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diff --git a/44195-8.txt b/44195-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6fb8a0b..0000000 --- a/44195-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13132 +0,0 @@ - FLOWER O' THE PEACH - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: Flower o' the Peach -Author: Perceval Gibbon -Release Date: November 16, 2013 [EBook #44195] -Language: English -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLOWER O' THE PEACH *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - FLOWER O' THE PEACH - - - BY - - PERCEVAL GIBBON - - - - "Flower o' the peach, - Death for us all and his own life for each." - _Fra Lippo Lippi_. - - - - NEW YORK - THE CENTURY CO. - 1911 - - - - - Copyright, 1911, by - THE CENTURY CO. - - _Published, October, 1911_ - - - - - TO - JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD - - - - - *FLOWER O' THE PEACH* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - -It was late in the afternoon when the sheep moved off, and the west was -full of the sunset. They flowed out from the cactus-ringed fold like a -broadening trickle of milk, with their mild idiot faces set southwards -towards the sparse pastures beyond the horizon, and the dust from their -feet hung over them in a haze of soft bronze. Half-way along the path -between the house and the dam, Paul turned to watch their departure, -dwelling with parted lips on the picture they made as they drifted forth -to join themselves with earth and sky in a single mellowness of hue. - -The little farmhouse with its outbuildings, and the one other house that -reared its steep roof within eyeshot of the farm, were behind him as he -stood; nothing interrupted the suave level of the miles stretching -forth, like a sluggish sea, to the sky-line. In its sunset mood, its -barren brown, the universal tint into which its poor scrub faded and was -lost to the eye, was touched to warmth and softened; it was a wilderness -with a soul. The tall boy, who knew it in all its aspects for a -neighbor, stood gazing absorbed as the sheep came to a pause, with the -lean, smooth-coated dog at their heels, and waited for the shepherd who -was to drive them through the night. He was nearing seventeen years of -age, and the whole of those years had been spent on the Karoo, in the -native land of dreams. The glamour of it was on his face, where the -soft childish curves were not yet broken into angles, and in his gaze, -as his steady unconscious eyes pored on the distance, deep with -foreknowledge of the coming of the night. - -"Baas!" - -Paul closed his lips and turned absently. The old black shepherd was -eager to linger out a minute or two in talk before he went forth to his -night-long solitude. He stood, a bundle of shabby clothes, with his -strong old face seamed with gray lines and the corners of the eyes -bunched into puckers, waiting in the hope that the young baas might be -tempted into conversation. He carried a little armory of smooth, -wire-bound sticks, his equipment against all the perils of the unknown, -and smiled wistfully, ingratiatingly, up into Paul's face. - -"Well?" said the boy. - -It all depended on the beginning, for if he should merely nod and turn -away there would be nothing left but to follow the sheep out to the -silence. The old man eyed him warily. - -"Has the baas heard," he asked, "that there is a mad Kafir in the veld?" - -"No," said Paul. "A mad Kafir?" - -The old man nodded half a dozen times. "There is such a one," he -affirmed. The thing was done; the boy would listen, and he let his -sticks fall at his feet that he might have two hands to talk with. They -were speaking "Kitchen Kafir," the _lingua franca_ of the Cape, and -since that is a sterile and colorless tongue--the embalmed corpse of the -sonorous native speech--the tale would need pantomime to do it justice. - -"There is such a one," repeated the shepherd. "He goes about alone, in -the day and in the night, talking as he goes to companions who are not -there, and laughing sometimes as though they had answered him. And that -is very strange." - -"Yes," said the boy slowly. His eyes traveled involuntarily to the veld -brooding under the sky. "Who has seen him?" he asked. - -"I have," said the shepherd, putting a big black forefinger to his own -breast. "I have seen him." He held out his great hand before him, with -the fingers splayed, and counted on them. "Four nights ago I saw him -when the moon was rising." - -"And he was mad?" - -"Mad as a sheep." - -Paul waited for the tale. The old man had touched his interest with the -skill of a clever servant practising upon a master. A hint of mystery, -of things living under the inscrutable mask of the veld, could not fail -to hold him. He watched the shepherd with a kind of grave intensity as -he gathered himself to tell the matter. - -"The moon was rising," he said, "and it lay low above the earth, making -long shadows of the stones and little bushes. The sheep were here and -there, and in the middle of them was I, with a handful of fire and my -blanket. It was very still, baas, for the wind was gone down, and I -heard nothing at all but the ash sliding in the fire and the slow noise -of the sheep eating. There was not even a jackal to stand out of sight -and cry in the dark. - -"Perhaps I was on the brink of sleep--perhaps I was only cloudy with -thoughts--I do not know. But very suddenly I heard singing.--a voice -coming nearer that sang a curious music." - -"Curious!" The boy was hanging on the words. "Curious!" he repeated. - -"It was a song," explained the old Kafir, "but the words of it were -meaningless, just noises such as a baby makes--a babble. I listened, -for I was not afraid. And soon I could hear footfalls among the stones -and the singer came between me and the young moon, very great and black -against the sky. It was only when he stood by my fire that I saw he was -not a white man, but a Kafir. He was young, a strong young man, wearing -clothes and boots." He paused. "Boots," he said again and thrust out -his own bare foot, scarred and worn with much traveling. "Boots!" - -In a town, it is conceivable that a Kafir may wear boots for purposes of -splendor; but not on the Karoo. Paul saw the old man's point; here was -an attribute of the unnatural. - -"Yes," he said; "go on." - -"I was sitting, with my pipe. He stood by the fire and looked down at -me, and I could see by the shine of his teeth that he was smiling. But -when he spoke, it was like his song--just noises, no speech at all. It -was then that I began to doubt him. But I gave him greeting, and moved -that he might sit down and smoke with me. He listened and shook his -head gently, and spoke again with his slow soft voice in his language of -the mad." - -"What did it sound like?" demanded Paul. - -"Baas, it sounded like English," replied the shepherd. "Yes, there are -many Kafirs who speak English; the dorps are noisy with them; but there -are none who do not speak Kafir. And this man had come through the -night, singing in his strange tongue, going straight forward like one -that has a purpose. I and my fire stayed him only for a minute; he was -not one of us; he stood, with his head on one side, smiling down, while -I began to feel fear and ill-ease. I had it in my mind that this was a -ghost, but of a sudden he stooped to where my bread lay--I had newly -eaten my supper, and the things still lay about--and took a piece as -large as this fist. He seemed to ask for it, but I could not understand -him. Then he laughed and tossed something into my lap, and turned again -to the night and the long shadows and the things that belong there. His -feet moved among the stones and he was gone; and later I heard him -singing again in the distance, till his voice dwindled and was lost." - -"He threw you something," said the boy. "What was it?" - -The old shepherd nodded. "I will show the baas," he said, and made -search among precarious pockets. "This is it; I have not spent it." - -It was a shilling, looking no larger than sixpence on the flat of his -great horny palm. Paul looked at it and turned it over, sensible that -something was lacking in it, since it differed in no respect from any -other shilling. The magic of madness and the stolid massiveness of Queen -Victoria's effigy were not easy to reconcile. - -"It looks like a good one," he commented. - -"It is good," said the shepherd. "But--" he paused ere he put it in its -true light--"the bread was not more than a pennyworth." - -A hundred yards away the waiting sheep discharged a small volley of -bleats. Paul raised his head. - -"Yes," he said, "the veld is full of wonderful things. But I would like -to hear that language of the mad." - -He nodded in token of dismissal and walked slowly on towards the dam, -where the scarlet of the sky had changed the water to blood. The old -shepherd picked up his sticks and went heavily after the sheep, a -grotesque and laborious figure in that wonder of evening light. The -smooth dog slunk towards him, snuffling in welcome; the Kafir dog is not -a demonstrative animal, and his snuffle meant much. The shepherd hit -him with the longest of the wire-bound sticks. - -"Hup!" he grunted. "Get on!" - -At the top of the dam wall, the sloping bank of earth and stones that -held the water, Paul paused to watch them pass into the shifting -distance, ere he went to his concerns at the foot of it. He could not -have put a name to the quality in them which stirred him and held him -gazing, for beauty is older than speech; but words were not needful to -flavor the far prospect of even land, with the sheep moving across it, -the squat, swart shape of the shepherd pacing at their heels, and the -strange, soft light making the whole unreal and mysterious. - -Below the dam wall, the moisture oozing through had made a space of rank -grass and trailing weed-vines, and the ground underfoot was cool and -damp through the longest day of sun. Here one might sit in the odor of -water and watch the wind lift tall spirals of dust and chase them over -the monotonous miles where the very bushes rustled like dead boughs at -their passage. It had the quality of a heritage, a place where one may -be aloof and yet keep an eye on the world, and since there were no -others who needed elbow-room for their dreams, Paul had it to himself. -Here and there about the sloping bank, as on the walls of a gallery, his -handiwork cracked and crumbled in the sun--little masks and figures of -red clay which he fashioned to hold some shape that had caught his eye -and stayed in it. He had an instinct for the momentary attitude, the -quick, unconscious pose which is life, the bunched compact shape of a -sheep grazing, the poise of a Kafir girl with a load on her head, a -figure revealed in wind-blown clothes and lost in a flash. The sweet, -pliant clay was his confidant; it was not the fault of the clay that he -could tell it so much less than he knew. - -He groped, kneeling, below a vine, and brought out the thing he had -hidden there the evening before when the light failed him. A flattened -stone at the foot of the wall was his table; he set the clay down -tenderly and squatted beside it, with his back to the veld and all the -world. It was to be the head of a negro, the negro as Paul knew him, -and already the clay had shape. The shallow round of the skull was -achieved; he had been feeling, darkly, gropingly, for the brutal angle -of the brows that should brood like a cloud over the whole countenance. -It had evaded him and baffled him; he knew how it should be, but when -the time had come for him to leave it for the night, the brows still -cocked themselves in a suggestion of imbecility which was -heart-breaking. He turned it round, frowning a little as his habit was -when he centered his faculties upon a matter; the chaos of the -featureless face below the smooth head fronted him. - -"_Allemachtag!