“Do you realise what you are doing? That it is not only his own career that Ally may risk, but—but the whole situation in East Africa. If he bungles it you will be held responsible!”
He bent his head so slightly that it seemed he hardly moved.
“Yes, I know it.”
“And you——?”
Their eyes still met. She drew a sharp breath as if she stood suddenly in too strong an air. It seemed to her as if the personality of the man buffeted her, and she could not stand against it. She was afraid of any one who could gamble with Government like this, and stake empires for his own hazard. It was sweeping her off her feet, and leaving her helpless in a vortex of feeling she was not able to control. Her own nature she thought she could fight and conquer, but she saw with sudden panic that the one before her was beyond her yes or no—she might influence, but she could not dominate it as she had her husband’s. If he had chosen to take her savagely in his arms, she could have protested, but she could not have averted the embrace by the power of her will. Hitherto Leoline Lewin had drawn an invisible line of demarcation between herself and mankind, and had known that none would dare to overstep it. But this man would not be conscious of the line. Nothing but his own restraint could save her from the peril of touch at least.
The windows still stood wide open to the windless night. She was waiting for she knew not what, when Gregory suddenly turned his head, listened, and faced round from her towards the apertures. The stars struggled against the electric light to make the stoep a grey vagueness, and it stretched, empty and silent, beyond the house itself. For a minute there was nothing but the whirring of the crickets, and the shrill wearisome cry of a tree frog that pierced the hearing. Then through all the natural clamour of tropical darkness came the rustle of human presence, the tread of feet, and the sound of many voices rising from the gardens. Something white rushed on to the stoep, and at the same moment Gregory had made a stride for the light and turned it off. His own figure and Mrs. Lewin’s must have been sharply visible a second before from the garden outside, as they stood in the strong light of the room, objects for missiles or bullets; but as he walked forward to the intruder he alone was in view.
“What is it, Ahmed?” he said.
The man was one of his own servants, an Arab, and with more than an Arab’s craven fear of danger in his quivering body at the present moment. He stood shaking and sweating, his words broken with fright as he tried to speak.
“They have passed the gate! They are coming up here! Quick, Effendi!—get to the stables and ride for the barracks! The soldiers will fight for us!”
Mrs. Lewin, standing in the dusk of the room behind him, saw Gregory take the man by his linen tunic, swing him over like an inconsiderable bundle, and roll him along the stoep out of his way. Then he stepped quickly to the wall and took something in his hand. She caught the long quiver of a shambok as he spoke to her briefly over his shoulder.