her, preparatory to taking his leave after his fruitless errand. "I
should have thought you might have perceived that until I have got
possession of the letters I have nothing to gain by his death. Denzil
has the packet in his keeping, I believe. If I can get hold of it
before the case comes on, Van Bleit shall account for the life he has
taken."
"And that is your reason for coming to me for the address?" she
observed.
"That," he answered bluntly, "is my reason. I want Grit Lawless for the
job."