“Well I can tell you, Miss Seward forms a very complete exception to the generally received opinion on that subject. She’s all there, and no mistake.”
His kinsman was relighting his cheroot, which was burning badly, and in the flare of the vesta Helston could see the significant grin which was wreathing his lined, bronzed features; understood its burden too. But he said nothing—except:
“What sort of man was Mervyn when he was over here, Coates?”
“Sort? Oh he was a man of—bouts, for want of a definition. He had his equable bouts, and his gloomy bouts, his peppery bouts and his gusty bouts, and sometimes downright nasty and cynical bouts. They didn’t overlap either, but were as hard and fast apart by rule and line as the watertight compartments of a ship. Still, all round, he was all right. I could stick him better than most people, and we were very ‘pal-ly’ he and I. He was a fine sportsman too.”
“Didn’t he ever marry?”
“Now you ask, he did make—that mistake. But it didn’t last long—not more than a year or two. Bad egg you know. Did a bunk—I forget whether it was a Police wallah or a civilian. They didn’t get far though, for they were both lost in the Tara, when she foundered with nearly all on board going home, you’ll remember. Mervyn was rather relieved, as it saved him the bother and expense and scandal of taking proceedings. But he didn’t repeat the mistake. Well, now—that’s Mervyn.”
“Yes. That’s Mervyn,” repeated Helston. “It seems to form a whole epitome of him.”
His mind reverted to Heath Hover, and his mind’s eye seemed to form a picture—of the lonely, self-contained man—dry, gruff in manner and biting in conversation—that of course before the arrival of Melian, for he was judge enough to deduce that Mervyn had sloughed a great deal of those characteristics since that sunny presence had been there to irradiate the solitary and secluded habitation, and to melt the sour hardness of an atrophied life.
“What do you think will be the end of Mervyn?” he went on, after a pause. The other started.
“The end of—Eh—what? The end of Mervyn? Good Lord! I hadn’t given it a thought. But why? What on earth should have put that into your head, Helston?”