Part 19

Speaking quickly he brought his story down to the present moment. When he had finished, Inez, who had been bending toward him, straightened herself in the saddle and sat rigidly erect. Her lips and brows were drawn into two level lines, her voice came to him from an immeasurable distance.

"Then it was a joke?" she said.

"A joke!" cried Roddy hotly. "That's most unfair. If you will only give us permission we'll prove to you that it is no joke. Perhaps, as I told it, it sounded heartless. I told it badly. What could I say--that I am sorry? Could I, a stranger, offer sympathy to you? But we are sorry. Ever since Peter proposed it, ever since I saw your father----"

The girl threw herself forward, trembling. Her eyes opened wide.

"You saw my father!" she exclaimed. "Tell me," she begged, "did he look well? Did he speak to you? When did you--" she stopped suddenly, and turning her face from him, held her arm across her eyes.

"It was four months ago," said Roddy. "I was not allowed to speak to him. We bowed to each other. That was all."

"I must tell them," cried the girl, "they must know that I have seen some one who has seen him. But if they know I have seen you----"

She paused; as though asking advice she looked questioningly at Roddy. He shook his head.

"I don't understand," he said.

"My mother and sister don't know that I am here," Inez told him. "If they did they would be very angry. No one," she added warningly, "must know. They are afraid of you. They cannot understand why you offer to help us. And they mistrust you. That is why I had to see you here in this way." With a shrug of distaste the girl glanced about her. "Fortunately," she added, "you understand."

"Why, yes," Roddy assented doubtfully. "I understand your doing what you did, but I don't understand the others. Who is it," he asked, "who mistrusts me? Who," he added smiling, "besides yourself?"

"My mother," answered Inez directly, "your consul, Captain Codman, Colonel Vega, and----"

In surprise, Roddy laughed and raised his eyebrows.

"Vega!" he exclaimed. "Why should Vega mistrust me?" Knowing what was in his mind, the girl made him a formal little bow.

"It is not," she answered, "because you saved his life." In obvious embarrassment she added: "It is because you are not in the confidence of your father. You can see that that must make it difficult for Colonel Vega."

Bewildered, Roddy stared at her and again laughed.

"And what possible interest," he demanded, "can my father have in Colonel Vega?"

For a moment, with distrust written clearly in her eyes, the girl regarded him reproachfully. Then she asked coldly:

"Do you seriously wish me to think that you do not know that?"

While they had been speaking, even when Inez had made it most evident to Roddy that to herself and to her friends he was a discredited person, he had smiled patiently. His good humor had appeared unassailable. But now his eyes snapped indignantly. He pressed his lips together and made Inez an abrupt bow.

"I assure you, I know nothing," he said quickly.

He threw the reins over the neck of the pony, and with a slap on its flank drove it across the road within reach of the waiting Pedro. Then lifting his hat, and with another bow, he started in the direction of Willemstad. Inez, too surprised to speak, sat staring after him. But before he had taken a dozen steps, as though she had called him back and asked him to explain, he halted and returned. He had entirely recovered his good humor, but his manner when he spoke was not conciliatory.

"The trouble is this," he said, "your friends are so deep in plots that they have lost sight of the thing that counts. While they are 'mistrusting,' and suspecting, and spying on each other, a man is dying. I know that much, anyway. That is all I care to know." As though it were an extenuating fact, he added: "It is a question of character. It is a Venezuelan way of doing things. But it is not our way. It was very kind of you to give me this chance to explain our interfering. But I see now--everybody," he added dryly, "has taken pains to make it very plain--that we are a nuisance." He paused, and to assure her it was not she he was upbraiding, smiled cheerfully. In his most confidential manner he continued lightly: "For myself, I have always thought there was something to say for the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread. I remember once seeing a fool rush into a burning building and rescue a child, while I and some other angels shouted for ladders." He nodded, and again lifted his hat. "Good-by," he said, "and thank you." Leaving her seated silent in the saddle, he walked away.

This time he had turned the bend in the road and had proceeded along it some hundred yards, when from behind him he heard approaching at a reckless pace the hoof-beats of a pony. Looking back, he saw a whirlwind of fluttering skirts and scattered sparks and pebbles. Inez, followed by Pedro, drew up even with him; and as she dragged her pony to a halt, threw herself free of the pommel and dropped at his feet to the road. Had he not caught her by the shoulders she would have stumbled into his arms. A strand of hair had fallen across her face, her eyes were eager, flashing. She raised her gloved hands impulsively, and clasped them before him.

"Please!" she begged. "You must not go. It is true--what you say about us, but you must help us. I did not know. I had forgotten. It is three years since I talked to any one--any one from your country. I had forgotten. It is true; we are suspicious, we are not straightforward like you, like the people in the States. But you must not punish us for that. Not me!"

At all times the face raised to his was beautiful. Now, the delicate lips, like those of a child before it breaks into sobs, were trembling, the eyes, lifted appealingly, were eloquent with tears.

"You must advise me," said the girl. "You must help me."

She raised her clasped hands higher. She regarded him wistfully, "Won't you?" she begged.