The Top of the World Part 25

"All right," said Burke, and felt in his pocket for his pipe.

"Consider it unsaid!"

His abrupt acceptance of her remonstrance was curiously disconcerting. The mastery of his look had led her to expect something different. She watched him dumbly as he filled his pipe with quiet precision.

Finally, as he looked at her again, she spoke. "I don't want to seem over-critical--ungrateful, but--" her breath came quickly--"though you have been so awfully good to me, I can't help feeling--that you might have done more for Guy, if--if you had been kinder when he went wrong. And--" her eyes filled with sudden tears--"that thought spoils--just everything."

"I see," said Burke, and though his lips were grim his voice was wholly free from harshness. "Mrs. Merston told you all about it, did she?"

Sylvia's colour rose again. She turned slightly from him. "She didn't say much," she said.

There was a pause. Then unexpectedly Burke's hand closed over her two clasped ones. "So I've got to be punished, have I?" he said.

She shook her head, shrinking a little though she suffered his touch. "No. Only--I can't forget it,--that's all."

"Or forgive?" said Burke.

She swallowed her tears with an effort. "No, not that. I'm not vindictive. But--oh, Burke--" she turned to him impulsively,--"I wish--I wish--we could find Guy!"

He stiffened almost as if at a blow. "Why?" he demanded sternly.

For a moment his look awed her, but only for a moment; the longing in her heart was so great as to overwhelm all misgiving. She grasped his arm tightly between her hands.

"If we could only find him--and save him--save him somehow from the horrible pit he seems to have fallen into! We could do it between us--I feel sure we could do it---if only--if only--we could find him!"

Breathlessly her words rushed out. It seemed as if she had stumbled almost inadvertently upon the solution of the problem that had so tormented her. She marvelled now that she had ever been able to endure inaction with regard to Guy. She was amazed at herself for having been so easily content. It was almost as if in that moment she heard Guy's voice very far away, calling to her for help.

And then, swift as a lightning-flash, striking dismay to her soul, came the consciousness of Burke gazing straight at her with that in his eyes which she could not--dare not--meet.

She gripped his arm a little tighter. She was quivering from head to foot. "We could do it between us," she breathed again.

"Wouldn't it be worth it? Oh, wouldn't it be worth it?"

But Burke spoke no word. He sat rigid, looking at her.

A feeling of coldness ran through her--such a feeling as she had experienced on her wedding-day under the skeleton-tree, the chill that comes from the heart of a storm. Slowly she relaxed her hold upon him. Her tears were gone, but she felt choked, unlike herself, curiously impotent.

"Shall we go back?" she said.

She made as if she would rise, but he stayed her with a gesture, and her weakness held her pa.s.sive.

"So you have forgiven him!" he said.

His tone was curt. He almost flung the words.

She braced herself, instinctively aware of coming strain. But she answered him gently. "You can't be angry with a person when you are desperately sorry for him."

"I see. And you hold me in a great measure responsible for his fall? I am to make good, am I?"

He did not raise his voice, but there was something in it that made her quail. She looked up at him in swift distress.

"No, no! Of course not--of course not! Partner, please don't glare at me like that! What have I done?"

He dropped his eyes abruptly from her startled face, and there followed a silence so intense that she thought he did not even breathe.

Then, in a very low voice: "You've raised Cain," he said.

She s.h.i.+vered. There was something terrible in the atmosphere.

Dumbly she waited, feeling that protest would but make matters worse.

He turned himself from her at length, and sat with his chin on his hands, staring out to the fading sunset.

When he spoke finally, the hard note had gone out of his voice.

"Do you think it's going to make life any easier to bring that young scoundrel back?"

"I wasn't thinking of that," she said, "It was only--" she hesitated.

"Only?" said Burke, without turning.

With difficulty she answered him. "Only that probably you and I are the only people in the world who could do anything to help him.

And so--somehow it seems our job."

Burke digested this in silence. Then: "And what are you going to do with him when you've got him?" he enquired.

Again she hesitated, but only momentarily. "I shall want you to help me, partner," she said appealingly.

He made a slight movement that pa.s.sed unexplained. "You may find me--rather in the way--before you've done," he said.

"Then you won't help me?" she said, swift disappointment in her voice.

He turned round to her. His face was grim, but it held no anger.

"You've asked a pretty hard thing of me," he said. "But--yes, I'll help you."

"You will?" She held out her hand to him. "Oh, partner, thank you--awfully!"

He gripped her hand hard. "On one condition," he said.

"Oh, what?" She started a little and her face whitened.

He squeezed her fingers with merciless force. "Just that you will play a straight game with me," he said briefly.

The colour came back to her face with a rush. "That!" she said.

"But of course--of course! I always play a straight game."

"Then it's a bargain?" he said.

Her clear eyes met his. "Yes, a bargain. But how shall we ever find him?"

He was silent for a moment, and she felt as if those steel-grey eyes of his were probing for her soul. "That," he said slowly, "will not be a very difficult business."