_" he cried aloud, as he set eyes on it. - -There was no possibility that he could be mistaken; he remembered, in -their smallest exasperating detail, those brows as he had left them, -taunting him as bad work will. Even now, he had but to close his eyes -and he could see them, absurd and clamorous for correction. But--he -stared dumbly at the clay as he realized it--since then another creator -had played with it, or else the thing, left to itself, had frowned. The -rampart of the brows had deepened above the empty face; Paul knew in it -the darkness for which he had sought, the age-old patience quenching the -spark of the soul. It was as different from what he had left as living -flesh is from red clay, an inconsequent miracle. - -"Somebody," said Paul, pondering over it--"somebody _knows_!" - -The thing troubled him a little while, but he passed his hand over the -clay, to make yet more sure of it, and the cool invitation of its -softness was medicine for his wonder. He smudged the clay to a ridge in -the place where the nose should be, and then, forgetting forthwith that -he was the victim of a practical joke, as it seemed, played upon him by -the powers of the air, he fell to work. - -The colors in the west were burning low when he raised his head, -disturbed by a far sound that forced itself on his ear. It was like a -pulse in the air, a dull rhythmical throb faintly resonant like the -beating of some great heart. He came to consciousness of it slowly, -withdrawing himself unwillingly from the work under his hands, and -noting with surprise that the evening light was all but gone. But the -face of the negro was a step nearer completion, and even the outline of -the gross mouth was there to aid the clay to return his look. The far -sound insisted; he lifted his head with mild impatience to listen to it, -sighed, and tucked the unfinished head away in its hidingplace. Perhaps -another night would draw out the mouth to its destined shape of empty, -pitiful mirth. - -The beat of the gourd-drum that hung at the farmhouse door still called, -and he hastened his steps along the homeward path. It was the common -manner of summons on the farm. For the European ear, the gourd sawed -across, with a skin stretched over it, is empty of music, but it has the -quality of sowing its flat voice over many miles, threading through the -voices of nature as a snake goes through grass. Simple variants in the -rhythm of the strokes adapt it to messages, and now it was calling Paul. -"Paul, Paul, P-P-Paul!" it thrilled, and its summons was as plain as -words. To silence it, he put fingers to his mouth and answered with a -shrill, rending whistle. The gourd was silent. - -His mother was in the doorway as he came through the kraals; she heard -his steps and called to him. - -"Paul! That you? Where you bin all this time?" - -"By the dam," he answered. - -"I been callin' you this half hour," she said. "Mrs. Jakes is here--she -wants you." - -The light from within the house showed her as a thin woman, with the -shape of youth yet upon her. But the years had taken tribute of her -freshness, and her small, rather vacant face was worn and faded. She -wore her hair coiled upon her head in a way to frame the thin oval of -the face, and there remained to her yet the slight prettiness of sharp -weak gestures and little conscious attitudes. In her voice there -survived the clipped accent of London; Paul had come to know it as the -thing that distinguished his mother from other women. Before her -marriage she had been an actress of the obscure sort to be found in the -lesser touring companies, and it was when the enterprise of which she -was a member had broken down at the town of Fereira that she met and -married the Boer, Christian du Preez, Paul's father. She preserved from -the old days a stock of photographs inscribed in dashing hands--"yours -to the dregs"--"your old pal"--"yours ever most sincerely"--and so on a -few cuttings from newspapers--"Miss Vivie Sinclair as Gertie Gottem was -most unique," said the _Dopfontein Courant_--a touch of raucousness in -her voice, and a ceaseless weary longing for the easy sham life, the -foolish cheerful companions, the stimulus of the daily publicity. - -She drew the boy in, sliding her arm through his, to where Mrs. Jakes -sat waiting. - -"Here he is at last," she said, looking up at him prettily. She often -said she was glad her boy was tall enough to go into a picture, but a -mother must admire her son for one thing or another. - -Mrs. Jakes acknowledged Paul's arrival with a lady-like little smile. -"Better late than never," she pronounced. - -She was the wife of the doctor at the Sanatorium, the old Dutch house -that showed its steep roofs within a couple of miles of the farm, where -came in twos and threes the consumptives from England, to mend their -broken lungs in the clean air of the Karoo. They came not quite so -frequently nowadays, for a few that returned healed, or believing -themselves to be healed, had added to their travel-sketches of the -wonderful old house and its surroundings an account of Dr. Jakes and his -growing habit of withdrawing from his duties to devote himself to drink. -Their tales commonly omitted to describe justly the anxious, lonely -woman who labored at such times to supply his place, driving herself to -contrive and arrange to keep the life of the house moving in its course, -to maintain an assured countenance, and all the while to screen him from -public shame and ruin. She was a wan little woman, clinging almost with -desperation to those trivial mannerisms and fashions of speech which in -certain worlds distinguished the lady from the mere person. She had lain -of nights beside a drunken husband, she had fought with him when he -would have gone out to make a show of his staggering gait and blurred -speech--horrible silent battles in a candle-lit room, ending in a -gasping fall and sickness--she had lied and cheated to hide the sorry -truth, she had bared her soul in gratitude to her kind God that her -child had died. These things as a matter of course, as women accept and -belittle their martyrdom; but never in her life had she left the spoon -standing in her tea-cup or mislaid her handkerchief. The true standards -of her life were still inviolate. - -She liked Paul because he was shy and gentle, but not well enough to -talk to him without mentioning the weather first. - -"The evenings are drawing out nicely," she remarked, leaning to one side -in her chair to see through the door the darkness growing dense upon the -veld. "It reminds me a little of a June evening in England--if only the -rain holds off." - -"Yes," said Paul. There would be rain in the ordinary course in three -months or so, if all went well, but it was not worth while to go into -the matter with Mrs. Jakes. - -"We are to have another guest," the lady went on. The doctor's patients -were always "guests" when she spoke of them. "A young lady this time. -And that is what I came about, really." - -"Mrs. Jakes wants you to go in to the station with the Cape-cart and -fetch her out, Paul," explained his mother. "You 'll 'ave the first -look at her. Mrs. Jakes takes her oath she is young." - -Mrs. Jakes shuddered faintly, and looked at the floor. - -"About twenty-six, I understand," she said. "About that." Her tone -reproached Mrs. du Preez for a lapse of good manners. Mrs. Jakes did -not understand the sprightliness of mild misstatement. She turned to -Paul. - -"If you could manage it," she suggested. "If it wouldn't be too much -trouble! The doctor, I 'm sorry to say, has a touch of the sun; he is -subject, you know." Her hands clasped nervously in her lap, and her -face seemed blind as she beat bravely on. "The climate really does n't -suit him at all; he can't stand the heat. I 've begged and prayed him to -give it up and go back to private practice at home. But he considers it -his duty to keep on." - -"The morning train?" asked Paul. - -"It is early," lamented Mrs. Jakes. "But we should be so much obliged." - -Paul nodded. "All right," he said. "I will bring her, Mrs. Jakes." - -There are transactions consecrated to the humorous point of view, -landmarks in the history of laughter. Mrs. du Preez honestly believed -that a youth and a girl alone in the dawn were a spectacle essentially -mirthful. - -"Catch him missing the chance," she said, with her slightly jarring -laugh. "None of your larks, now, Paul! Promise you 'll behave!" - -"Yes, mother," Paul promised gravely, and her face went blank before the -clear eyes he turned upon her. Mrs. Jakes in her chair rustled her stiff -dress in a wriggle of approval. - -"Miss Harding is the name," she told Paul. "You 'll manage to find her? -I don't know at all what she 's like, but she comes of a very good -family, I believe. You can't mistake her." - -"Paul knows the look of the lungy ones by now," Mrs. du Preez assured -her. "Don't you, Paul? It 's lungs, of course, Mrs. Jakes?" - -"Chest trouble," corrected Mrs. Jakes, nervously. She preferred the less -exact phrase, for there is indelicacy in localising diseases, and from -the lungs to the bowels it is but a step. "Chest trouble, a slight -attack. Fortunately, Miss Harding is taking it in time. The doctor lays -stress on the necessity for taking it