“If Meredith finds out, it will be the worse for him.”
A certain concentration of tone aroused Maurice Gordon's attention, and he glanced uneasily at his companion.
“No one knows what goes on in the heart of Africa,” said Durnovo darkly. “But we will not trouble about that; Meredith won't find out.”
“Where is he now?”
“With your sister, at the bungalow. A lady's man—that is what he is.”
Victor Durnovo was smarting under a sense of injury which was annoyingly indefinite. It was true that Jack Meredith had come at a very unpropitious moment; but it was equally clear that the intrusion could only have been the result of accident. It was really a case of the third person who is no company, with aggravated symptoms. Durnovo had vaguely felt in the presence of either a subtle possibility of sympathy between Jocelyn Gordon and Jack Meredith. When he saw them together, for only a few minutes as it happened, the sympathy rose up and buffeted him in the face, and he hated Jack Meredith for it. He hated him for a certain reposeful sense of capability which he had at first set down as conceit, and later on had learnt to value as something innate in blood and education which was not conceit. He hated him because his gentlemanliness was so obvious that it showed up the flaws in other men, as the masterpiece upon the wall shows up the weaknesses of the surrounding pictures. But most of all he hated him because Jocelyn Gordon seemed to have something in common with the son of Sir John Meredith—a world above the head of even the most successful trader on the coast—a world in which he, Victor Durnovo, could never live and move at ease.
Beyond this, Victor Durnovo cherished the hatred of the Found Out. He felt instinctively that behind the courteous demeanour of Jack Meredith there was an opinion—a cool, unbiassed criticism—of himself, which Meredith had no intention of divulging.
On hearing that Jack was at the bungalow with Jocelyn, Maurice Gordon glanced at the clock and wondered how he could get away from his present visitor. The atmosphere of Jack Meredith's presence was preferable to that diffused by Victor Durnovo. There was a feeling of personal safety and dignity in the very sound of his voice which set a weak and easily-led man upon his feet.
But Victor Durnovo had something to say to Gordon which circumstances had brought to a crisis.
“Look here,” he said, leaning forward and throwing away the cigarette he had been smoking. “This Simiacine scheme is going to be the biggest thing that has ever been run on this coast.”