“Good!” Van Bleit rejoined. “You’re a wobbler, Dick; but you generally rise to the occasion. Then you go with me to-morrow? You won’t find it very amusing, though it may have its exciting moments... Unless, of course, the lady is still keeping house for Grit. But from the invite I imagine she has left him in the lurch.”
“He’d scarcely ask you up there if he’d got any women about,” was the reply, which Van Bleit construed into a compliment. He smiled complacently.
“I wouldn’t mind hunting down the quarry on my own account,” he said. “She was devilishly handsome—and a dashed bad lot.”
Chapter Sixteen.
The result of the trial was as great a surprise for Lawless as it had been for Theodore Smythe. Lawless had ridden into Stellenbosch daily for the paper, and had scanned the columns eagerly for any mention of the case. On the day that he read of Van Bleit’s acquittal he sent off the telegram, the receipt of which had decided Van Bleit on a change of air.
He had ridden into town alone; Tottie, who usually accompanied him, had remained at home to attend, as she informed him, to the ravages her wardrobe had sustained through the hard wear of the veld. When Lawless got back he flung the paper in through the open doorway and rode on to the stable, where he off-saddled, and then returned to the house. Tottie, when he entered, was seated at the table in her favourite attitude, with her elbows upon it and her chin in her hands, devouring the paper with avidity. She looked up as his tall figure blocked the doorway and laughed.
“He’s got the devil’s own luck,” she said. “But this is all right for you, old man.”
Lawless walked up to the table.