Victor Durnovo lingered on at Loango. He elaborated and detailed2 to all interested, and to some whom it did not concern, many excuses for his delay in returning to his expedition, lying supine and attendant at Msala. It was by now an open secret on the coast that a great trading expedition was about to ascend3 the Ogowe river, with, it was whispered, a fortune awaiting it in the dim perspective of Central Africa.
Durnovo had already built up for himself a reputation. He was known as one of the foremost ivory traders on the coast—a man capable of standing4 against those enormous climatic risks before which his competitors surely fell sooner or later. His knowledge of the interior was unrivalled, his power over the natives a household word. Great things were therefore expected, and Durnovo found himself looked up to and respected in Loango with that friendly worship which is only to be acquired by the possession or prospective5 possession of vast wealth.
It is possible even in Loango to have a fling, but the carouser6 must be prepared to face, even in the midst of his revelry, the haunting thought that the exercise of the strictest economy in any other part of the world might be a preferable pastime.
During the three days following his arrival Victor Durnovo indulged, according to his lights, in the doubtful pleasure mentioned. He purchased at the best factory the best clothes obtainable; he lived like a fighting cock in the one so-called hotel—a house chiefly affected7 and supported by ship-captains. He spent freely of money that was not his, and imagined himself to be leading the life of a gentleman. He rode round on a hired horse to call on his friends, and on the afternoon of the sixth day he alighted from this quadruped at the gate of the Gordons' bungalow8.
He knew that Maurice Gordon had left that morning on one of his frequent visits to a neighbouring sub-factory. Nevertheless, he expressed surprise when the servant gave him the information.
“Miss Gordon,” he said, tapping his boot with a riding-whip: “is she in?”
“Yes, sir.”
A few minutes later Jocelyn came into the drawing-room, where he was waiting with a brazen9 face and a sinking heart. Somehow the very room had power to bring him down towards his own level. When he set eyes on Jocelyn, in her fair Saxon beauty, he regained10 aplomb11.
She appeared to be rather glad to see him.
“I thought,” she said, “that you had gone back to the expedition?”
“Not without coming to say good-bye,” he answered. “It is not likely.”
Just to demonstrate how fully14 he felt at ease, he took a chair without waiting for an invitation, and sat tapping his boot with his whip, looking her furtively15 up and down all the while with an appraising16 eye.
“And when do you go?” she asked, with a subtle change in her tone which did not penetrate17 his mental epidermis18.
“I suppose in a few days now; but I'll let you know all right, never fear.”
Victor Durnovo stretched out his legs and made himself quite at home; but Jocelyn did not sit down. On the contrary, she remained standing, persistently19 and significantly.
“Maurice gone away?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“I am accustomed to being left,” she answered gravely.
“I don't quite like it, you know.”
“YOU?”
She looked at him with a steady surprise which made him feel a trifle uncomfortable.
“Well, you know,” he was forced to explain, shuffling22 the while uneasily in his chair and dropping his whip, “one naturally takes an interest in one's friends' welfare. You and Maurice are the best friends I have in Loango. I often speak to Maurice about it. It isn't as if there was an English garrison23, or anything like that. I don't trust these niggers a bit.”
“Perhaps you do not understand them?” suggested she gently.
She moved away from him as far as she could get. Every moment increased her repugnance24 for his presence.
She winced27 at the familiar mention of her brother's name, which was probably intentional28, and her old fear of this man came back with renewed force.
“I don't think,” he went on, “that Maurice's estimation of my humble29 self is quite so low as yours.”
She gave a nervous little laugh.
“Maurice has always spoken of you with gratitude,” she said.
“To deaf ears, eh? Yes, he has reason to be grateful, though perhaps I ought not to say it. I have put him into several very good things on the coast, and it is in my power to get him into this new scheme. It is a big thing; he would be a rich man in no time.”
He rose from his seat and deliberately30 crossed the room to the sofa where she had sat down, where he reclined, with one arm stretched out along the back of it towards her. In his other hand he held his riding-whip, with which he began to stroke the skirt of her dress, which reached along the floor almost to his feet.
“Would you like him to be in it?” he asked, with a meaning glance beneath his lashes31. “It is a pity to throw away a good chance; his position is not so very secure, you know.”
She gave a strange little hunted glance round the room. She was wedged into a corner, and could not rise without incurring32 the risk of his saying something she did not wish to hear. Then she leant forward and deliberately withdrew her dress from the touch of his whip, which was in its way a subtle caress33.
“Is he throwing away the chance?” she asked.
“No, but you are.”
Then she rose from her seat, and, standing in the middle of the room, faced him with a sudden gleam in her eyes.
“I do not see what it has to do with me,” she said; “I do not know anything about Maurice's business arrangements, and very little about his business friends.”
