o
Loango again.
And the creepers were pushed aside by one who knew the method of their
growth. A silver glory of moonlight fell on the verandah floor, and the
man of whom she was thinking stood before her.
"You!" she exclaimed.
"Yes."
She rose, and they shook hands. They stood looking at each other for a
few moments, and a thousand things that had never been said seemed to be
understood between them.
"Why have you come?" she asked abruptly.
"To tell you a story."
She looked up with a sort of half smile, as if she suspected some
pleasantry of which she had not yet detected the drift.
"A long story," he explained, "which has not even the merit of being
amusing. Please sit down again."
She obeyed him.
The curtain of hanging leaves and flowers had fallen into place again;
the shadowed tracery was on her dress and on the floor once more.
He stood in front of her and told her his story, as Sir John had
suggested. He threw no romance into it--attempted no extenuation--but
related the plain, simple facts of the last few years with the
semi-cynical suggestion of humour that was sometimes his. And the cloak
of pride that had fallen upon his shoulders made him hide much that was
good, while he dragged forward his own shortcomings. She listened in
silence. At times there hovered round her lips a smile. It usually came
when he represented himself in a bad light, and there was a suggestion
of superior wisdom in it, as if she knew something of which he was
ignorant.
He was never humble. It was not a confession. It was not even an
explanation, but only a story--a very lame story indeed--which gained
nothing by the telling. And he was not the hero of it.
And all came about as wise old Sir John Meredith had predicted. It
is not our business to record what Jocelyn said. Women--the best of
them--have some things in their hearts which can only be said once to
one person. Men cannot write them down; printers cannot print them.
The lame story was told to the end, and at the end it was accepted. When
Sir John's name was mentioned--when the interview in the library of the
great London house was briefly touched upon--Jack saw the flutter of
a small lace pocket-handkerchief, and at no other time. The slate was
wiped clean, and it almost seemed that Jocelyn preferred it thus with
the scratches upon it where the writing had been.
Maurice Gordon did not come back in an hour. It was nearly ten o'clock
before they h
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