in time." - -"Well," said Mrs. du Preez, "whatever it is, she 'll 'ave the fashions. -Lungs or liver, they 've got to dress, and it 'll be something to see a -frock again. She 's from London, you said?" - -Mrs. Jakes rearranged her black skirts which had suffered by -implication, and suppressed an impulse to reply that she had not said -London. - -"The address is Kensington," she answered. "Very good people live in -Kensington." - -"There 's shops there, at any rate," said Mrs. du Preez. "Lord, don't I -remember 'em! I had lodgings at Hammersmith once myself, and an aunt in -the High Street. There 's not much you can tell me about that part." - -She nodded a challenge to Mrs. Jakes, who shrank from it. - -"Then I can tell the doctor that you 'll meet Miss Harding?" Mrs. Jakes -asked Paul. "He will be so obliged. You see, he 'd go himself, -only--you quite see? Then I 'll expect Miss Harding for breakfast." - -She rose and shook herself, the gentle expert shake that settles a -woman's clothes into their place, and tendered him a vague, black-gloved -hand. Gloves were among her defenses against the crudities of the -Karoo. She was prim in the lamp-light, and extraordinarily detached from -the little uncomfortable room, with its pale old photographs of -forgotten actors staring down from wall and mantel. - -"She may as well see you first," she said, and smiled at him as though -there were an understanding between them. - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - -At three o'clock in the morning it was still dark, though in the east, -low down and gradual, there paled an apprehension of the dawn. From the -driving-seat of the high two-wheeled cart, Paul looked forward over the -heads of his horses to where the station lights were blurred like a -luminous bead on the thread of railway that sliced without a curve from -sky to sky. It was the humblest of halting places, with no town at its -back to feed the big trains; it owed its existence frankly to a gaunt -water-tank for the refreshment of engines. But for Paul it had the -significance of a threshold. He could lose himself in the crowding -impressions of a train's arrival, as it broadened and grew out of the -distance and bore down between the narrow platforms, immense and -portentous, and thudded to a standstill as though impatient of the -trivial delay. The smell of it, the dull shine of glass and varnish, -were linked in his mind with the names of strange, distant cities; it -was freighted with the romance of far travel. There were glimpses of -cushioned interiors, and tired faces that looked from the windows, -giving a perfunctory glance to the Karoo which Paul knew as the world. -And once he had watched four men, with a little folding table cramped -between their knees, playing cards, low-voiced, alert, each dark -predatory face marked with an impassivity that was like the sheath that -hides a blade. He stared at them fascinated; not once did they raise -their eyes to glance through the window, nor for an instant did one of -them slacken his profound attention. Ahead, at the platform's end, the -great engine whined like a child that gropes for the breast, till the -feed-hose contented it and its gurgle-gurgle succeeded to the thin wail -of the steam. The Kafir orange woman made melodious offers of -_naartjes_ and a hammer clinked critically along the wheels. It was the -live season of the day, the poignant moment, its amends for the slow -empty hours. But the men about the table had graver concerns. The -feed-hose splashed back out of the way, the guard shouted, the brakes -whanged loose. The long train jolted and slid, and still they had not -looked up. Paul could not leave them; he even ran along the platform -till their window distanced him, and then stopped, panting, to watch the -tail of the train sink to the horizon. He had seen the Jew in earnest -and it left him daunted. - -"They wouldn't even look," he was saying, as he went back to his cart. -"They wouldn't even look." It served as a revelation to one who looked -so much and so fervently. - -The other train, which came and went before the daylight, had its equal -quality of a swift, brief visitor, and the further mystery of windows -lighted dimly through drawn curtains, whereon surprising shadow heads -would dawn and vanish in abrupt motion. It was strange to stand beside -one and hear from within the crying of an infant and the soothing of a -mother, both invisible, arriving from the void on one hand and bound for -the void on the other, with the Karoo not even an incident in their -passage. Paul wondered whether one day that infant might not pass -through again, with trousers and a mustache and a cigar, and another -trouble to perturb him and cards and partners to do the soothing. - -He arrived well in advance of the time of the train, and tied his docile -horses to the hitching rail beside the road. Within the station there -was the usual expectant group under the dim lamps, the two or three men -who attended to the tank, a Cape Mounted Policeman, spurred and trim, -and a few others, besides the half-dozen or so mute and timid Kafirs who -lounged at the end of the platform. The white men talked together and -shivered at the cold of the night; only the Cape Policeman, secure in -his uniform great-coat, stood with legs astraddle and his whip held -behind his back, a model of correct military demeanor in the small -hours. Paul noted the aggressive beauty of his attitude and his fine -young virility, and stared somewhat till the armed man noticed it. - -"Well, young feller," he drawled. "You haven't fallen in love with me, -have you?" - -"No," answered Paul, astonished. - -Two or three of the bystanders laughed, and made him uncomfortable. He -did not fully understand why he had been spoken to, and stared at his -questioner a little helplessly. The policeman smacked his boot with his -whip. - -"Nor yet me with you," he said. "So if you want to stare, go and stare -at something else. See?" - -Paul backed away, angry and shy, and moved down the platform to be out -of the sound of their voices. The things that people laughed at were -seldom clear to him; it seemed that he had been left out of some -understanding to take certain things as funny and laugh at them. His -mother's mirth, breaking startlingly out of unexpected incidents, out of -words spoken without afterthought, out of little accidents and -breakages, always puzzled him. It was as little to be understood as her -tears, when she would sit silent through a long afternoon of stagnant -heat, and burst suddenly into weeping when some one spoke to her. - -He came to a standstill at the point where the station roof ended and -left the platform bare to the calm skies. The metals gleamed before his -feet, ranging out to the veld whence the train would come. He listened -for the sound of it, the low drum-note so like the call of the -gourd-drum at the farmhouse door, which would herald it even before its -funnel dragged its glare into view. There was nothing to be heard, and -he turned to the Kafirs behind him, and spoke to one who squatted -against the wall apart from the rest. - -"Is the train late?" he asked, in the "Kitchen Kafir" of his everyday -commerce with natives. - -The black man raised his head at the question, but did not answer. Paul -repeated it a little louder. - -The native held his head as if he listened closely or were deaf. Then -he smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the black circle of his shadowed -face. - -"I 'm sorry," he answered, distinctly; "I can't understand what you say. -You 'll have to speak English." - -It was the voice of a negro, always vaguely musical, and running to soft -full tones, but there was a note in it which made it remarkable and -unfamiliar, some turn which suggested (to Paul, at any rate) that this -was a man with properties even stranger than his speaking English. He -thrilled with a sense of adventure, for this, of course, was the mad -creature of the shepherd's tale, who sang to himself of nights when the -moon rose on the veld. If a dog had answered him in set phrases, it -would not have been more amazing than to hear that precise, aptly -modulated voice reply in easy English from the mouth of a Kafir. - -"I--I 've heard of you," he said, stammering. - -"Have you?" He remembered how the old shepherd had spoken of the man's -smile. He was smiling now, looking up at Paul. - -"You 've heard of me--I wonder what you 've heard. And I 've seen you, -too." - -"Where did you see me? Who are you?" asked Paul quickly. The man was -mad, according to the shepherd, but Paul was not very clear as to what -it meant to be mad, beyond that it enabled one to see things unseen by -the sane. - -The Kafir turned over, and rose stiffly to his feet, like a man spent -with fatigue. - -"They 'll wonder if they see me sitting down while I talk to you," he -said, with a motion to the group about the Cape Mounted Policeman. His -gesture made a confidant of Paul and enlisted him, as it were, in a -conspiracy to keep up appearances. It was possible to see him when he -stood on his feet, a young man, as tall as the boy, with a skin of warm -Kafir black. But the face, the foolish, tragic mask of the negro, shaped -for gross, easy emotions, blunted on the grindstone of the races of -mankind, was almost unexpected. Paul stared dumbly, trying to link it on -some plane of reason with the quiet, schooled voice. - -"What was it you were asking me?" the Kafir inquired. - -But Paul had forgotten. "Don't you speak anything but English?" he -demanded now. - -The Kafir smiled again. "A little French," he replied. "Nothing to -speak of." He saw that the lad was bewildered, and turned grave at -once. "Don't be frightened," he said quickly. "There 's nothing to be -frightened of." - -Paul shook his head. "I 'm not frightened," he answered slowly. "It 's -not that. But--you said you had seen me before?" - -"Yes," the Kafir nodded. "One evening about a fortnight ago; you didn't -notice me. I was walking on the veld, and I came by a dam, with -somebody sitting under the wall and trying to model in clay." - -"Oh!" Paul was suddenly illuminated. - -"Yes. I 'd have spoken to you then, only you seemed so busy," said the -Kafir. "Besides, I didn't know how you 'd take it. But I went there -later on and had a look at the things you 'd made. That 's how I saw -you." - -"Then," said Paul, "it was _you_--" - -"Hush!" The Kafir touched him warningly on the arm, for the Cape -Policeman had turned at his raised voice to look towards them. "Not so -loud. You mean the head? Yes, I went on