“Then let me tell you, Jocelyn—well, then, Miss Gordon, if you prefer it—that you will know more about one of his business friends before you have finished with him. I've got Maurice more or less in my power now, and it rests with you—”
At this moment a shadow darkened the floor of the verandah, and an instant later Jack34 Meredith walked quietly in by the window.
“Enter, young man,” he said dramatically, “by window—centre.”
“I am sorry,” he went on in a different tone to Jocelyn, “to come in this unceremonious way, but the servant told me that you were in the verandah with Durnovo and—”
He turned towards the half-breed, pausing.
“And Durnovo is the man I want,” weighing on each word.
Durnovo's right hand was in his jacket pocket. Seeing Meredith's proffered36 salutation, he slowly withdrew it and shook hands.
The flash of hatred37 was still in his eyes when Jack Meredith turned upon him with aggravating38 courtesy. The pleasant, half-cynical glance wandered from Durnovo's dark face very deliberately down to his jacket pocket, where the stock of a revolver was imperfectly concealed39.
“We were getting anxious about you,” he explained, “seeing that you did not come back. Of course, we knew that you were capable of taking—care—of yourself.”
He was still looking innocently at the tell-tale jacket pocket, and Durnovo, following the direction of his glance, hastily thrust his hand into it.
“But one can never tell, with a treacherous40 climate like this, what a day may bring forth41. However, I am glad to find you looking—so very fit.”
Victor Durnovo gave an awkward little laugh, extremely conscious of the factory clothes.
“Oh, yes; I'm all right,” he said. “I was going to start this evening.”
The girl stood behind them, with a flush slowly fading from her face. There are some women who become suddenly beautiful—not by the glory of a beautiful thought, not by the exaltation of a lofty virtue42, but by the mere35 practical human flush. Jack Meredith, when he took his eyes from Durnovo's, glancing at Jocelyn, suddenly became aware of the presence of a beautiful woman.
The crisis was past; and if Jack knew it, so also did Jocelyn. She knew that the imperturbable43 gentlemanliness of the Englishman had conveyed to the more passionate44 West Indian the simple, downright fact that in a lady's drawing-room there was to be no raised voice, no itching45 fingers, no flash of fiery46 eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “that will suit me splendidly. We will travel together.”
He turned to Jocelyn.
“I hear your brother is away?”
“Yes, for a few days. He has gone up the coast.”
Then there was a silence. They both paused, helping47 each other as if by pre-arrangement, and Victor Durnovo suddenly felt that he must go. He rose, and picked up the whip which he had dropped on the matting. There was no help for it—the united wills of these two people were too strong for him.
Jack Meredith passed out of the verandah with him, murmuring something about giving him a leg up. While they were walking round the house, Victor Durnovo made one of those hideous48 mistakes which one remembers all through life with a sudden rush of warm shame and self-contempt. The very thing that was uppermost in his mind to be avoided suddenly bubbled to his lips, almost, it would seem, in defiance49 of his own will.
“What about the small—the small-pox?” he asked.
“We have got it under,” replied Jack quietly. “We had a very bad time for three days, but we got all the cases isolated50 and prevented it from spreading. Of course, we could do little or nothing to save them; they died.”
Durnovo had the air of a whipped dog. His mind was a blank. He simply had nothing to say; the humiliation51 of utter self-contempt was his.
“You need not be afraid to come back now,” Jack Meredith went on, with a strange refinement52 of cruelty.
And that was all he ever said about it.
“Will it be convenient for you to meet me on the beach at four o'clock this afternoon?” he asked, when Durnovo was in the saddle.
“Yes.”
“All right—four o'clock.”
He turned and deliberately went back to the bungalow.
There are some friendships where the intercourse53 is only the seed which absence duly germinates54. Jocelyn Gordon and Jack had parted as acquaintances; they met as friends. There is no explaining these things, for there is no gauging55 the depths of the human mind. There is no getting down to the little bond that lies at the bottom of the well—the bond of sympathy. There is no knowing what it is that prompts us to say, “This man, or this woman, of all the millions, shall be my friend.”
“I am sorry,” he said, “that he should have had a chance of causing you uneasiness again.”
Jocelyn remembered that all her life. She remembers still—and Africa has slipped away from her existence for ever. It is one of the mental photographs of her memory, standing out clear and strong amidst a host of minor56 recollections.
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1
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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carouser
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| n.大喝大闹的人 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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aplomb
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| n.沉着，镇静 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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epidermis
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| n.表皮 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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badinage
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| n.开玩笑，打趣 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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24
repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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endorse
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| vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意 | |
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26
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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29
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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30
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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31
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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34
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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41
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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42
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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45
itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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46
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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47
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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48
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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49
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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50
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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51
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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52
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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53
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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54
germinates
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| n.（使）发芽( germinate的名词复数 )v.（使）发芽( germinate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
gauging
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| n.测量[试]，测定，计量v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的现在分词 )；估计；计量；划分 | |
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56
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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