Part 53 (2/2)

”I am going to prevent it.”

”If you can.”

”I am going to prevent it,” Lucas repeated. ”Before we go any further, give me that shooter of yours.”

Nap hesitated for a single instant, then, with a gesture openly contemptuous, he took the revolver from his pocket and tossed it on to the bed.

Lucas laid his hand upon it. He was looking full into Nap's face. ”Now, I want you to tell me something,” he said. ”I seem to remember your saying to me once in this very room that you and Lady Carfax were friends, no more, no less. You were mighty anxious that I shouldn't misunderstand.

Remember that episode?”

”Perfectly,” said Nap.

”I surmised that you told me that because you honestly cared for her as a friend. Was that so?”

Nap made a slight movement, such a movement as a man makes when he catches sight of a stone to his path too late to avoid it.

”You may say so if you wish,” he said.

”Meaning that things have changed since then?” questioned Lucas, in his tired drawl.

Nap threw up his head with the action of a jibbing horse. ”You can put it how you like. You can say--if you like--that I am a bigger blackguard now than I was then. It makes no difference how you put it.”

”But I want to know,” said Lucas quietly. ”Are you a blackguard, Boney?”

His eyes were fixed steadily upon the dusky face with its prominent cheek-bones and mocking mouth. Perhaps he knew, what Anne had discovered long before, that those sensitive lips might easily reveal what the fierce eyes hid.

”A matter of opinion,” threw back Nap. ”If I am, Anne Carfax has made me so.”

”Anne Carfax,” said Lucas very deliberately, ”has done her best to make a man of you. It is not her fault if she has failed. It is not her fault that you have chosen to drag her friends.h.i.+p through the mire.”

”Friends.h.i.+p!” broke in Nap. ”She gave me more than that.”

Lucas's brows contracted as if at a sudden dart of pain, but his voice was perfectly level as he made reply: ”Whatever she gave you was the gift of a good woman of which you have proved yourself utterly unworthy.”

Nap sprang to his feet. ”Be it so!” he exclaimed harshly. ”I am unworthy.

What of it? She always knew I was.”

”Yet she trusted you.”

”She trusted me, yes. Having cast out the devil she found in possession, she thought there was nothing more to me. She thought that I should be content to wander empty all my days through dry places, seeking rest. She forgot the sequel, forgot what was bound to happen when I found none. You seem to have forgotten that too. Or do you think that I am indeed that interesting vacuum that you are pleased to call a gentleman?” He flung his arms wide with a sudden, pa.s.sionate laugh. ”Why, my good fellow, I'd sooner rank myself with the beasts that perish. And I'd sooner perish too; yes, die with a rope round my throat in the good old English fas.h.i.+on. There's nothing in that. I'd as soon die that way as any other.

It may not be so artistic as our method, but it's quite a clean process, and the ultimate result is the same.”

”Do you mind sitting down?” said Lucas.

Nap looked at him sharply. ”In pain again?”

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