with it a bit. I hope you -didn't mind." - -"No," replied Paul. "I did n't mind. No!" - -His mind beat helplessly among these incongruities; only one thing was -clear; here was a man who could shape things in clay. Upon the brink of -that world of which the station was a door, he had encountered a kindred -spirit. The thought made him tremble; it was so vital a matter that he -could not stay to consider that the spirit was caged in a black skin. -The single fact engrossed him to the exclusion of all the other factors -in the situation, just as some sight about the farm would strike him -while at work, and hold him, absorbed and forgetful of all else, till -either its interest was exhausted or he was recalled to his task by a -shout across the kraals. - -"I did n't mind at all," he replied. "How did you do it? I tried, but -it wouldn't come." - -"You were n't quite sure what you were trying for," said the Kafir. -"Was n't that it?" - -"Was it?" wondered Paul. - -"I think so." The Kafir's smile shone out again. "Once you 're sure -what you mean to do, it 's easy. If I had a piece of clay, I 'd show -you. There 's a way of thumbing it up, just a trick, you know--" - -"I 'm there every evening," said Paul eagerly. "But tell me: _do_ other -people make things out of clay, too--over there?" - -His arm pointed along the railway; the gesture comprehended sweepingly -the cities and habitations of men. The idea that there was a science of -fingering clay, that it was practised and studied, excited him wildly. - -"Gently!" warned the Kafir. He looked at the boy curiously. "Yes," he -said. "Lots of people do it, and lots more go to look at the things -they make and talk about them. People pay money to learn to do it, and -there are great schools where they are taught to model--to make things, -you know, in clay, and stone, and bronze. Did you think it was all done -behind dam walls?" - -Paul breathed deep. "I did n't know," he murmured. - -"Do you know Capetown?" asked the other. "No? It doesn't matter. You -'ve heard of Jan van Riebeck, though?" - -As it happened, Paul had heard of the Surgeon of the Fleet who first -carried dominion to the shadow of Table Mountain. - -"Well," said the Kafir, "you can imagine Jan van Riebeek, shaped in -bronze, standing on a high pedestal at the foot of a great street, with -the water of the bay behind him, where his ships used to float, and his -strong Dutch face lifted to look up to Table Mountain, as it was when he -landed? Don't think of the bronze shape; think of the man. That's what -clay is for--to make things like that!" - -"Yes, yes. That's what it's for," cried Paul. "But--I never saw -anything like that." - -"Plenty of time," said the other. "And that's only one of the things to -see. In London--" - -"You 've been in London?" asked Paul quickly. - -"Yes," said the Kafir, nodding. "Why?" - -Paul was silent for a space of seconds. When he answered it was in a -low voice. - -"I 've seen nothing," he said. "I can't find out those ways to work the -clay. But--but if somebody would just show me, just teach me -those--those tricks you spoke about--" - -"All right." The Kafir patted his arm. "Under the dam wall, eh? In -the evenings? I 'll come, and then--" - -"What?" said Paul eagerly, for he had broken off abruptly. - -"The train," said the Kafir, pointing, and sighed. - -Paul had been too intent in talk to hear it, but he could see now, -floating against the distance, the bead of light which grew while he -watched. The group further down the platform dissolved, and the -tank-men went past at a run to their work. A voice at his elbow made -Paul turn quickly. It was the Cape Mounted Policeman. - -"You 're not having any trouble with this nigger, hey?" he demanded. - -"No," said Paul, flushing. The Kafir bit off a smile and stood -submissive, with an eye on the boy's troubled face. - -"You don't want to let them get fresh with you," said the policeman. "I -'ve been keepin' my eye on him and he talks too much. Have you finished -with him now?" - -His silver-headed whip came out from behind his back ready to dismiss -the negro in the accepted manner. Paul trembled and took a step which -brought him near enough to seize the whip if it should flick back for -the cut. - -"Let him alone," he said wrathfully. "Mind your own business." - -"Eh?" the policeman was astonished. - -"You let him alone," repeated Paul, bracing himself nervously for -combat, and ready to cry because he could not keep from trembling. He -had never come to blows in his life, but he meant to now. The policeman -stared at him, and laughed harshly. - -"He 's a friend of yours, I suppose," he suggested, striving for a -monstrous affront. - -"Yes," retorted Paul hotly, "he is." - -For a moment it looked as though the policeman, outraged in the deepest -recesses of his nature, would burst a blood vessel or cry for help. A -man whose prayer that he may be damned is granted on the nail could -scarcely have looked less shocked. He recovered himself with a gulp. - -"Oh, he is, is he? A friend of yours? A nigger!" Then, with a -swelling of rage he dodged Paul's grasping hand and swung the whip. "I -'ll teach him to--" - -He came to a stop, open-mouthed. The Kafir was gone. He had slipped -away unheard while they quarreled, and the effect of it was like a -conjuring trick. Even Paul gaped at the place where he had been and now -was not. - -"Blimy!" said the policeman, reduced to an expression of his civilian -days, and vented a short bark of laughter. "And _so_, young feller, he -'s a friend o' yours, is he? Now, lemme give you just a word of -advice." - -His young, sun-roughened face was almost paternal for a moment, and Paul -shook with a yearning to murder him, to do anything that would wipe the -self-satisfaction from it. He sought furiously for a form of anathema -that would shatter the man. - -"Go to hell," he cried. - -"Oh, well," said the policeman, tolerantly, and then the train's -magnificent uproar of arrival gave Paul an opportunity to be rid of him. - -In the complication of events Paul had all but forgotten his duty of -discovering the young lady with "chest trouble," and now he wondered -rather dolefully how to set about it. He stood back to watch the -carriage windows flow past. Would it be at all possible just to stand -where he was and shout "Miss Harding" till she answered? To do that -needed some one more like the policeman and less like Paul; the mere -thought of it was embarrassing. The alternative was, to wait until such -passengers as alighted--they would not be many--had taken themselves -away, and then to go up to the one that remained and say, "Is your name -Miss Harding, if you please?" But supposing she answered, "Mind your -own business!" - -The train settled and stood, and Paul became aware that from the -carriage nearest him a woman was looking forth, with her face in the -full light of a lamp. The inveterate picture-seeker in him suddenly -found her engrossing, as she leaned a little forward, lifting her face -to the soft meager light, and framed in the varnished wood of the -window. It was a pale face, with that delicacy and luster of pallor -which make rose tints seem over-robust. It was grave and composed; -there was something there which the boy, in his innocence, found at once -inscrutable and pitiful, like the bravery of a little child. -Distinctly, this was a day of surprises; it came to him that he had not -known that the world had women like this. His eyes, always the -stronghold of dreams, devoured her, unconscious that she was returning -his gaze. Perhaps to her, he also was a source of surprise, with his -face rapt and vague, his slender boyishness, his general quality of -standing always a little aloof from his surroundings. On the Karoo, -people said of him that he was "old-fashioned"; one word is as good as -another when folk understand each other. The point was that it was -necessary to find some term to set Paul apart from themselves. - -He saw the girl was making preparations to leave the carriage, and was -suddenly inspired. He found the handle of the door and jerked it open, -and there she was above him, and looking down. She wore some kind of -scent, very faint and elusive; he was conscious of her as a near and -gentle and fragrant personality. - -"I hope," he said, letting the words come, "I hope you are Miss -Harding?" - -The girl smiled. It had been prettily spoken, with the accent of -sincerity. - -"Yes," she answered. "You have come to meet me?" - -The thing about her to which Paul could put no name was that she was -finished, a complete and perfect product of a special life, which, -whatever its defects and shortcomings, is yet able to put a polish of -considerable wearing qualities on its practitioners. She knew her -effect; her education had revealed it to her early; she was aware of the -pale, intent figure she cut, and her appearance of enlightened -virginity. The reverence in the boy's eyes touched her and warmed her -at once; it was a charming welcome at the end of that night's journey. -Paul's guilelessness had served the specious ends of tact, for to -corroborate a woman's opinion of herself is the sublime compliment. - -He received the lesser luggage which she handed down to him and then she -came down herself, and one train, at least, had shed its marvel upon the -Karoo. She was not less wonderful and foreign on the platform than she -had been at the window; the Cape Policeman, coming past again, lost his -military-man air of a connoisseur in women and stiffened to a strutting -perfection of demeanor at sight of her. South Africa is still so short -of women that it makes the most of those it can get, both as goddesses -and as beasts of burden. Paul was free of the evil civilized habit of -thinking while he could feel, and the girl had to despatch the single -lanky porter for her baggage herself and attend to having it stacked at -the back of the cart. Then she was beside him, with the poignant air -from the open south fresh on their faces, and the empty veld before -them. The slow dawn was suddenly magical and the stillness was the hush -that attends miracles. - -He had to give his mind to steering the big cart through the gateway to -the road, and it was here that he saw, against the white fence, a -waiting figure that looked up and was silent. He bent forward and waved -his hand, but the Kafir did not respond. The girl at his side broke -silence in her low rich voice. - -"That was a native, was n't it?" she asked. - -Paul looked at her. "It was a--a friend of mine," he answered -seriously. "A Kafir, you know." - -The