She looked away, past me, in the direction of the drive. I followed her gaze. A stout figure, carrying a suit-case, was moving slowly down it.
I smiled. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the anger that had been lying at the back of them flash out. Her chin went up with the old defiant tilt. I was sorry I had smiled. It was my old fault, the complacency that would not be hidden.
‘I don’t believe you!’ she cried. ‘I don’t trust you!’
It is curious how one’s motive for embarking on a course of conduct changes or disappears altogether as the action develops. Once started on an enterprise it is as if one proceeded with it automatically, irrespective of one’s original motives. I had begun what I might call the second phase of this matter of the Little Nugget, the abandoning of Cynthia’s cause in favour of Audrey’s, with a clear idea of why I was doing it. I had set myself to resist the various forces which were trying to take Ogden from Audrey, for one simple reason, because I loved Audrey and wished to help her. That motive, if it still existed at all, did so only in the form of abstract chivalry. My personal feelings towards her seemed to have undergone a complete change, dating from our parting in the road the night before. I found myself now meeting hostility with hostility. I looked at her critically and told myself that her spell was broken at last, that, if she disliked me, I was at least indifferent to her.
And yet, despite my altered feelings, my determination to help her never wavered. The guarding of Ogden might be–primarily–no business of mine, but I had adopted it as my business.
‘I don’t ask you to trust me,’ I said. ‘We have settled all that. There’s no need to go over old ground. Think what you please about this. I’ve made up my mind.’
‘If you mean to stay, I suppose I can’t prevent you.’
‘Exactly.’
Sam appeared again in a gap in the trees, walking slowly and pensively, as one retreating from his Moscow. Her eyes followed him till he was out of sight.
‘If you like,’ I said bitterly, ‘you may put what I am doing down to professional rivalry. If I am in love with Mrs Ford and am here to steal Ogden for her, it is natural for me to do all I can to prevent Buck MacGinnis getting him. There is no need for you to look on me as an ally because we are working together.’
‘We are not working together.’
‘We shall be in a very short time. Buck will not let another night go by without doing something.’
‘I don’t believe that you saw him.’
‘Just as you please,’ I said, and walked away. What did it matter to me what she believed?
The day dragged on. Towards evening the weather broke suddenly, after the fashion of spring in England. Showers of rain drove me to the study.
It must have been nearly ten o’clock when the telephone rang.
It was Mr Fisher.
‘Hello, is that you, sonny?’
‘It is. Do you want anything?’
‘I want a talk with you. Business. Can I come up?’
‘If you wish it.’
‘I’ll start right away.’
It was some fifteen minutes later that I heard in the distance the engines of an automobile. The headlights gleamed through the trees, and presently the car swept round the bend of the drive and drew up at the front door. A portly figure got down and rang the bell. I observed these things from a window on the first floor, overlooking the front steps; and it was from this window that I spoke.
‘Is that you, Mr Fisher?’
He backed away from the door.
‘Where are you?’
‘Is that your car?’
‘It belongs to a friend of mine.’
‘I didn’t know you meant to bring a party.’
‘There’s only three of us. Me, the chauffeur, and my friend–MacGinnis.’
The possibility, indeed the probability, of Sam seeking out Buck and forming an alliance had occurred to me, and I was prepared for it. I shifted my grip on the automatic pistol in my hand.