Lawson broke in on my absorption."Let's get out of this," he said hoarsely and he took my horse's bridle (he had left his own beast at the edge) and led him back to the open.But I noticed that his eyes were always turning back and that his hand trembled.
"That settles it," I said after supper."What do you want with your mediaeval Venetians and your Chinese pots now? You will have the finest antique in the world in your garden--a temple as old as time, and in a land which they say has no history.You had the right inspiration this time."I think I have said that Lawson had hungry eyes.In his enthusiasm they used to glow and brighten; but now, as he sat looking down at the olive shades of the glen, they seemed ravenous in their fire.He had hardly spoken a word since we left the wood.
"Where can I read about these things?" he asked, and I gave him the names of books.Then, an hour later, he asked me who were the builders.I told him the little I knew about Phoenician and Sabaen wanderings, and the ritual of Sidon and Tyre.He repeated some names to himself and went soon to bed.
As I turned in, I had one last look over the glen, which lay ivory and black in the moon.I seemed to hear a faint echo of wings, and to see over the little grove a cloud of light visitants."The Doves of Ashtaroth have come back," I said to myself."It is a good omen.They accept the new tenant." But as I fell asleep I had a sudden thought that I was saying something rather terrible.
II
Three years later, pretty nearly to a day, I came back to see what Lawson had made of his hobby.He had bidden me often to Welgevonden, as he chose to call it--though I do not know why he should have fixed a Dutch name to a countryside where Boer never trod.At the last there had been some confusion about dates, and I wired the time of my arrival, and set off without an answer.Amotor met me at the queer little wayside station of Taqui, and after many miles on a doubtful highway I came to the gates of the park, and a road on which it was a delight to move.Three years had wrought little difference in the landscape.Lawson had done some planting,--conifers and flowering shrubs and suchlike,--but wisely he had resolved that Nature had for the most part forestalled him.All the same, he must have spent a mint of money.The drive could not have been beaten in England, and fringes of mown turf on either hand had been pared out of the lush meadows.When we came over the edge of the hill and looked down on the secret glen, I could not repress a cry of pleasure.
The house stood on the farther ridge, the viewpoint of the whole neighbourhood; and its brown timbers and white rough-cast walls melted into the hillside as if it had been there from the beginning of things.The vale below was ordered in lawns and gardens.A blue lake received the rapids of the stream, and its banks were a maze of green shades and glorious masses of blossom.
I noticed, too, that the little grove we had explored on our first visit stood alone in a big stretch of lawn, so that its perfection might be clearly seen.Lawson had excellent taste, or he had had the best advice.
The butler told me that his master was expected home shortly, and took me into the library for tea.Lawson had left his Tintorets and Ming pots at home after all.It was a long, low room, panelled in teak half-way up the walls, and the shelves held a multitude of fine bindings.There were good rugs on the parquet door, but no ornaments anywhere, save three.On the carved mantelpiece stood two of the old soapstone birds which they used to find at Zimbabwe, and between, on an ebony stand, a half moon of alabaster, curiously carved with zodiacal figures.My host had altered his scheme of furnishing, but I approved the change.
He came in about half-past six, after I had consumed two cigars and all but fallen asleep.Three years make a difference in most men, but I was not prepared for the change in Lawson.For one thing, he had grown fat.In place of the lean young man I had known, I saw a heavy, flaccid being, who shuffled in his gait, and seemed tired and listless.His sunburn had gone, and his face was as pasty as a city clerk's.He had been walking, and wore shapeless flannel clothes, which hung loose even on his enlarged figure.And the worst of it was, that he did not seem over-pleased to see me.He murmured something about my journey, and then flung himself into an arm-chair and looked out of the window.
I asked him if he had been ill.
"Ill! No!" he said crossly."Nothing of the kind.I'm perfectly well.""You don't look as fit as this place should make you.What do you do with yourself? Is the shooting as good as you hoped?"He did not answer, but I thought I heard him mutter something like "shooting be damned."Then I tried the subject of the house.I praised it extravagantly, but with conviction."There can be no place like it in the world," I said.
He turned his eyes on me at last, and I saw that they were as deep and restless as ever.With his pallid face they made him look curiously Semitic.I had been right in my theory about his ancestry.
"Yes," he said slowly, "there is no place like it--in the world."Then he pulled himself to his feet."I'm going to change," he said."Dinner is at eight.Ring for Travers, and he'll show you your room."I dressed in a noble bedroom, with an outlook over the garden-vale and the escarpment to the far line of the plains, now blue and saffron in the sunset.I dressed in an ill temper, for I was seriously offended with Lawson, and also seriously alarmed.
He was either very unwell or going out of his mind, and it was clear, too, that he would resent any anxiety on his account.Iransacked my memory for rumours, but found none.I had heard nothing of him except that he had been extraordinarily successful in his speculations, and that from his hill-top he directed his firm's operations with uncommon skill.If Lawson was sick or mad, nobody knew of it.