light in the eastern sky had grown and its lower edge, against the -rim of the earth, was tinged with a rose-and-bronze presentiment of the -sunrise. The Karoo lay under a twilight, with the night stripping from -its face like a veil drawn westwards and away. In that half-light, its -spacious level, its stillness, its quality of a desert, were enhanced; -its few and little inequalities were smoothed out and merged in one -empty flatness, and the sky stood over in a single arch, sprinkled with -stars that were already burning pale. In all the vast expanse before -them, there rose no roof, no tree, no token of human habitation; the eye -that wandered forward, returned, like the dove to the Ark, for lack of a -resting-place. It was a world at gaze, brooding grimly. The little -morning wind, which would die when the sun rose clear of the horizon and -leave the veld to its day-long torpor of heat, leaned upon their faces; -the girl raised her brows against it and breathed deeply of its -buoyancy. - -"Oh," she said; "this is what I came for." - -"The air?" Paul glanced sideways at her clear profile set against the -shadowy morning. "They say it is good for--for--" - -He hesitated; Mrs. Jakes had managed to make the word difficult. But -Miss Harding took it in her stride. - -"For the lungs?" she suggested without compunction. "Yes, I 'm sure it -is. And you live here all the time, do you?" - -"I was born here," Paul answered. - -"How you must love it," she said, and met his eyes with a look in which -there was a certain curiosity. "All this, I mean," she explained. -Then: "But do you?" - -"Yes," he answered. "It 's--it's fine to look at--if you like looking -at things." - -It was not all that he desired to say, for he was newly eager to make -himself clear to this wonderful person at his side, and he felt that he -was not doing himself justice. But Miss Harding had seen inarticulate -souls before, aching to be confidential and to make revelations and -unable to run their trouble into a mould of speech. They were not -uncommon in the neighborhood of her address in Kensington. She smiled -her recognition of the phenomenon. "There are not many kinds of men, -and only two kinds of boy," she said to herself. She was twenty-six, -and she knew. - -"Oh, I," she answered. "Yes, I like looking at things." - -Paul nodded, watching his horses. "I was sure you did when I saw you at -the window," he said. He turned to her, and she smiled at him, -interested in the strong simplicity with which he spoke. - -"I was sure," he repeated, "and yet nobody like you ever came here -before, ever. They always went on in the train. I used to wonder if -one of them would never get out, but they never did. They just sat -still by the window, with their faces tired and sleepy, and went on -again." - -He loosed the lash of his whip, and it made lightning circles over the -off horse, and the tail of the lash slapped that animal reproachfully on -the neck. Miss Harding contented herself with a little incoherent noise -of general sympathy. "If I say anything," she thought, "I 'll be -knocked off my seat with a compliment." - -But Paul had only wanted to tell her; it seemed necessary that she -should know something of her value. That done, he was content to drive -on in dreaming silence, while the pair of them watched the veld grow -momentarily lighter, its bare earth, the very hue and texture of -barrenness, spreading and widening before them like water spilt on a -floor. The stronger light that showed it to them revealed only a larger -vacancy, a void extending where the darkness had stood like a presence. -Beside the cart, and no more than a dozen yards away, a heavy bird -suddenly uttered a cry and spouted up into the air, with laborious -wings, flapping noisily. It rose perhaps thirty feet, with an -appearance of great effort, whistled and sank again forthwith, girl -laughed; it was such a futile performance. - -"What was that?" she asked. - -"A lark," was the answer, and Paul turned his eyes to the east. "Look!" -he bade her, pointing. - -Over the horizon which was like a black bar, set rigid against the -heavens, stood the upper edge of the sun, naked and red,--a fiery eye, -cocked arrogantly over the sky-line. About it, the very air seemed -flooded with color, and the veld reflected it in dull gleams of red. - -"And there!" said Paul again, pointing ahead. - -They were at the top of a gentle slope, so gradual that it had made no -break in the flat prospect of ten minutes ago, and before them, and -still so far off that it had the appearance of a delicate and elaborate -toy, stood the Sanatorium. In that diamond clearness of air, every -detail of it was apparent. Its beautiful serene front, crowned by old -Dutch gables mounting in steps to the height of the rooftree, faced -them, frank and fair, over the shadowy reticence of the stone-pillared -stoep. Beyond and behind it, the roof of the farm, Paul's home, stood -in a dim perspective. - -"Is that it?" asked Miss Harding. "Where I am going, I mean." - -"Yes," said Paul. - -"It's very beautiful," she said. - -He smiled contentedly. "I was sure you would say that," he replied. "I -am so glad you have come here." - -Miss Harding regarded him doubtfully, but decided that no rebuke was -necessary. - -"Yes," she said, soberly. "It ought to give my lungs a chance." - -Paul flicked the long lash towards the off horse again, and spoke no -more till he brought the cart to a stand-still at the foot of the -fan-shaped flight of steps that led up to the door on the stoep. The -big house was voiceless and its windows blank; he was preparing to call -out when the front door opened, uncovering a vista of a stone corridor -within, simple and splendid, and there emerged Mrs. Jakes to the glory -of the new day. She crossed the stoep, challenging the dignity of smooth -cold stone with her little black figure of ceremony and her amiable, -empty face of formal welcome. - -"Miss Harding?" she enquired. "I scarcely expected you so early. Isn't -it charming weather?" - -Paul helped the girl to alight, and watched the two women as they stood, -before entering the house, and exchanged perfunctory civilities. - -"And now, to see your room," said Mrs. Jakes at last, and let her pass. -"Isn't it fortunate that the rain has held off so nicely?" - -Her small voice tinkled indefatigably, and she worked through all the -motions of hospitable politeness. But behind her smile her eyes were -haggard and stale, and Paul thought that she looked at the girl, as they -went in, with the very hate of envy. - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - -In the years of his innocence, when the art and practice of medicine -were rich with enticements like a bride, Dr. Jakes had taken his dreams -in hand to mold them to the shape of his desire. A vision had beckoned -to him across the roofs and telegraph wires of South London, where he -scuffled for a livelihood as the assistant of a general practitioner; -and when he fixed his eyes upon it, it spread and took shape as a great -quiet house, noble and gray, harboring within its sober walls the -atmosphere of distinguished repose which goes with a practice of the -very highest class. Nothing of all its sumptuous appointment was quite -so clear to him as that flavor of footfalls muffled and voices subdued; -to summon it was to establish a refuge in which he might have brief ease -between a tooth-drawing and a confinement. Kindly people who excused a -certain want of alacrity in the little doctor by the reflection that he -was called out every night might have saved their charity; his droop, -his vacancy were only a screen for the splendid hush and shadow of that -great visionary mansion. It was peopled, too, with many dim folk, -resident patients in attitudes of relaxation; and among them, delicate -and urbane, went Dr. Jakes, the sweet and polished vehicle of healing -for the pulmonary complaints of the well-bred. Nor was there lacking a -lady, rather ghostlike and faint in conformity with the dreamer's ideal -of the highest expression of a lady-like quality, but touched, none the -less, with warm femininity, an angel and a houri in one, and answering, -in the voice of refinement, to the title of Mrs. Jakes. - -She had no Christian name then; she was a haunting mellowness, a -presence delicate and uplifting. In the murk of the early morning, -after a night spent behind drawn blinds in a narrow, tragic room, where -another human being entered the world between his hands, he would go -home along empty furtive streets, conscious of the comfort of her and -glad as with wine, and in such hours he would make it clear to himself -that she, at any rate, should never bear a child. - -"No," he would say, half aloud and very seriously. "No; it's not in the -part. No!" - -That gracious and mild presence--he did not entirely lose it even when -its place was assailed by the advent of the timid and amiable lady whom -he married. She was a daughter of the landed interest; her father owned -"weekly property" about Clapham Junction, two streets of forlorn little -houses, which rang day and night with the passing of trains, and -furnished to the population a constant supply of unwelcome babies. Dr. -Jakes knew the value of property of that kind, and perhaps his knowledge -did something to quicken his interest in a sallow, meager girl whom he -encountered in the house of his employer. She brought him a thousand -pounds in money, means ready to his hand to anchor the old vision to -earth and run it on commercial lines; it puzzled him a little that the -vision no longer responded to his summons so readily as of old. It had -degenerated from an inspiration to a mere scheme, best expressed in the -language of the prospectus; the fine zest of it was gone beyond -recovery. There was no recapturing its gentle languors, the brooding -silence of it; still less was it possible when, by the mere momentum of -his plans, he had moved to South Africa and found him a house, to -reproduce that reposefulness as the main character of the establishment. -Such effects as he gained, during the brief strenuousness that he -manifested on taking possession, were the merest caricatures of the -splendid original, mocking his impotence. The thousand pounds, too, -which at first had some of the fine, vague, inexhaustible quality of a -dream, proved inelastic, and by the time the baby came, Dr. Jakes was -already buying whisky by the case. The baby was a brief incident, a -caller rather than a visitor, so ephemeral that it was scarcely a -nuisance before it departed again in search of a