Part 33 (1/2)

”Then if I have no more use for you here, I think I can promise to find you as good or better job. Is that enough?”

d.i.c.k gave him a grateful look. ”It's difficult to tell you how I feel about it, but I'll do my best to make good and show that you have not been mistaken.”

”That's all right,” said Fuller, getting up. ”Sign the doc.u.ment when you can get a witness and let me have it.”

He went away and d.i.c.k sat down and studied the agreement with a beating heart. He found his work engrossing, he liked the men he was a.s.sociated with, and saw his way to making his mark in his profession, but there was another cause for the triumphant thrill he felt. Clare must be separated from Kenwardine before she was entangled in his dangerous plots, and he had brooded over his inability to come to her rescue. Now, however, one obstacle was removed. He could offer her some degree of comfort if she could be persuaded to marry him. It was obvious that she must be taken out of her father's hands as soon as possible, and he determined to try to gain her consent next morning, though he was very doubtful of his success.

When he reached the house, Clare was sitting at a table in the patio with some work in her hand. Close by, the purple creeper spread across the wall, and the girl's blue eyes and thin lilac dress harmonized with its deeper color. Her face and half-covered arms showed pure white against the background, but the delicate pink that had once relieved the former was now less distinct. The hot, humid climate had begun to set its mark on her, and d.i.c.k thought she looked anxious and perplexed.

She glanced up when she heard his step, and moving quietly forward he stopped on the opposite side of the table with his hand on a chair. He knew there was much against him and feared a rebuff, but delay might be dangerous and he could not wait. Standing quietly resolute, he fixed his eyes on the girl's face.

”Is your father at home, Miss Kenwardine?” he asked.

”No,” said Clare. ”He went out some time ago, and I cannot tell when he will come back. Do you want to see him?”

”I don't know yet. It depends.”

He thought she was surprised and curious, but she said nothing, and nerving himself for the plunge, he resumed: ”I came to see you in the first place. I'm afraid you'll be astonished, Clare, but I want to know if you will marry me.”

She moved abruptly, turned her head for a moment, and then looked up at him while the color gathered in her face. Her expression puzzled d.i.c.k, but he imagined that she was angry.

”I am astonished. Isn't it a rather extraordinary request, after what you said on board the launch?”

”No,” said d.i.c.k, ”it's very natural from my point of view. You see, I fell in love with you the first time we met; but I got into disgrace soon afterwards and have had a bad time since. This made it impossible for me to tell you what I felt; but things are beginning to improve----”

He stopped, seeing no encouragement in her expression, for Clare was fighting a hard battle. His blunt simplicity made a strong appeal. She had liked and trusted him when he had with callow but honest chivalry offered her his protection one night in England and he had developed fast since then. Hards.h.i.+p had strengthened and in a sense refined him. He looked resolute and soldierlike as he waited. Still, for his sake as well as hers, she must refuse.

”Then you must be easily moved,” she said. ”You knew nothing about me.”

”I'd seen you; that was quite enough,” d.i.c.k declared and stopped. Her look was gentler and he might do better if he could lessen the distance between them and take her hand; he feared he had been painfully matter-of-fact. Perhaps he was right, but the table stood in the way, and if he moved round it, she would take alarm. It was exasperating to be baulked by a piece of furniture.

”Besides,” he resumed, ”when everybody doubted me, you showed your confidence. You wrote and said----”

”But you told me you tore up the letter,” Clare interrupted.

d.i.c.k got confused. ”I did; I was a fool, but the way things had been going was too much for me. You ought to understand and try to make allowances.”

”I cannot understand why you want to marry a girl you think a thief.”

Pulling himself together, d.i.c.k gave her a steady look. ”I can't let that pa.s.s, though if I begin to argue I'm lost. In a way, I'm at your mercy, because my defense can only make matters worse. But I tried to explain on board the launch.”

”The explanation wasn't very convincing,” Clare remarked, turning her head. ”Do you still believe I took your papers?”

”The plans were in my pocket when I reached your house,” said d.i.c.k, who saw he must be frank. ”I don't know that you took them, and if you did, I wouldn't hold you responsible; but they were taken.”

”You mean that you blame my father for their loss?”

d.i.c.k hesitated. He felt that she was giving him a last opportunity, but he could not seize it.

”If I pretended I didn't blame him, you would find me out and it would stand between us. I wish I could say I'd dropped the papers somewhere or find some other way; but the truth is best.”