The Pagan Madonna - Page 75/141

"But so long as he doesn't intend to harm us--and I'm convinced he

doesn't--perhaps we'd better play the game as he asks us to."

"Miss Norman," said Cleigh in a tired voice, "will you do me the favour to

ask Captain Dennison why he has never touched the twenty thousand I

deposited to his account?"

Astonished, Jane turned to Dennison to repeat the question, but was

forestalled.

"Tell Mr. Cleigh that to touch a dollar of that money would be a tacit

admission that Mr. Cleigh had the right to strike Captain Dennison across

the mouth."

Dennison swung out of the chair and strode off toward the bridge, his

shoulders flat and his neck stiff.

"You struck him?" demanded Jane, impulsively.

But Cleigh did not answer. His eyes were closed, his head rested against

the back of the chair so Jane did not press the question. It was enough

that she had seen behind a corner of this peculiar veil. And, oddly, she

felt quite as much pity for the father as for the son. A wall of pride,

Alpine high, and neither would force a passage!

They did not see the arch rogue during the day, but he came in to dinner.

He was gay--in a story-telling mood. There was little or no banter, for he

spoke only to Jane, and gave her flashes of some of his amazing activities

in search of art treasures. He had once been chased up and down Japan by

the Mikado's agents for having in his possession some royal-silk tapestry

which it is forbidden to take out of the country. Another time he had gone

into Tibet for a lama's ghost mask studded with raw emeralds and

turquoise, and had suffered untold miseries in getting down into India.

Again he had entered a Rajput haremlik as a woman, and eventually escaped

with the fabulous rug which hung in the salon. Adventure, adventure, and

death always at his elbow! There was nothing of the braggart in the man;

he recounted his tales after the manner of a boy relating some college

escapades, deprecatingly.

Often Jane stole a glance at one or the other of the Cleighs. She was

constantly swung between--but never touched--the desire to laugh and the

desire to weep over this tragedy, which seemed so futile.

"Why don't you write a book about these adventures?" she asked.

"A book? No time," said Cunningham. "Besides, the moment one of these

trips is over it ends; I can recount it only sketchily."

"But even sketchily it would be tremendously interesting. It is as if you

were playing a game with death for the mere sport of it."