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For example, if the impossible had come to pass, and Beau Geste had stolen the sapphire and bolted, would it not be perfectly natural for her to feel most reluctant to have it known that her nephew was a thief--a despicable creature that robbed his benefactress?
Of course. She would even shield him, very probably--to such an extent as was compatible with the recovery of the jewel.
Or if she were so angry, contemptuous, disgusted, as to feel no inclination to shield him, she would at any rate regard the affair as a disgraceful family scandal, about which the less said the better. Quite so.
But to him, who had unswervingly loved her from his boyhood, and whom she frequently called her best friend, the man to whom she would always turn for help, since the pleasure of helping her was the greatest pleasure he could have? Why be reticent, guarded, and uncommunicative to him?
But--her pleasure was her pleasure, and his was to serve it in any way she deigned to indicate. . . .
"Well, we'll have the details, dear, and tea as well," said Lady Brandon more lightly and easily than she had spoken since he had mentioned the sapphire.
"We'll have it in my boudoir, and I'll be at home to nobody whomsoever. You shall just talk until it is time to dress for dinner, and tell me every least detail as you go along. Everything you think, too; everything that Henri de Beaujolais thought;--and everything you think he thought, as well."
As they strolled back to the house, Lady Brandon slipped her hand through Lawrence's arm, and it was quickly imprisoned.
He glowed with the delightful feeling that this brave and strong woman (whose devoted love for another man was, now, at any rate, almost maternal in its protecting care), was glad to turn to him as others turned to her.
How he yearned to hear her say, when his tale was told:
"Help me, George. I have no one but you, and you are a tower of strength. I am in great trouble."
"You aren't looking too well, George, my dear," she said, as they entered the wood.
"Lot of fever lately," he replied, and added: "I feel as fit as six people now," and pressed the hand that he had seized.
"Give it up and come home, George," said Lady Brandon, and he turned quickly toward her, his eyes opening widely. "And let me find you a wife," she continued.
Lawrence sighed and ignored the suggestion.
"How is Ffolliot?" he asked instead.
"Perfectly well, thank you. Why shouldn't he be?" was the reply--in the tone of which a careful listener, such as George Lawrence, might have detected a note of defensiveness, almost of annoyance, of repudiation of an unwarrantable implication.
If Lawrence did detect it, he ignored this also.
"Where is the good Sir Hector Brandon?" he asked, with casual politeness.
"Oh, in Thibet, or Paris, or East Africa, or Monte Carlo, or the South Sea Islands, or Homburg. Actually Kashmir, I believe, thank you, George," replied Lady Brandon, and added: "Have you brought a suit-case or must you wire?"
"I--er--am staying at the Brandon Arms, and have one there," admitted Lawrence.
"And how long have you been at the Brandon Arms, George?" she enquired.
"Five minutes," he answered.
"You must be tired of it then, dear," commented Lady Brandon, and added: "I'll send Robert down for your things."
§2.
That evening, George Lawrence told Lady Brandon all that Major de Beaujolais had told him, adding his own ideas, suggestions, and theories. But whereas the soldier had been concerned with the inexplicable events of the day, Lawrence was concerned with the inexplicable paper and the means by which it had reached the hand of a dead man, on the roof of a desert outpost in the Sahara.
Throughout his telling of the tale, Lady Brandon maintained an unbroken silence, but her eyes scarcely left his face.
At the end she asked a few questions, but offered no opinion, propounded no theory.
"We'll talk about it after dinner, George," she said.
And after a poignantly delightful dinner à deux--it being explained that the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot was dining in his room to-night, owing to a headache--George Lawrence found that the talking was again to be done by him. All that Lady Brandon contributed to the conversation was questions. Again she offered no opinion, propounded no theory.
Nor, as Lawrence reluctantly admitted to himself, when he lay awake in bed that night, did she once admit, nor even imply, that the "Blue Water" had been stolen. His scrupulous care to avoid questioning her on the subject of the whereabouts of the sapphire and of her nephew, Michael Geste, made this easy for her, and she had availed herself of it to the full. The slightly painful realisation, that she now knew all that he did whereas he knew nothing from her, could not be denied.
Again and again it entered his mind and roused the question, "Why cannot she confide in me, and at least say whether the sapphire has been stolen or not?"
Again and again he silenced it with the loyal reply, "For some excellent reason. . . . Whatever she does is right."
After breakfast next day, Lady Brandon took him for a long drive. That the subject which now obsessed him (as it had, in a different way and for a different reason, obsessed de Beaujolais) was also occupying her mind, was demonstrated by the fact that, from time to time, and à propos of nothing in particular, she would suddenly ask him some fresh question bearing on the secret of the tragedy of Zinderneuf.
How he restrained himself from saying, "Where is Michael? Has anything happened? Is the 'Blue Water' stolen?" he did not know. A hundred times, one or the other of these questions had leapt from his brain to the tip of his tongue, since the moment when, at their first interview, he had seen that she wished to make no communication or statement whatever.
As the carriage turned in at the park gates on their return, he laid his hand on hers and said:
"My dear--I think everything has now been said, except one thing--your instructions to me. All I want now is to be told exactly what you want me to do."
"I will tell you that, George, when you go. . . . And thank you, my dear," replied Lady Brandon.
So he possessed his soul in patience until the hour struck.
§3.
"Come and rest on this chest a moment, Patricia," he said, on taking his departure next day, when she had telephoned to the garage, "to give me my orders. You are going to make me happier than I have been since you told me that you liked me too much to love me."
Lady Brandon seated herself beside Lawrence and all but loved him for his chivalrous devotion, his unselfishness, his gentle strength, and utter trustworthiness.
"We have sat here before, George," she said, smiling, and, as he took her hand:
"Listen, my dear. This is what I want you to do for me. Just nothing at all. The 'Blue Water' is not at Zinderneuf, nor anywhere else in Africa. Where Michael is I do not know. What that paper means, I cannot tell. And thank you so much for wanting to help me, and for asking no questions. And now, good-bye, my dear, dear friend. . . ."
"Good-bye, my dearest dear," said George Lawrence, most sorely puzzled, and went out to the door a sadder but not a wiser man.
§4.
As the car drove away, Lady Brandon stood in deep thought, pinching her lip.
"To think of that now!" she said. . . . "'Be sure your sins.' . . . The world is a very small place . . ." and went in search of the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot.
§5.
In regard to this same gentleman, George Lawrence entertained feelings which were undeniably mixed.