CHAPTER III
Just off the main road between the Port and the city of Las Palmas, Grand Canary, a villa stood. It was situated on a hill; a white, flat-roofed building, set in a pleasant garden. Long windows opened on a lawn surrounded by trees.
Out from one of the windows a flood of light streamed and mingled with the silver of the night. The apartment it came from was elaborately furnished, in an ornate French style, with gilded furniture, bevelled mirrors, and satin-covered chairs and lounges.
On one of the latter a woman lolled back amongst an array of soft cushions. She was big and voluptuous-looking, with a dead-white skin, a mass of flaming red hair, and eyes green as the emerald necklace she wore.
She had on an extremely low-cut, black satin dress, that suited her style and colouring. And she made a striking, if somewhat bizarre, picture.
But attractive and unique as she looked, the man sitting with her appeared more interested in the view from the window than in his companion.
From there, a glint of moonlit sea showed between the vaguely moving trees; a peaceful stretch that spread away to the purple, misty horizon.
He was a big man of about thirty, well groomed and handsome, with smooth black hair, close-clipped moustache, and dark, smouldering eyes that had a latent searching look at the back of them. He was in evening attire, with black pearl studs in his pleated dress shirt.
For some time the two had been sitting in silence; the man's gaze on the sea; the woman's on the man, in a hungry, anxious manner.
"You've got one of your restless moods on to-night, Raoul," she said presently.
"I get them frequently nowadays. Nothing ever satisfies me for long."
She smiled at him, a soft, slow smile.
"Yet I have satisfied you longer than most, for you are still here with me."
"It's not you so much, Lucille, as business that keeps me here."
"I believe you have no heart at all," she cried, a catch of pain in her voice. "You look upon all women as animals."
"You are a most handsome animal, you must agree," he replied.
"You talk as if you'd bought me."
"I don't know that I ever put it quite so crudely as that."
"Put it as crudely as you like," she cried in a sudden gust of temper. "You have taken all from me and given me nothing in return."
He made no reply. In a slightly amused manner his glance rested on her emerald necklace.
"You may look," she went on passionately. "But I want more than gifts. I want love, not just to be the creature of your passions."
"Then you want too much. There's no such thing as love between men and women. There's only passion."
"You are cruel," she moaned.
"Cruel! Merely because I refuse to be enslaved by any one woman, eaten up in mind and body and soul, as some of the men I know are? I wasn't brought up to look upon women as superior beings, and I've never met one yet to make me want to change my sentiments. They are here for my convenience and pleasure, and nothing more."
There was silence again.
Lucille sighed.
She knew she had no hold over him other than her sex, and never had had. Heroics, temper and entreaties had no effect on him whatsoever; he remained always unmoved and indifferent.
With a shrug she picked out a chocolate from a large box at her side. Then she changed the conversation.
"What's the business, Raoul? I'd no idea you had any here. I thought ours was a pleasure trip, purely—or impurely."
"The business is strictly private," he replied, a savage note in his voice.
A month before, on leaving Paris, when Le Breton had asked Lucille Lemesurier, the actress, to accompany him on his yacht and spend a week or so in Grand Canary, it had been for pleasure solely.
But a few days ago a letter had reached him.
A letter to the effect that his enemy, now Sir George Barclay, had been appointed governor of Gambia. The Sultan Casim Ammeh was waiting in Grand Canary until certain that his man was en route for his new post.