“Ah, Churton! You were too late,” he said, shaking hands cordially. “I was afraid you might be. It’s an awful pull to get down from Maitso so early.”
“Yes!”
The grave face under the white helmet made the Attorney-General leap to a wrong conclusion.
“Were you ordered out last night? No? Heard nothing of the row?”
“Where was it?” The steady, dark eyes came back from the last glimpse of the Greville and fixed themselves on White’s red pleasant face.
“At Government House. Halton has just been telling me. He knew nothing of it, any more than I, for he rode down to see me last night, and didn’t get back until eleven or half-past. I’m to meet the Administrator later, but I don’t suppose I shall hear much more. He makes light of it—says it was a flash in the pan, and rather amusing, but I know I shouldn’t have cared to face a couple of hundred niggers after the ultimatum about the crops. I’m going to ask Mrs. Lewin what really happened.”
“Mrs. Lewin!”
“Yes, she was in it all. Lewin had gone down to the club to say good-bye to you all, I suppose—you missed him, by the way?” (“Yes!” said Churton bitterly, “I am sorry I did!”)—“and Mrs. Lewin heard something of the disturbance and got in a funk and rushed up to Government House. Very sensible thing to do, only unfortunately she got into the middle of it.”
This was Gregory’s very natural explanation of her presence there, as Mrs. Lewin had already found. She accepted it dully, with an added feeling of fear at his facility. Churton’s eyes wandered to her for a minute across the quay, and he thought she looked as if last night’s strain and this morning’s parting had tried her, and was gentler than usual in his manner when she greeted him.
“I am sorry you arrived too late to see Ally,” she said, “he hoped to catch you at the club last night. I was to say good-bye for him.”