Grit Lawless Part 11

"In the first place," he added, when Lawless was again occupying the chair from which he had risen, "I think we should have a time limit for the carrying out of this enterprise. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Perfectly," came the brief response.

"Then, suppose we say six months... How does that strike you?"

"It's fair enough."

"You haven't any suggestion of your own to make on that head?"

"None... Only I shall get the papers before six months are up."

"You are very confident," the Colonel said.

Lawless looked thoughtful.

"I take a peculiar personal interest in this affair," he said. "If I did not I should not go on with it... I told you I would get those papers for you, or kill your man... I mean to do one or the other--or both."

Colonel Grey scrutinised him earnestly. His lips parted as though he would say something, and then shut with a snap on the unspoken words.

Lawless sat up suddenly.

"There isn't any use in your seeing me," he said. "Give me my head, the funds to go on with for a few months, and then leave the matter in my hands. You shall have those papers... It's not that I take a particular interest in them, or in your client, but it pleases me to do this thing. When I make up my mind to carry a thing through I do it.

You may call that tall talking--but it amounts simply to this, that I hold life cheaply; the only law I recognise is the unwritten law. I've lived among the social outcasts--I'm one of them, and so, perhaps, I am well suited to carry through a matter that is outside the law. You don't trust me... Because of what you have heard you doubt even that I have the courage which this affair may demand. It's natural that you should doubt. But if you can bring yourself to accept my word, this matter is safe in my hands."

There was a long silence. Then the Colonel spoke abruptly, and, as it sounded, greatly against his inclination. But in spite of himself, in spite of all the evidence against him, he liked and trusted this man.

Perhaps the fact that he had not attempted to explain, or to excuse an inexcusable crime, prejudiced him favourably.

"I do accept your word," he said bluntly. "I confess I have entertained misgivings... That is hardly surprising, I think, considering how much is at stake. But I'll take your word, Mr Lawless... And I accept your conditions. When you have anything of importance to communicate you will let me hear from you..."

When Lawless got back to his hotel that night he was astonished to find a visitor waiting for him--a woman. She had been shown into a private room. The hour was unusual, so were the circ.u.mstances; but the management had no wish to offend so good a client as Lawless; therefore the lady was, after a little difficulty, admitted; and Lawless on his return was discreetly informed of her presence. He received the information in silence, betraying none of the astonishment that moved him, which was considerable. He could not for the life of him imagine who the lady could be.

He was no wiser on entering the room where she was. She was a tall woman of commanding presence, very fas.h.i.+onably dressed--almost too fas.h.i.+onably to suggest a perfect taste. There was--Lawless was quick to observe it--the unmistakable stamp of the demi-mondaine about her. She looked round as he entered and closed the door behind him, and then very slowly got up from the sofa on which she had been seated. Her movements were extraordinarily languid for a woman of such splendid physique, and less graceful than deliberately sensuous, Lawless decided. Something about the woman stirred a chord of memory in his mind, as he stood critically surveying her with a look of cool inquiry in his eyes. The figure was vaguely familiar. The face he could not see; she was so heavily veiled that he could only trace a shadowy outline of her features.

"This is an unexpected honour," he said, with ironical politeness. "May I ask to what I am indebted, and to whom, for this amazing condescension?"

She held out a pair of well-gloved hands towards him.

"You have forgotten... so soon?" she said in a low voice, the deep tones of which sounded nervously tremulous.

"I've a memory no longer and no shorter than most men's," he retorted, not touching the outstretched hands. "If you'd raise your veil..."

She put up one hand to the dense folds that concealed her face, but she did not lift them. She waited, looking at him through their disfiguring thickness with wide, smiling, observant eyes.

"And this is your welcome after all this while! ... your welcome to _me_! ... No wonder those tiresome people downstairs were so reluctant to admit me! ... I only got round them by telling them I was your wife."

"The devil you did!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lawless.

He did not speak loudly His voice had dropped to a low note of caution.

He approached nearer. Astonishment had driven the irony out of his eyes, and left in its stead an expression of strong curiosity.

"Oh, Hughie!" she said reproachfully... "To think that you could forget..."

Lawless seized her by the arm. Then quickly, almost roughly, he lifted the disguising veil and stared hard into the handsome, painted face, with the smiling vermilion lips, and the mocking eyes.

"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed, and fell back a step or two in sheer amazement.

The woman laughed suddenly.

