“But one can never tell, with a treacherous climate like this, what a day may bring forth. However, I am glad to find you looking—so very fit.”
Victor Durnovo gave an awkward little laugh, extremely conscious of the factory clothes.
“Oh, yes; I'm all right,” he said. “I was going to start this evening.”
The girl stood behind them, with a flush slowly fading from her face. There are some women who become suddenly beautiful—not by the glory of a beautiful thought, not by the exaltation of a lofty virtue, but by the mere practical human flush. Jack Meredith, when he took his eyes from Durnovo's, glancing at Jocelyn, suddenly became aware of the presence of a beautiful woman.
The crisis was past; and if Jack knew it, so also did Jocelyn. She knew that the imperturbable gentlemanliness of the Englishman had conveyed to the more passionate West Indian the simple, downright fact that in a lady's drawing-room there was to be no raised voice, no itching fingers, no flash of fiery eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “that will suit me splendidly. We will travel together.”
He turned to Jocelyn.
“I hear your brother is away?”
“Yes, for a few days. He has gone up the coast.”
Then there was a silence. They both paused, helping each other as if by pre-arrangement, and Victor Durnovo suddenly felt that he must go. He rose, and picked up the whip which he had dropped on the matting. There was no help for it—the united wills of these two people were too strong for him.