"The Lucky Speculator,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 December 1927, Page 7

"The Lucky Speculator,”

A POWERFUL LOVE STORY OF A MODERN GIRL.

BY MARY DEE WE TEMPEST, Author of: “His Last Shot,” “The Second Mrs Fairfax,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER XL—Continued. When it was ready, she sought her husband’s sleeping-apartment. Creeping warily round the hut, she came upon him in a sort ot! lean-to he had made by stretching a piece of canvas from the south wall of it to pegs in the ground. lie was dead asleep; and looked like a gentle gladiator with his grea^tj 1 bronzed neck showing through the careless opening of his shirt; short brown lashes, curled above, the lean, sunburnt, cheeks; his profile suggesting latent strength. Over his whole face brooded a nameless distinction. But it was his mouth that most attracted Gyp; it looked so different from the uncompromising rnouta she know; clean-cut and resolute, but so very sensitive —utterly in defiance of the strong, almost ferocious jaw. As she gazed, her primitive heart began to throb to suffocation. She was his wife; yet that mouth had never touched her own; perhaps would never touch it. Then, acting upon an uncontrollable impulse, she crept closer, bent down, and with infinite caution rested her sweet lips on his for a second's unutterable bliss. The giant stirred in his sleep and smiled that transfiguring smile of his. She stole away, her heart in a rapture of secret melody. All about her she seemed to hear the songs of happy birds, throbbing out their joy in unison with hers. She came back to him—with breakfast! 3Ec laughed quite boyishly, as if both embarrassed and’flattered by this unusual attention. “Loss of blood is worth .it if it brings such dreams as I have had,” he said as he emptied his mug. lie did not explain what that dream had been. All that day and the next lie wondered at her docility, at the baffling radiance in her face, and distrusted both' wondered at the new intoxicating charm of her presence and distrusted himself. With strength renewed, however, his belief in Gyp’s perfidy again set up its red triangle of warning. There was nothing for it then but to keep to the distance he had set between them. * So life fell back into its old rut on the island, and little by little, the radiance died out of Gyp’s grey eyes, and island died out of Gyp's grey eyes, and a settled wistfulness took its place. Sometimes she even gave way to a lit of sullen resentfulness. Why should he go on avoiding her like this? It wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve anybody’s love. Her own passion for him was just a myth, born out of a glorious fight and the memory of a. stolen kiss. She ought to hate him! Then a new fear began to torment her: Suppose he wasn't asleep when she gave him that kiss —and loathed it! For a full minute she felt whipped; as if all the blood in her body had flown into her face to scorch it. That evening she greeted his return with an impertinent question: “Any luck?” “Eh?” The gold-flecked eye looked puzzled. She lifted a disdainful shoulder and tilted her chin. “ Why ‘ eh?■ You’ve got some sort of ‘option’ on this island, Mr Speculator (the idea had that minute entered her mind). Of course I’ve known it all along,” with a wise shake of her little head, “only I couldn’t make out why you dragged me along. Stupid of me, for 1 might have known you just wanted a cook.” She. stepped in front of him and dropped a respectful curtsey: “ Your dinner is served, Mr Speculator. May I have the honour of waiting on you?” lie looked at her with grieving eyes, for he realised that the old Gyp was back: light, cynical, mocking. But, as was his way, lie made no comment.She came to him with a plateful of boiled rabbit and set a dish of potatoes on the turf beside him.

Both were silent as they ate and drank. Gyp hated silences. ■‘'Why are you making such a secret about it?” she pursued, trying to stampede him into speech. “I know you’ve struck a gold or silver mine—or something else immensely valuable —on the other side of The Crest, to add to your pile. Let mo sec: Touching the fingers of her left hand, while counted in an undertone: 'Makes Money’—that comes on the fourth,”’ and she broke into hilarious laughter. “ What the plague is the matter with you to-day?” She slithered lazily back on the turf, her exquisite young body falling into an exquisite pose, her lips still dimpled with laughter, her eyes, empty of happiness, gazing mournfully over the seas to that all-encompassing horizon; May and December in her charming face, sunshine and shadow, love and hate. • But Brent saw only the hate. “A pity you don’t think before you speak,” he said sternly, "and a greater pity you don’t take the trouble to look. If I didn’t work on the other side, you and I would starve.” “But I know you’ve found pearls in the sea there, Mr Spec —” She stopped, and wondered why. ■Silence again. Gyp grew restless; then daring. “1 am going to ask you a very personal question, but one I’ve every right to ask.” She paused uncertainly, and tried to look indifferent, but her cheeks fell into hollows, making her seem fragile, as she put that question: “ You speculated when you married me ? ’ ’ “I did.” An astounding answer. She quivered under it afresh, though she had known it always. Her voice sounded small and muffled

