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Updated: June 13, 2025
Rawson-Clew turned so that his back was that way. "Do not let me prevent you," he said. Julia made use of the opportunity to empty the sand out of her boots. He looked round as she was finishing fastening them. "But why put them on again?" he asked. "Because I haven't retired from the world, yet," she answered, "and so I can't do quite all I like."
"Not young, certainly," he said, lighting another cigarette. "Nor complicated," she insisted; "you are built on straight lines; there are given things you can do and can't do, would do and would not do, and might do in an emergency. It is a fine kind of person to be, but it is not the kind which surprises itself." Rawson-Clew blew a smoke-ring into the air; he was smiling a little.
"Glad to see you," he said beaming; "very glad, very glad, indeed" he would have been pleased to see Rawson-Clew anywhere if for no other reason than that he had shown an interest in Julia's welfare. Meanwhile Captain Polkington sat in the kitchen listening for the sound of the departing motor.
Rawson-Clew did not show signs of succumbing at once to her charms; she hardly expected that he would, for she gave him credit for knowing his own value and was not displeased thereby; where is the pleasure of sport if the quarry be captured at the outset?
She wanted to pass the present time, and she was rather reckless how, so long as Rawson-Clew either talked himself, or seemed interested in what she said; also, it must be admitted, though it was to this man, it was something of a treat to talk freely again. So she gave him the best account she could, not only of the excursion, but of other things too.
If I wanted, as I certainly do not, the privilege of paying that kind of woman's bills, I should not bother to marry her." The other man laughed, but if he quarrelled with anything in the answer, it appeared to be the taste rather than the judgment. He maintained that the lady was charming; Rawson-Clew merely said "Think so?" and did not even trouble to defend his opinion.
The tone struck Rawson-Clew as implying more than the words said, but he did not ask for an interpretation, and before long she had put a question to him. They were nearing a large house that stood far back from the road on the left hand side. It was a big block of a place, greyish-white in colour, and with more than half of its windows bricked up, indescribably gloomy.
Rawson-Clew was not a personal friend of the Polkingtons, and he was not a man in an inferior position who might presume upon his loan to the Captain to establish a friendly footing. On the contrary, he was in a superior position, so much so that for a moment Julia was at a loss to understand how he came to accommodate her father.
As for Julia, she minded least of any one, though in some ways she had the most to put up with; but the plan was hers, and consequently she was too interested in its success to trouble about the inevitable discomforts of the working out. There was one matter which did trouble her, however the debt to Rawson-Clew.
She took up the bottle again, and for a moment considered whether she should give it back to Herr Van de Greutz not personally, that would hardly be safe; but she could post it from England after she left his service. But she did not do so; Rawson-Clew stood in the way; it was for him she had taken it, and her purpose in him still stood.
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