“Then let me tell you, Jocelyn—well, then, Miss Gordon, if you prefer it—that you will know more about one of his business friends before you have finished with him. I've got Maurice more or less in my power now, and it rests with you—”
At this moment a shadow darkened the floor of the verandah, and an instant later Jack Meredith walked quietly in by the window.
“Enter, young man,” he said dramatically, “by window—centre.”
“I am sorry,” he went on in a different tone to Jocelyn, “to come in this unceremonious way, but the servant told me that you were in the verandah with Durnovo and—”
He turned towards the half-breed, pausing.
“And Durnovo is the man I want,” weighing on each word.
Durnovo's right hand was in his jacket pocket. Seeing Meredith's proffered salutation, he slowly withdrew it and shook hands.
The flash of hatred was still in his eyes when Jack Meredith turned upon him with aggravating courtesy. The pleasant, half-cynical glance wandered from Durnovo's dark face very deliberately down to his jacket pocket, where the stock of a revolver was imperfectly concealed.
“We were getting anxious about you,” he explained, “seeing that you did not come back. Of course, we knew that you were capable of taking—care—of yourself.”
He was still looking innocently at the tell-tale jacket pocket, and Durnovo, following the direction of his glance, hastily thrust his hand into it.