peace less dependent on -the arrangement of furniture than that which Dr. Jakes had sought to -bring into being. - -All life is a compromise; between the dream and the exigencies of Dr. -Jakes' position the Sanatorium had emerged. The fine, simple, old house -had an air of its own, which no base use could entirely destroy. Its -flat front, pedestaled upon a wide, flagged stoep, faced to the -southeast and made a stronghold of shade in the noonday vehemence of the -sun. Its rooms were great and low, with wide solemn windows regarding -the monotony of the level veld; they stood between straight corridors -where one's footsteps rang as one walked. The art of its builders had so -fashioned it that it stood on the naked ground like a thing native to -it, not interrupting nor affronting that sweep of vacant miles, but -enhancing it. The stolid Dutch builders knew how to make their profit -out of wide horizons. They had conceived a frame for lives which should -ripen in face of the Karoo, gleaming on its barrenness a measure of its -tranquillity. They built a home; and of it Dr. Jakes had made a Home. - -There remained yet, of all the decorous and ceremonial processes which -were to maintain and give color to the life of the Sanatorium as he had -conceived it of old, only one function. The two men patients who were -left to him did as they pleased in most respects, but if they took tea -in the afternoon they took it from Mrs. Jakes in the drawing-room after -an established usage, with formal handing to and fro of plates and cups -in the manner of civilized society. Jakes was seldom too unwell to be -present at this function, and it was here, with his household at his -back, that Margaret saw him first. - -Weariness had come upon her with the rush of an overtaking pursuer as -Mrs. Jakes brought her into the house and away from the spreading dawn, -and that lady had cut short the forms of politeness to bid her go to -bed. She woke to the warmth of afternoon and the glow of its sun -slanting upon the floor of her room and was aware at once of a genial -presence. At the window a tall, stout Kafir woman, her head bound in a -red and yellow handkerchief in a fashion which reminded Margaret of -pictures of pirates, was tweaking the tails of the spring-blinds and -taking delight in watching them run up with a whir and click. She -turned at the sound of Margaret's movement, and flashed a brilliant -smile upon her. - -"Missis sleeping too long," she observed. "Tea now." - -The mere good humor of her was infectious and Margaret smiled in return. - -"Who are you?" she asked. - -"Me? Fat Mary," was the answer. She laughed easily, willing to make or -be a joke according to Margaret's humor. "Fat Mary, because--" she -sought for a word in the unfamiliar English and then gave it up. -"Because," she repeated, and traced her ample circumference with a black -finger. "You see?" - -"I see," said Margaret, and prepared to get up. - -Her long sleep had restored her and there was comfort, too, in waking to -the willing humanity of Fat Mary's smiles, instead of to the starched -cuffs and starched countenance of some formal trained and mechanical -nurse. Fat Mary was not a deft maid; she was too easily amused at -niceties of the toilet, and Margaret could not help feeling that she -regarded the process of dressing as a performance which she could -discuss later with her friends; but at least she was interested. She -revolved helpfully about the girl, to the noise of bumped furniture and -of large bare feet scraping on the mats, like a bulky planet about a wan -and diminutive sun, and made mistakes and laughed and was buoyant and -alight with smiles--all with a suggestion of gentle and reverent -playfulness such as a more than usually grown person might use with a -child. - -"Too much clothes," was her final comment, when Margaret at last was -ready and stood, slim and sober, under her inspection. "Like bundles," -she added, thoughtfully. "But Missis is skinny." - -"Where do we go now?" asked Margaret. - -"Tea," replied Fat Mary, and led the way downstairs by a wide and noble -staircase to the gray shadows of the stone hall. There was a simple -splendor about the house which roused the connoisseur in Margaret, a -grandeur which was all of proportion and mass, and the few articles of -furniture which stood about were dim and shabby in contrast to it. She -had only time to note so much when Fat Mary opened a door for her, and -she was facing across a wide room to broad windows flooded with sunlight -and aware of Mrs. Jakes rising from behind a little tea-table and coming -forward to meet her. Two men, a young one and an old one, rose from -their chairs near the window as she entered, and a third was standing on -the hearth-rug, with his back to the empty hearth. - -"Quite rested now?" Mrs. Jakes was asking. "You 've had a nice long -sleep. Let me introduce the doctor. Eustace--this is Miss Harding." - -Dr. Jakes advanced from the hearth-rug; Margaret thought he started -forward rather abruptly as his name was spoken. He gave her a loose, -hot hand. - -"Charmed," he said in a voice that was not quite free from hoarseness. -"We were just out of ladies, Miss Harding. This is a great pleasure; a -great pleasure." - -"Thank you," murmured Margaret vaguely. - -He was a short plump man, with a big head and round spectacles that gave -him the aspect of a large, deliberate bird. He was dressed for the -afternoon in formal black, the uniform of his calling, though the window -framed shimmering vistas of heat. He peered up at her with a sort of -appeal on his plump, amiable face, as though he were conscious of that -quality in him which made the girl shrink involuntarily while he held -her hand, which no decent austerity of broadcloth could veil from her -scrutiny. There was something about him at once sleepy and tormented, -the state in which a man lies all day full-dressed upon a bed and goes -habitually unbuttoned. It was the salient character in him, and he -seemed to search her face in a faint hope that she would not recognize -it. He dropped her hand with a momentary knitting of his brows like the -ghost of despair, and talked on. - -"It 's the air we depend on," he told her. "Wonderful air here, Miss -Harding--the breath of healing, you know. It doesn't suit me, but then -I 'm not here for my health." - -He laughed uncertainly, and ceased abruptly when he saw that no one -laughed with him. He was like a child in disgrace trying to win and -conciliate a circle of remorseless elders. - -Mrs. Jakes interrupted with a further introduction. While the doctor -spoke, she had been standing by like an umpire. "Mr. Ford," she said -now, and the younger of the two men by the window bowed to her without -speaking across the tea-table. His back was to the window and he stood -silhouetted against the golden haze which filled it, and Margaret saw -only that he was tall and slender and moved with easy deliberation. - -"Mr. Samson," said Mrs. Jakes next. - -This was the elder man. He came forward to her, showing a thin, -sophisticated old face with cloudy white eyebrows, and shook hands in a -pronounced manner. - -"Ah, you come like a gleam of sunshine," he announced, in a thin voice -that was like a piece of bravado. "A gleam of sunshine, by gad! We 're -not much to look at, Miss Harding; a set of crocks, you know--bellows to -mend, and all that sort of thing, but, by gad, we 're English, and we -'re glad to see a countrywoman." - -He cocked his white head at her gallantly and straddled his legs in -their neat gray trousers with a stiff swagger. - -"My mother was Irish," observed Mrs. Jakes brightly. "But Miss Harding -must have some tea." - -Mr. Samson skipped before to draw out a chair for her, and Margaret was -established at Mrs. Jakes' elbow. The doctor came across the room to -hand her bread and butter; that done, he retired again to his place on -the hearth-rug and to his cup, lodged upon the mantel-shelf. It seemed -that this was his place, outside the circle by the window. - -"Charming weather we 're having," announced Mrs. Jakes, conscientiously -assailing an interval of silence. "If it only lasts!" - -Mr. Samson, with his back to the wall and his teacup wavering in his -thin hand, snorted. - -"Weather!" he said. "Ya-as, we do get weather. 'Bout all we do get -here,--eh, Jakes?" - -Behind Margaret's back the doctor's teaspoon clinked in his saucer, and -he said something indistinct, in which the words "wonderful air" alone -reached her. She hitched her chair a pace sideways, so as to see him. - -Mrs. Jakes was looking over her with the acute eyes of a shopper which -took in and estimated each detail of her raiment. - -"I suppose, now," she remarked thoughtfully, "in England, the spring -fashions were just coming out." - -"I don't know, really," Margaret answered. "When I left, the principal -wear seemed to be umbrellas. It 's been an awful winter--rain every -day." - -"Aha!" Mr. Samson returned to the charge. "Rain, eh? Cab-wheels -squirting mud at you all along the street, eh? Trees blubbering over -the railings like bally babies, eh? Women bunchin' up their skirts and -hoppin' over the puddles like dicky-birds, eh? I know, I know; don't I -just know! How 'd you like a mouthful of that air, eh, Ford? Bad for -the lungs--yes! But good, deuced good for the heart." - -The young man in the window raised his head when he was addressed and -nodded. From the hearth-rug Dr. Jakes murmured audibly: "Influenza." - -"That of course," said Mrs. Jakes indulgently. "Were there many people -in town, Miss Harding?" - -"People!" Margaret was mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes, I think so." - -She was puzzled by the general attitude of the others towards the little -doctor; it was a matter into which she had yet to be initiated. It was -as though there existed a tacit understanding to suffer his presence and -keep an eye upon him. It conveyed to her a sense that these people knew -things about him which would not bear telling, and held the key to his -manner of one dully afflicted. When he moved or managed to make some -small clatter in setting his cup on the mantel-shelf, Mrs. Jakes turned -a swift eye upon him, inspected him suspiciously and turned away again. -If he spoke, the person addressed seemed to turn his remark over and -examine it for contraband meanings before making a perfunctory answer. -He was like a prisoner handicapped by previous convictions or a dog -conscious of a bad name. When he managed to catch the girl's eye, he -gave her weak, hopeful, little smiles, and subsided quickly if any