“What is it, Mr. Hindwood?”
“It's that I've just remembered one thing for which our armistice has not provided. You'd better pick up your gun again. It's that I haven't dined. I wonder whether you'd let me into the village—” He left his sentence unended. He suddenly perceived that she was shaken with sobbing. In his concern, he forgot his compact as to distance and hurried over to her side. She swung round, her face blinded with tears. As she stumbled past him, she muttered: “You've beaten me. You're not afraid. I couldn't shoot you now if I wanted.”
IX
Tiptoeing to the threshold, he turned the handle and peeped into the passage. As before, everything was in darkness.
He was free to go. There was nothing to stop him—nothing except his honor. It was easy to argue that even his honor did not prevent him. He had canceled his parole when he had reopened negotiations by telling her to pick up her revolver. She had left it behind her on the mantel-shelf. He took it in his hand and examined it. It was a repeater. Every chamber was loaded. He whistled softly—so she had meant business! Setting the hammer at half-cock, he slipped the weapon in his pocket. He was master of the situation now.
Why didn't he go? Two hours of steady driving, three at the most, and he could be in London. He reminded himself that at this very moment his private papers might be in the process of being ransacked. What if they were? The possibility left him utterly indifferent. He couldn't save them after the lapse of another three hours.
No, the truth was that since his voyage on the Ryndam all the emphases of his life were becoming altered. The importance of money and power no longer seemed paramount. After nearly forty years of living, he had awakened to the fact that it was women who shed a radiance of glamour in an otherwise gloomy world. Of all human adventures they were the most enthralling and the least certain of rewarding.
It was curiosity that had enticed him into his present entanglements; his curiosity had yet to be satisfied. With a revolver in his pocket, he felt that he now possessed the means of extracting the right answers to his questions. He had suffered mild inconveniences, but so far he hadn't done so badly. He had established mysterious relations with two beautiful women. One of them was already under the same roof; the other, he believed, was momentarily expected. He began to figure himself as a poet, a dreamer, a potential storm-center of romance.
“And all because she has blue eyes!” he hinted.
Then he remembered that Santa's eyes were gray, and that up to the last half-hour it had been Santa whom he had supposed that he was following.