Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/174

172 from the secret place where she kept it, and he knew it. Now he was going to unknow it, while she discovered him for what he was. It would hurt her to see it, and she desired to be hurt. She desired to trick and baffle and shame him; to win all along the line for Ducane and for her wifehood calm again.

A canoe lay down the beach, nosing the water-ripple. Jennifer slipped in, a little white heap against the dark edge.

"Take me out where it is cool and black," she said. "I want to watch the fires."

Dick ran it out with one push; leapt in, and knelt, grasping the paddle. He shot over the water with long savage strokes until their outline was merged in the distant shore-line. Then he rested the dripping paddle and looked at her with her head among the stars as they floated in the dark between heaven and the red flames on the beach. He did not speak. He did not attempt to adjust the universe which she had cast in broken shards about him. He did not remember the difference between right and wrong. The electricity of the night and of her nearness led him into the trap she set.

"Do you remember Browning's 'Two in a gondola'?" said Jennifer, idly dabbling her hand in the water. "I think a canoe is much nicer than a gondola."

"It's not," said Dick, who remembered over-well. "You can't move in a canoe."

"Why should you want to move?" said Jennifer innocently.

Dick bit his lip. He could be subtle in some ways, but he did not begin to know how subtle a woman can be when she has an end to gain.

"You know better than to ask that, don't you?" he said.

Jennifer laughed a very little. He was going to be just what she had expected him to be. He was going to kill that unlawful love with his own hand, just as Ducane had killed the lawful love.

"Perhaps I am glad that you know better than to tell it," she said.

Dick drove the canoe further out. From the shore the delirium of the bagpipes and the smell of smoke came