Five men were on the verge of proposing to her—one of whom by the way was already engaged—when suddenly Maryon Hammond with his dog Boston at his heels dropped up from his mining camp out beyond Mazoë. And when “Marie” Hammond set his gay, bad eyes on a woman’s face, and his feet on the path that led to that woman’s heart, the other men were just wise enough to drop out of the running and pretend they didn’t mind.
Like all great passions, it did not take long to come to a head—only a few afternoon rides across the short springy veld grass, a few moonlit evenings with music in the house and loungers in the verandahs, a supper or two up in the old Kopje Fort, and then the ball got up by Hammond and his cronies at the club.
When, after the fifth waltz, Diane Heywood came into the ballroom from the dim verandah where she had been sitting-out a dance with Maryon Hammond, her eyes were like two violets that had been plucked at dawn with the mists of the night still on them. She had the lovely dewy look of a girl who has been kissed in the darkness by the man she loves; a girl whose heart has waked up and found itself beating in a woman’s breast.
They had known each other only a week, but it was plain to see what had come to them. She wore the news in her parted lips, her tinted cheeks, and the little rumple of her hair. He walked as one whom the gods had chosen to honour, pride-of-life written across his face, yet in his eyes a humility curious in Maryon Hammond. He had met his Waterloo.
Some of the women gave little sighs, not in envy so much as in a kind of sadness that certain beautiful things only come once in each woman’s life, however much she may try and repeat or give base imitations of them; and most men felt a sort of warmth in their veins as they looked at those two radiant beings. But a number of people merely contented themselves with feeling extremely glad that the career of Maryon Hammond as a pirate in love was at an end.
For it must here be admitted that the spectacle of a woman holding out her soul in both hands for Maryon Hammond to play with, or walk over, or throw into the fires that burn and consume not, was not an altogether novel one to some at least of those present; it had been witnessed before in various parts of Africa—and the entertainment, it may be mentioned, is not a pretty one when the man concerned is not worrying particularly about souls. People said that Marie Hammond took toll of women’s souls for something a woman had once done to his own, long ago in his own country America; but none knew the rights of the story.
Then there was his friendship with the beautiful Cara de Rivas. No one had been quite sure how far, if at all, her soul had entered into that matter; but it was certain that tongues had been set a-wagging, for Maryon Hammond’s friendship was a dangerous if fascinating thing for a woman to possess, unless she happened to be the woman he was going to marry. And Cara de Rivas was already married. That was the trouble. For Nick de Rivas, a big, handsome, if slightly morose fellow was plainly something less than sympathetic with his wife’s mid-summer madness; even though, until Hammond called his attention to the matter, he had appeared to be blind and indifferent to the fact that he had a pretty and charming wife.
There had been considerable relief felt when de Rivas in spite of his home and large mining interests being in Mashonaland suddenly decided to take his wife away on a trip to England.
“And no bones broken,” sighed Rhodesians, though they sought in vain for confirmation of that or any other legend in the stony stare of Maryon Hammond. They were a romantic people those Rhodesians in the far-off days of 1896, with no rooted objection to illegal adventure, but though Hammond was neither good nor beautiful he had endeared himself to the country in many ways and everyone was glad to think that his stormy career was likely to come to an end in the peaceful harbour of marriage instead of in some more tragic fashion. And no one could help rejoicing that Fate had arranged for the advent of Jack Heywood’s sister while the de Rivas were still away, and that the whole affair was likely to be fixed up before the de Rivas’ return which, by the way, after the lapse of nearly a year had already been signalled.
The Hammond-Heywood engagement then, was announced about two weeks after the ball at the Club, though everyone knew perfectly well that it had been signed and sealed, so to speak, on that night, the extra two weeks being thrown in as a concession to conventionality and a sort of bonus to the men who had been about to propose. Besides Miss Heywood had a family in England whom it was Hammond’s business to consult and beguile, and consultations and beguilements take time as well as money when they have to be conducted by cable. In the meantime, it was plain to see that Love had found Maryon Hammond at last, and that he was loved openly and gladly back. It was for all the world to see—as patent as the silver stars on a purple African night. He would walk rough-shod over everybody in a drawing-room or cricket-field or polo-ground to reach her side, and she would openly and obviously forget everybody else in the place and in the world when he was there. No matter how big or how curious the crowd these two were alone in it when they were together. People said that it must have been a strange, almost piquant, sensation to Hammond so expert in secret intrigue, so versed in the dissimulation and duplicity of illegal adventure, to be at last conducting a love affair in the open, reckless of the eyes of men, and the tongues of women, because for once the woman in the case had nothing to fear! Be that as it may, a passion so fine and frank and careless had never before been seen in a land where great passions are not rare, and Salisbury genuflected before it in all reverence and admiration.