(To be Continued)

as she put her next question: “You didn’t find gold there, Mr Speculator?’ ’ “No.” “Wlnit, then?” No answer. The young body, tense with feeling, swung round in an action of ineffable grace. '■-"•■“What, then?” she repeated, with greater-urgency. “Gold’s counterfeit: a heartless flirt,” lie answered grimly. As lie spoke the sun dipped into thy ocean and all its gorgeous robes disappeared as if all the ■world mourned the death of joy. Night had come. Then through the hurrying darkness, came Gyp’s voice, unhappy and grieving: “I see —a pity you didn’t divorce me when you had the chance,” and she was gone. A. still different Gyp met him next morning. She was pale and listless, as if feeling the heat; yet »he still hummed snatches of song and she went about her daily tasks. Brent, watching her warily, noticed that she pushed away her food unlasted. “Feeling the sun?” She looked at him blankly, without rancour—as a sweet-tempered child who has been sent to Covertry mightdo. L‘ Perhaps—l dunno. I’m as strong as a horse really.” Two hours later, he found her collapsed on the beach. Very gently he gathered her into his arms and bore her to her bel, ministering to her with all the long-stove;!• up tenderness with which liis hcart was full. Yet Brent was so chivalrous of soul that he kept his surging passions so well in leash that this young wife of his was as safe in her unconsciousness as she was when she barred her door against him. For ten days he fought the fever consuming her, fought it grimly, tenaei ously —and wo n. Followed hours of intolerable,weakness, of fretfulness, of convalescence, while Brent’s attentions grew more impersonal as his patient’s strength inercase.d. But Gyp, her eyes upon him,'ached to thank him for his untiring devotion. Once, as lie brought her milk, she ventured to touch his sleeve. “Stephen, I wonder if you realise how much I owe you?” she said weakly. “Three times you saved me from things worse than death.” “A man could do no less,” lie told her. “A man could do no more! —even if her loved her,” she murmured under her breath, and turned her face to the wall.

For Brent, though invariably gentle now, became frigid as an iceberg when she attempted to break down the barrier between them.

As she recovered and began to- take-' up the ravelled ends of her life again, a settled melancholy, almost apathy, fell upon her. The spring went out of her step, the music from her voice, and her eyes, hungry for her husband’s smile, got into the habit of gazing most wistfully across the sea. But she never flagged in her efforts to devise new ways of cooking their monotonous food, and grew almost light-hearted again when Stephen praised it. ■She amused herself with giving these dishes quaint, high-sounding names: “Lapin frappe par Monsieur Brent”; “homard, habille par Madame,” chancing her French. However, Gyp wouldn’t be Gyp if her mood - didn’t change. Sometimes she would welcome his return with a twisted smile —as if tears were in the offing; at others, jeer at him; say she was consumed with curiosity to know what he meant to fashion out of her when he made that successful bid for her hand —a fine ornament for the head of his table, or just a good plain cook to supply its needs? He rarely responded to either mood. In the first, he saw “Rapid Gyp’s” craving to be back in the pernicious society of a scoundrel; in the second, her- loathing of himself. But there was always a miserable look in his eyes when they rested on.her accusing face. Life on a tropical island can be full of surprises. They were,, sitting at breakfast one morning, when Brent suddenly hurled himself in front of his -wife —just as a mottled snake reared and sprang. Gyp heard the reptile’s evil hiss as its small, flat head darted at her rescuer’s arm. The next moment Brent had killed and flung it from him. Then he turned to the quivering girl. “Sorry, but would you mind handing me that bit of hot wood?” He stood sucking a small, red wound in his wrist till she gave it. Then, as she turned her shrinking eyes away, her sensitive nostrils caught a whiff of burning flesh.