Читать книгу Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic онлайн

11 страница из 57

“That may be all very well about Denvarre,” quoth Gerry wisely, “though I don’t see that it is for certain, all the same. But what about Gwen? You don’t allow her much independence of thought. Why should he happen to meet her fancy? Do you think she doesn’t know you worship the ground she walks on?”

I stared at him, gnawing uneasily at my moustache, and with the sense that he spoke the truth. Gwen knew it—must know it, but she must have seen, as did I, the hopelessness of the business—must have known that the farewell of that morning was to be the end. And yet—and yet that look she gave me. Was it merely questioning, or did it tell me something? I fell into that moody, unhealthy mind when one forbids oneself to hope for very hope of being mistaken—assuring myself that I knew there could be nothing but despair for me in the future, trusting all the same that wanton fate would prove me wrong. Which is a phase of unreason, I take it, more wearing than an utter yielding to desperation.

“Now, old chap,” went on Gerry soberly, “if you begin to muse and wonder you’ll never sleep to-night. I believe this thing comes in the light of luck for both of us. I feel twice the man I did half-an-hour ago, and I’m going to whine no more. However matters go you’re very much better off than you were this morning, and, as I said before, what’s to prove that either Gwen or Vi may not come back to us again? Heaps of things may happen in a year. Why,” he went on smiling, “with the influence of the Heatherslies at my back I mean to get an attachéship and marry Vi myself. At any rate I believe now that the game’s not over. I’ll be your best man yet, unless we’re both married together, and I won’t say that’s not possible.”