"What good
could it be to them?"
He looked across the table at the girl. What did it matter whether she
had nodded or not? As always when looking into her unconscious eyes, he
tasted something like the dregs of tender pity. He had decided to go.
Her nod, imaginary or not imaginary, advice or illusion, had tipped the
scale. He reflected that Ricardo's invitation could scarcely be anything
in the nature of a trap. It would have been too absurd. Why carry subtly
into a trap someone already bound hand and foot, as it were?
All this time he had been looking fixedly at the girl he called Lena. In
the submissive quietness of her being, which had been her attitude ever
since they had begun their life on the island, she remained as secret
as ever. Heyst got up abruptly, with a smile of such enigmatic and
despairing character that Mr. Secretary Ricardo, whose abstract gaze had
an all-round efficiency, made a slight crouching start, as if to dive
under the table for his leg-knife--a start that was repressed, as soon
as begun. He had expected Heyst to spring on him or draw a revolver,
because he created for himself a vision of him in his own image. Instead
of doing either of these obvious things, Heyst walked across the
room, opened the door and put his head through it to look out into the
compound.
As soon as his back was turned, Ricardo's hand sought the girl's arm
under the table.
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