I knew she understood my veiled allusion, for I saw her bite her lip and again the lambent flame leaped up in her eyes. But it died as suddenly as it had come, and in another instant the old tantalising smile was playing about the corners of her mouth. In the smoky interminable depths of the Solomon Island jungle I had crushed that smile out of my life, for ever I had thought. I had deliberately erased it from my memory, and at night beside the smudge fire, when my eyes closed for an instant and that beautiful imperious face peeped at me from out of the mazes of recollection, I would open my eyes and stared fixedly at the misshapen headhunters who were my sole companions in that wilderness. "These," I would say, "are the kindred of us both. Their women smile as she smiles, and the men respond to it as I used to respond." And with that thought in my head I would fall asleep and not dream.
"Jim," she said with abrupt irrelevance, "you've changed. You usen't to be like that before. You're different somehow ... cynical, I think."
"That's more than likely," I agreed. "I'm learning to hit back. And now if you'll excuse me," I ran on before she had time to answer, "I'll just drop in with this parcel."
Then without more ado I turned on my heel and knocked at Bryce's door.
Chapter IV.
THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT.
"I've got those maps you wanted," I remarked as Bryce opened the door, "and I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long."
"You haven't," he said with a smile. "As a matter-of-fact I've been otherwise occupied. I've had a visitor."
"A visitor?" I said guardedly, though what on earth there was to guard against was more than I could have said just then. Some cross-grained streak in my nature made me both cantankerous and suspicious, and while the mood was on me I would have contradicted or queried the word of an archangel.