“Your pet aversion. I think you might be worse off, myself. Lewin is at least a gentleman—and his duties include an A.D.C.’s, as well as a secretary’s.”
“Lewin has a pretty wife!” said Gregory bluntly. “That’s all about it, Halton. I hope the lady will be so shrewd as to see which side her husband’s bread is buttered, that’s all. I may get the report into some form if she makes him work.” He rose in his usual irrelevant fashion, pushing aside the last course offered him by the butler, and tossed over some papers on a side table. “Ambroise had no news,” he remarked.
“So you need hardly have slipped off to Port Albert!” retorted Halton. “I’ve an engagement to-morrow morning, by the way—I shan’t be on hand to save friction between you and Lewin.”
The Administrator opened his lips as if to say something; but the under-breathed words did not come. His hard eyes searched Halton’s reticent face for a moment with intent, and in his mind he bore another grudge against his Secretary for having a wife who could make a fool of a Commissioner. Taff Halton was a clever man, too. They had worked together in Central Africa. The devil take all women!
“Mrs. Lewin,” drawled Halton, “was wearing a blouse, this afternoon, of a peculiar shade of grey-lavender, which seemed like a reflection of her eyes. It’s a pity you don’t study colour effects, Gregory. You lose so much pleasure.” He knew just where to plant his sting, for if there was one thing that Evelyn Gregory loathed it was dilettantism. Halton’s sleepy eyes saw the curbed impatience in Gregory’s face, and he dropped back in his chair so happy that other relaxation was forgotten; and the hard-back beetle, no longer kept helplessly clawing the air, crawled away, and immediately married a lady he discovered in the shade of a dessert dish. All grades of life are elementary in Key Island.
CHAPTER III
“No maker of images worships the gods; he knows what they are made of!”—Chinese Proverb.
“I am not sure that I am not making a mistake!” said Chum to her reflection, as she tied her tie in severe perfection, and pinned on the Panama hat. “If I could only get hold of the real man himself, I am sure I could do something. After all, Mr. Halton is only the shadow—he will pass as shadows do, and his influence cannot really push Ally.”
She took up her riding-whip slowly, and stood a minute in thought. It was ten minutes to seven, and she could afford to arrange her ideas. On the dressing-table stood the tray with her early coffee, but Ally must breakfast alone this morning; she did not expect to get back from China Town till then. The room was very large and very airy, for furniture is superfluous in Key Island, and the lack of it increased the sense of size. The bare boards were not even polished or stained, and only two African goat-skins were thrown down as rugs to break its monotony; there were basket-work chairs and a lounge from Madeira, and a bed draped with a mosquito curtain with the usual bridal effect. The window-frames were many, and were filled with shutters turned to let in the air, but not the sun, and there was a door with the same contrivance in its upper panels. Outside the windows ran the wide bare stoep carefully clear of creepers, because vegetation means mosquitoes, which need no encouragement. Chum fretted over the bareness, for her hammock was slung there, and she would have liked to swing in a bower of flame-colour and rose and greenery, which is to be had for the asking in the island. But common-sense was triumphant over sentiment, and the stoep was comparatively flyless.
Common-sense was just then fighting for the upper hand in Mrs. Lewin’s mental attitude, and her pause with the riding-whip idly tapping her skirt was the result. It was easy, to say nothing of being pleasant, to go on as she had begun, with the garrison quite ready to follow in her train, and the Commissioner to lend it a certain distinction. But it meant no future good for Ally, and Leoline Lewin had, without admitting it, begun to see that if Ally went up the ladder somebody would have to push him rung by rung.