one -else saw him, as though he had been caught doing some forbidden thing. -The thing troubled her a little. Her malady had made a sharp -interruption in her life and she had come to the Karoo in the sure hope -that there she would be restored and given a warrant to return finally -to her own world and deal with it unhampered. The doctors who had -bidden her go had spoken confidently of an early cure; they were smooth -men who made a good show of their expert knowledge. She had looked to -find such a man at her journey's end, a doctor with the marks of a -doctor, his social adroitness, his personal strength and style, his -confidence and superiority to the weaknesses of diseased flesh. This -little man, dazed and dumb, standing apart like a child who has been put -in the corner, did not realize her expectations. If medical skill, the -art and dexterity of a physician, dwelt in him, they had, she reflected, -fallen among thieves. - -"You have only three patients here now?" she asked Mrs. Jakes. - -"At present," answered Mrs. Jakes. "It's a convenient number. The -doctor, you see, can give them so much more attention than if there were -a houseful. Yes, it's really better for everybody." - -As she finished, Margaret looked up and caught the eye of the young man, -Ford, fixed upon her, as though he watched to see how she would take it. -He was a tall youth with a dark impassive face and level brows, and his -malady announced itself in a certain delicacy of coloring and general -texture and in attitudes which slacked naturally to invalid languors. -While the others talked, he sat on the ledge of the window, looking out -to the veld prostrate under the thresh of the sun. In any talkative -assembly, the silent man is at an advantage, and this tall youth seemed -to sit without the little circle of desultory tongues and dwarf it by -his mere aloofness. His glance now seemed to convey a hint to her to -accept, to pass over, things that needed explanation and to promise -revelations at a more fitting time. - -"You see," Mrs. Jakes continued, when Margaret had murmured noises of -acquiescence; "you see, each patient requires his individual attention. -And--" she sank her voice to a confidential undertone--"he 's not -_strong_." - -She nodded past Margaret's shoulder at Jakes, who was drinking from his -cup with precautions against noise. He caught her look over the rim of -it and choked. Ford smiled faintly and turned to the window again. - -"The Karoo does n't suit him a bit," Mrs. Jakes went on. "Too bracing, -you know. He 's often quite ill. But he won't leave." - -"Why?" asked Margaret. The doctor was busy with his handkerchief, -removing the traces of the accident from his waistcoat. - -Mrs. Jakes looked serious. "Duty," she replied, and pursed her pale -lips. "He considers it his duty to remain here. It 's his life-work, -you know." - -Ford's eye caught Margaret's again, warning and inviting. "It 's--it's -very unselfish of him," she said. - -"Yes!" said Mrs. Jakes. "It is." And she nodded at Margaret as much as -to ask, "And now, what have you got to say?" - -The doctor managed the tea stains to his satisfaction and came across -the room, replacing the cup and saucer on the table with a hand that was -not quite steady. In the broad light of the window, he had a strained -look; one familiar with such matters would have known that the man was -raw and tense with the after effects of heavy drinking. He looked down -at Margaret with an uncertain smile. - -"I must have a little talk with Miss Harding," he said. "We must find -out how matters stand. Will you bring her to my study presently, my -dear?" - -"In a quarter of an hour?" suggested Mrs. Jakes. He nodded. Ford did -not turn from his idle gazing through the window and old Samson did not -cease from looking at him with an arrogant fixity that seemed on the -point of breaking into spoken denunciations. He looked from one to the -other with a hardy little smile, then sighed and went out. - -His going was the signal for the breaking up of the gathering. Old -Samson coughed and walked off and Ford disappeared with him. - -"And what would you care to do now?" asked Mrs. Jakes of Margaret. "I -have some very good views of Windsor, if you like. You know Windsor?" - -Margaret shook her head. Windsor had no attractions for her. What -interested her much more was the fact that this small, bleak woman was -on the defensive, patently standing guard over privacies of her life, -and acutely ready to repel boarders who might endeavor to force an -intimacy upon her. It was plain in the rigor of her countenance, set -into a mask, and in each tone of her voice. Margaret had yet to undergo -her interview with Dr. Jakes in his study, and till that was over, and -she definitely enlisted for or against him, Mrs. Jakes would preserve an -armed neutrality. - -"I think," said Margaret, "I 'd like to go out to the veranda." - -"We call it the stoep," corrected Mrs. Jakes. "A Dutch word, I believe. -By all means; you 'll probably find Mr. Ford there and I will call you -when the doctor is ready." - -The stone hall held its cathedral shadows inviolate, and from it -Margaret went forth to a westering sun that filled the earth with light, -and painted the shadow of the house in startling black upon the ground. -She stood between the square pillars with their dead and ruined vines -and looked forth at a land upon which the light stood stagnant. It was -as though the Karoo challenged her conception of it. She had seen it -last vague with the illusions of the dawn, hemmed in by mists and -shadows that seemed to veil the distances and what they held. Now these -were stripped from it to reveal only a vast nakedness, of red and -red-brown and gray, all ardent in the afternoon sun. The shadows had -promised a mystery, the light discovered a void. It ran from before her -yet in a single sweep to a horizon upon which the blue of remote hills -was a faint blur, and in all the far prospect of it there was not one -roof, no single interruption to its still level. Margaret, quickly -sensitive to the quality of her environment, gazed at it almost with a -sense of awe, baffled by the fact that no words at her command were -pliant enough to fit it. It was not "wild" nor "desolate" nor even -"beautiful"; none of the words allotted to landscapes, with which folk -are used to label the land they live upon, could be stretched to the -compass of this great staring vacancy. It was outside of language; it -struck a note not included in the gamut of speech. "Inhuman" came -nearest to it, for the salient quality of it was something that bore no -relation to the lives--and deaths--of men. - -A sound of coughing recalled her from her contemplation of it, and she -walked along the stoep towards it. Behind a pillar near the corner of -the house, Ford sat on a camp-stool, with a little easel before him, and -smudged with his thumb at the paint on a small canvas. - -He looked up at her with no token of welcome, but rather as though he -withdrew himself unwillingly from his picture. - -"Well?" he said, motioning with his head at the wide prospect before -them. "What d'you think of it?" - -"Oh, a lot," replied Margaret, refusing to commit herself with -adjectives. "Can I see?" - -He sat back to give her room to look. She had in her time spent sincere -days at one of the art schools which help Kensington to its character -and was prepared to appreciate expertly. It was a sketch in oils, done -mostly with the thumb and palette-knife, a _croûte_ of the most -obvious--paint piled in ridges as though the artist would have built his -subject in relief upon the canvas, perspective improvised by the light -of nature, crudities, brutalities of color, obtruded in the effort for -breadth. They were all there. She stared into this mist of blemishes -in an effort to see what the painter saw and could not set down, and had -to give it up. - -In the art school it had been the custom to tell one's fellows the curt, -unwelcome truth. - -"You can't paint," said Margaret. - -"Oh, I know that," answered Ford. "You weren't looking for that, were -you?" - -"For what, then?" asked Margaret. - -He hitched himself up to the canvas again, and began to smudge with his -thumb at a mess of yellow ocre. - -"There 's something in it that I can see," he said. "I 've been watching -this--this desert for more than a year, you know, and I try to get in -what I see in it. You can't see anything?" - -"No," said Margaret. "But I did try." She watched his unskilful -handling of the ocre. "I could show you a thing or two," she suggested. - -She had all a woman's love for technique, and might have been satisfied -with more skill and less purpose. But Ford shook his head. - -"No, thank you," he said. "It's not worth while. I 'm only painting for -myself. I know what I mean by these messes I make; if I could paint -more, I mightn't be so pleased with it." - -"As you like, of course," said Margaret, a little disappointed. - -He worked in silence for about a minute. - -"You didn't like the looks of Dr. Jakes?" he suggested suddenly. "I saw -you wondering at him in there." - -"Well," Margaret hesitated. "He seemed rather out of it," she answered. -"Is there anything--wrong--with him?" - -Ford was making an irreparable mess of his picture and did not look up. - -"Wrong?" he repeated. "Well, depends what you call wrong. He drinks." - -"Drinks!" Margaret did not like the matter-of-fact way in which he said -it. "Do you mean--" - -"He 's a drunkard--he goes to bed drunk. His nerves were like banjo -strings this afternoon; he couldn't keep his hands still. You noticed -it? That was last night's drinking; he didn't get to bed till daylight. -I heard him struggling up the stairs, with Mrs. Jakes whispering to him -not to make a noise and helping him. That was just before you came." - -"Poor thing!" - -"Yes--poor thing!" Ford looked up at the girl sharply. "You 've got -it, Miss Harding. It 's Mrs. Jakes that suffers. Jakes has got his -liquor, and that makes up to him for a lot. You and I, we 've -got--whatever we have got, little or much. Old Samson 's got his -memories and his pose; he gets along all right with them. But she 's -got nothing at all--only the feeling that she 's managed to screen him -and prop him and fooled people into thinking she 's the wife of a decent -man. That 's all." - -"But," said Margaret, "is he safe?" - -"Safe? Oh, I forgot that he was to see you in his study. He won't reel -about and fall down, if that 's what you mean. _That_ part of it is all -done in private; Mrs. Jakes gets the benefit of _that_. And