my mind whether to shake my fist in that direction or blow a kiss.



CHAPTER VI



Either would have been perfectly consistent with my feelings. I
gazed at the door, hesitating, but in the end I did neither. The
monition of some sixth sense--the sense of guilt, maybe, that sense
which always acts too late, alas!--warned me to look round; and at
once I became aware that the conclusion of this tumultuous episode
was likely to be a matter of lively anxiety. Jacobus was standing
in the doorway of the dining-room. How long he had been there it
was impossible to guess; and remembering my struggle with the girl
I thought he must have been its mute witness from beginning to end.
But this supposition seemed almost incredible. Perhaps that
impenetrable girl had heard him come in and had got away in time.

He stepped on to the verandah in his usual manner, heavy-eyed, with
glued lips. I marvelled at the girl's resemblance to this man.
Those long, Egyptian eyes, that low forehead of a stupid goddess,
she had found in the sawdust of the circus; but all the rest of the
face, the design and the modelling, the rounded chin, the very
lips--all that was Jacobus, fined down, more finished, more
expressive.

His thick hand fell on and grasped with force the back of a light
chair (there were several standing about) and I perceived the