It was Gregory, and his high riding boots were dripping with water; but he laughed at the idea of cold. The pony took the stream at a point he knew of, he said; there was no danger—only a ducking, to which he was used. He had been riding all through the rains, and forded worse floods.
He was standing as Mrs. Lewin came back to the group, and remained so until she had sat down; then he took a seat near her, but rather behind her back, so that they could hardly be called companions. It would have been difficult to talk to her indeed, and she directed her conversation rather to Halton, who was facing her at a little distance. His brown eyes were very constantly on her face, and she parried their sentimentality with vague distrust. His departure was lending a new meaning to their old intimacy, and she had no room for it in her present life. Her fear for Ally, and her desire to hear if Gregory had any news, kept her mind at sufficient stretch. She enjoyed the mental activity in some strange fashion, in spite of the thread of pain running through it; but her increasing appetite for power was not fed by the sentimental half-tones of her relations with Halton.
As the conversation grew more general she was conscious of listening for a whisper behind her. Miss Denver’s laugh was loud above the rest. Some one challenged Hamilton Gurney to sing, and he affectedly refused for the sake of being pressed, but the voice he wanted did not join in the appeal. Mrs. Lewin was not conscious that they were urging him to anything in fact, for through the babel the Administrator had leaned forward and asked her for more bread and butter. She passed it back to him, and as he took it his voice breathed a whisper in her ear—
“I have heard from Capetown.”
She dared not turn her head, but her nerves seemed strung as if by a strong stimulant. He folded the bread and butter deliberately, while she still held the plate, and his voice went on rapidly—
“They have given me carte blanche to do as I please.”
Mr. Gurney had given up the hope of any persuasion coming from Mrs. Lewin, and as he really wanted to sing, he screwed up the melancholy banjo which he had sent on in the cart, and twanged an accompaniment. The first notes fell on deaf ears as far as Leoline was concerned, for her mind buzzed with possibilities. She had never dreamed that the Capetown Government would put such power into a man’s hands which the Home Authorities had carefully tied. But she forgot how small a dot Key Island appeared to the larger State, already worried with its own affairs. Carte blanche meant that Gregory might get to the root of the hashish trouble by burning the crops, or any other drastic measure, and this would be followed by probable consequences for which she knew some of his plans. He was nearer to the grip of his tiny kingdom, at which he aimed, than he had been two months ago. Mrs. Lewin drew her breath as if something had almost taken it away. She was excited and roused, and her blood was on fire....
Then Gurney’s voice stole in on her attention, loosening the restraint of her will-power still more in its subtle sweetness. Between the rush of two unusual emotions she felt bewildered, and clutched blindly after her usual self-control. Her eyes threatened to fill with ridiculous tears, and half-a-dozen men and women would see and misinterpret them. She flung herself a little into the shadow of a tree, leaning back with her hand on the ground behind her to support herself. It enabled her to turn her face so that she hoped it was partly masked.
“All ye who seek for pleasure,
Here find it without measure—