Bracknell nodded, and sipped the brandy thoughtfully, and the other continued, “I do not know what will happen when Joy gets married.”
“Is that an early possibility?” asked the corporal, with a sudden quickening of interest.
“I hope so,” replied Rayner, with a bland smile.
The corporal made the inference that he was meant to make. “Then you—”
“It is not quite settled yet, but I hope it will be very shortly. The wilderness years necessitated by her father’s will are nearly over, and I am to take her ‘out’ from here. I hope then that we shall be married, and live in England.”
For a moment the corporal did not reply. He looked at the bland, mask-like face before him, saw, as he had already noted, that the steel-like blue eyes were too close together, that the lips were sensual; and as he did so, the beautiful face of Joy Gargrave, as he had seen it at table, rose before him, and somehow he found Rayner’s suggestion of coming wedlock utterly distasteful. The man, as he felt instinctively, was not a man to be trusted with a girl’s happiness. Why he should have that feeling he could not tell; but it was there, and it was only by an effort that he was able to reply affably.
“For Miss Gargrave, England, no doubt, is much to be preferred.”
“Much!” agreed Rayner, then added, “Having told you so much, you can understand that I feel rather inclined to resent your suggestion that Joy has anything to do with the mysterious affair out in the wood there. She may have heard the name of Koona Dick as I myself have, but that she knew him, that she shot him, is the very wildest thing for any one to imagine. I really cannot think how you can entertain it for a moment in face of the utter absence of motive.”
“That is a strong point certainly,” conceded Bracknell.
“That she happened to be in the neighbourhood is nothing. I was in the neighbourhood, you were in the neighbourhood—”