"I thought I should surprise you, Hughie," she said.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

It is a generally accepted fact that the social life of the Colonies is less conventional than the social life of England. It is broader in outlook, wider in sympathy, not less critical, perhaps, but certainly more understanding. This is to be accounted for by the continual inpouring of fresh blood, the infusion of fresh ideas. The Colonies adapt themselves more readily to change than the older civilisation; they represent a younger, more vigorous generation, and, if behind the mother country in many respects, are ahead of her in others of quite vital importance. But though life in South Africa is unconventional, strenuous, and--as is inevitable in a land that attracts to its sh.o.r.es the more ardent and adventurous spirits--more impulsive, more pa.s.sionate and unrestrained, it has its fixed code of morality, and the man or woman who defies its laws must be prepared to accept the reward of ostracism.

Lawless' sudden leap to popularity suffered an equally sudden rebound when it became apparent how utterly contemptuous he was of public opinion, as it concerned his private life. His life became an open scandal. The woman who had visited him at his hotel late one night was installed in rooms that he had taken for her, and regularly every day he visited her, and frequently took her driving in the public thoroughfares. The women of his acquaintance cut him, and not a few of the men. His behaviour was too flagrant to be pa.s.sed over. Van Bleit alone was interested and sympathetic. He coveted an introduction to his friend's handsome inamorata, and on occasions when he deemed it quite safe put himself deliberately in the way. But Lawless was blind to these devices. He cared neither for the disapproval of the many, nor for Van Bleit's furtive approbation. He was entirely indifferent to outside criticism. It pleased him to do this thing, and he did it.

Society had not treated him so well as to give it a right to be exacting; and, in any case, he had no intention of considering it in this or any other matter.

There were two women in Cape Town who were most unhappily affected by this sordid intrigue, Mrs Lawless, and the girl who had made a hero of the man, and who wors.h.i.+pped him with the extravagance of a youthful, unsophisticated mind. For a long while Julie Weeber refused to admit that there was anything unusual in Lawless' friends.h.i.+p with the handsome demi-mondaine; but in her heart she was jealous of the friends.h.i.+p, and when she saw them together she hated the woman with the complacently smiling, painted lips, and the mocking eyes. Her distress was primarily due to the knowledge that by his actions he was separating himself from her. She would have condoned anything for the gratification of seeing and talking with him occasionally. But intercourse was out of the question; not only did her mother a.s.sert that she would neither receive him in future nor permit her daughters to acknowledge him, but Lawless himself held aloof. Once when she pa.s.sed him in the street driving with the woman, although she knew he had seen her, he deliberately turned his face aside. It wounded the girl deeply.

"Why should he treat me like that?" she asked herself pa.s.sionately...

"It isn't fair to me."

She encountered him again a few days later. He was alone, walking towards the city. Julie had been to see a friend some distance out, and was cycling homeward when she overtook him. It was evening. The sun had dipped below the horizon; where it had disappeared the sky still glowed with changing colours that paled perceptibly before the oncome of precipitate night which in Africa follows rapidly on the path of the vanished day. A shaft of the fading colour in the sky glanced earthwards and glowed in Julie Weeber's cheeks when she recognised the solitary pedestrian striding along the middle of the road. She slackened speed as she drew near to him, and glanced swiftly about her.

No one was in sight, not even a Kaffir; though had a crowd been there to witness her actions she would probably have behaved in exactly the same way. She pedalled her machine alongside the tall, familiar figure, and slipped to the ground. Lawless glanced round. He looked surprised, he also looked--Julie observed it--pleased.

"How do you do?" she said, deliberately holding out her hand. "Isn't it a beautiful evening?"

He smiled involuntarily at this determined effort at conversation, and answered that such was his opinion also.

"Are you walking into town?" she asked. "I am, too."

"You mean, you are riding," he corrected.

"I'm not," the girl returned imperturbably. "I hate cycling against the wind. I only stuck to my machine because it's lonely walking by oneself."

"In that case," he said, stepping behind her and relieving her of the charge of the cycle, "you must let me wheel this."

Julie walked along beside him for a few yards without speaking. Then abruptly she turned her face towards him. He was looking down at the machine, a very old one with well-worn tyres and rusty handlebars of a pattern quite out of date. His face was grave and somewhat preoccupied.

"You cut me the other day in Adderly Street," she said bluntly... "You saw me..."

"Yes," he admitted.

It did not seem to occur to him to turn the speech aside. During their brief, but rapid, acquaintance they had always been extraordinarily frank with one another.

"Why did you?" she asked almost fiercely. "It wasn't kind."

"In that I differ from you," he replied. "It was the only kind act I have ever performed towards you."