“Every word.” There was a grim clipping to the man’s words.
Accustomed as Claire was to fend for herself; accustomed as she was to think and act without reference to anything but her own judgment and inclination, there was something that excited and thrilled her in the simple act of yielding to this man’s will. It was something so new—something which, for all her independence, appealed to the woman in her. He was so strong. He was so ruthlessly rough. But for all her delight in him a queer apprehension lay back in her mind.
“It was when he left me at the door here,” she said slowly. “What was it? Yes, I remember.” She laughed. “It isn’t easy to forget. ‘I guess the hold-up didn’t mature. I sort of felt it wouldn’t, Claire, with me around. You see, the folk of this city have more sense than to get across me. The toughest of them wouldn’t take a chance that way. And they’re surely wise. I’m feeling sore, my dear, you couldn’t feel like handling that toy I was hoping to pass you. Think it over. Don’t leave it the way it is. Get a sleep on it and maybe, like the hold-up, you’ll think better of it.’”
“It was a threat?”
The set of the man’s face was a match for his tone. There was anger, hot anger in the eyes which Nature had designed so admirably for frowning. The girl nodded.
“Oh, yes. And I remembered our talk. And I knew it was quitting time. I thought and thought. Oh, I thought so hard. I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to—to fight it out. You know, Ivor, I’m foolish that way. I’d got all the money I needed, but it was the thought of quitting because of—because I’m a woman and he’s a man. I didn’t quit. No, I went on. But I refused his jewellery. I refused his every advance. And then I realised. Things seemed to change somehow, I can’t tell you how. The rest of the women acted differently. The servants in the place. Oh, the boys didn’t. And then one day Jubilee forgot to say fool stuff. He didn’t say much, but it was characteristic. He said, ‘The Queen is dead. Long live the Republic.’ I turned on him at once. I said, ‘You mean she’s deposed.’ His face was dead serious for once. He said: ‘Same thing or worse. They’ve a way of beheading deposed monarchs.’ Then his queer eyes followed Max as he moved about the dance-room for a while, and then he looked round on me. He said, ‘Say, Claire, why not quit with the boodle? It makes a revolution sick to death when anyone gets away with the stuff they reckon to handle for themselves.’ I guess I managed to laugh, but there wasn’t a laugh back of my mind. I thought of you, Ivor. And—two days later I got a queer note. Here it is. You can read it.”
She took a folded paper from the bosom of her frock and passed it to the man whose curious silence and seeming rigidity while she told her story set a feeling of apprehension stirring in the girl. McLagan took the paper and unfolded it. And his unsmiling eyes perused its contents:
You don’t need to worry. The Light of the Aurora is shining, and by its light all things are seen, all things are known.
For The Chief Light of the Aurora,
A Lesser Light.