as to his -patients, he really does know a little about lungs when he 's sober, and -there 's always the air. Oh, he 's safe enough." - -"It's dreadful," said Margaret. She was at a loss; the men she knew did -not get drunk. When they went to the bad, they chose different roads; -this one seemed ankle-deep with defilement. She recalled Mrs. Jakes -when she had come forth from the silent house to meet her in the chill -dawn, and a vision flashed upon her of the vigil that must have been -hers through the slow night, listening to the chink of bottle on glass -and waiting, waiting in misery and fear to do that final office of -helping the drunken man to his bed. Her primness, her wan gentility, -her little affectations of fashion, seemed monstrously heroic in the -light of that vision--she had carried them with her to the pit of her -humiliation and brought them forth again unsullied, the spotless armor -of a woman of no account. - -"You understand now?" asked Ford, watching her. - -"Yes," answered Margaret, slowly. "But it frightens me. I wish I -hadn't got to see him in his study. What will he do?" - -"Hush!" said Ford. "Here comes Mrs. Jakes. Don't let her hear you. He -won't do anything." - -He fell to his work again, and Margaret turned to receive the doctor's -wife. - -"The doctor will see you now, Miss Harding," said Mrs. Jakes. "Will you -come with me?" - -She eyed the pair of them with a suspicion she could not altogether -hide, and Ford was careful to hold an impassive face. - -"I am quite ready," returned Margaret, nerving herself for what had -assumed the proportions of an ordeal, and went with her obediently. - -Jakes' study was a small, rather dark room opening off the hall, in -which the apparatus of his profession was set forth to make as much show -as possible. His desk, his carpet, his leather chairs and bookcases did -their best to counterfeit a due studiousness in his behalf, and a high -shelf of blue and green bottles, with a microscope among them, -counteracted their effect by suggesting to the irreverent that here -science was "skied" while practice was hung on the line. This first -interview was a convention in the case of every new patient. Dr. Jakes -always saw them alone as a matter of professional honor. Mrs. Jakes -would make a preliminary inspection of him to assure herself and him -that he was fit for it; old Mr. Samson, passing by the half-open door -once, had seen her bending over him, smelling his breath critically; and -then she would trust him to his patient's good will and to the arbitrary -Providence which ruled her world. - -"Miss Harding, Eustace," she announced at the door of the study and -motioned the girl to enter. - -The little doctor rose with bustling haste, and looked at her with -melancholy eyes. There was a smell of eau de Cologne in the room, which -seemed natural at the time to its rather comfortable shabbiness. - -"Sit down, sit down, Miss Harding," he said, and made a business of -thrusting forward one of the leather chairs to the side of his desk. -Seated, she faced him across a corner of it. In the interval that had -elapsed since she had seen him at tea, he seemed to have recovered -himself somewhat. Some of the strain was gone from him, and he was -grave with a less effect of effort and discomfort. - -He put his open hand upon a paper that lay before him. - -"It was Dr. Mackintosh who ordered you south?" he asked. "A clever man, -Miss Harding. I have his letter here about your case. Now, I want you -to answer a question or two before we listen to that lung of yours." - -"Certainly," said Margaret. - -She was conscious of some surprise that he should move so directly to -the matter in hand. It relieved her of vague fears with which Ford's -warning had filled her, and as he went on to question her searchingly, -her nervousness departed. The little man who fell so far short of her -ideal of a doctor knew his business; even a patient like herself, with -all a patient's prejudice and ignorance, could tell by the line his -questions took that he had her case by heart. He was clearly on -familiar ground, a fact which had power to reassure her, and she told -herself that, after all, his resigned, plump face was not entirely -repulsive. - -"A queer little man," she said to herself. "Queer enough to be a -genius, perhaps." - -"And, now, please, we 'll just hear how things really are. No, I don't -think you need undo anything. Yes, like that." - -As he explored her chest and side with the stethoscope, his head was -just under her face, the back of it rumpled like the head of some huge -and clumsy baby. It was fluffy and innocent and comical, and Margaret -smiled above him. Every one has his best aspect, or photographers would -crowd the workhouses and the manufacturers of pink lampshades would -starve. Dr. Jakes should have made more of the back of his head and -less of his poor, uncertain face. - -But he was done with the stethoscope at last, and as he raised his head -his face came close to hers and the taint of his breath reached her -nostrils. Suddenly she understood the eau de Cologne. - -"Well," he said, sitting down again; "now we know where we are." - -He had seen her little start of disgust and annoyance at the smell of -him, and kept his eyes on the paper before him, playing with a corner of -it between his fingers as he spoke. - -"Will I get well?" asked Margaret, directly. - -"Yes," he answered, without hesitating. - -"I 'm glad," she said. "I 'm awfully glad. Thank you." - -"I 'll see about your treatment," he said, without raising his eyes. -"But I needn't keep you now. Only--" - -"Yes?" - -"You mustn't be afraid," he continued. "Not of anything. Do you -understand? You mustn't be afraid." - -Margaret wished he would look up. "I 'm not afraid," she answered. -"Really I 'm not." - -Dr. Jakes sighed and rose slowly. The trouble had descended on him -again, and he looked sorry and dull. - -"That 's right," he said without heartiness, and moved to open the door -for her. His appealing eyes dwelt on her for a moment. "This isn't -England," he added, with a heavy deliberation. "We 're none of us here -because we like it. But--but don't be afraid, Miss Harding." - -"I 'm sure there 's nothing to be afraid of," answered Margaret, -moved--he was so mournful in his shame. He bowed to her, a slow peck of -his big head, and she went. - -In the hall, Mrs. Jakes met her and challenged her. - -"Well," she said; "and what does the doctor say about you?" - -Margaret smiled at her. "He says I shall get well, and I believe he -knows," she answered. - -It was as though some stiffening in Mrs. Jakes had suddenly resigned its -functions. She softened before the girl's eyes. - -"Of course he knows," she said contentedly. "Of course he knows. My -dear, he really does know." - -"I 'm sure he does," agreed Margaret. - -Mrs. Jakes put a hand on her arm. "I feel certain we 're going to be -friends," she said. "You 're so pretty and--and distinguished. -And--and what a pretty frock you 've got!" - -She hesitated an instant, and was very timid and humble. - -"I should love to see you unpack," she said earnestly. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - -The strength of a community, of almost any community, is its momentum; -it is easier to go on than to pull up, even though its progress be -erratic and the tear exceed the wear. Dr. Jakes' Sanatorium was a house -divided against itself and poised for a downfall; but the course of its -daily life had yet current enough to pick up a newcomer and float him -from his independent foothold. The long languors of its days, its deep -whispering nights, were opiates for the critical and exacting, so that -before they had made it clear to themselves that this was no place for -them, they were absorbed, merged in, the eventless quiet of the house -and its people. For some--for most of them, indeed--there came at last -a poignant day when Paul and his tall horses halted at the door to carry -them to the station, and it was strange with what a reluctance they rode -finally across the horizon that rose up to shut the big gray house from -view, and how they hesitated and frowned and talked curtly when the -station opened out before them and offered them the freedom of the -world. And for the others, those who traveled the longer journey and -alone, there stood upon the veld, a mile from the house, an enclosure of -barbed wire--barbed against--what? For them came stout packing cases, -which made the Kafirs sweat by their weight, and being opened, yielded -some small cross of marble, black-lettered with name and dates and -sorrowful texts; the lizards sunned themselves all day upon these -monuments, for none disturbed them. - -At the Sanatorium, day began in the cool of morning with a padding of -bare feet in the long corridors and the fresh wakeful smell of coffee. -Africa begins its day with coffee; it is the stirrup-cup of the country. -Margaret opened her eyes to the brightness of morning and the brisk -presence of Fat Mary, radiant across her adventurously held tray of -coffee cups and reflecting the joy of the new light in her exulting -smile. She had caught from Mrs. Jakes the first rule of polite -conversation, though none of the subsequent ones, and she always began -with a tribute of words to the weather. - -"Sun burning plenty; how 's Missis?" was her usual opening gambit. - -The wide-open windows flushed the room with air, sweet from the night's -refreshment; and Margaret came to value that hour between the -administration of coffee and the time for rising; it was the _bonne -bouche_ of the day. From her pillows she could lie and see the far -mists making a last stand against the shock of the sun, breaking and -diffusing before his attack and yielding up wider views of the rusty -plain at each minute, till at last the dim blue of infinitely remote -hills thickened the horizon. At the farm, a mile away, figures moved -about and among the kraals, wonderfully and delicately clear in that -diamond air which stirred her blood like wine. She could even make out -Paul; the distance robbed him of nothing of his deliberate, dreamy -character as he went to and fro with his air of one concerned with -greater things than the mere immediacies of every day. There was always -a suggestion about him of one who stoops from cloudy altitudes of -preoccupation to the little concerns of men, and towards Margaret he -wore the manner of having a secret to divulge which was difficult to -name. She met him sometimes on the veld paths between the two houses, -and each time he seemed to draw near the critical moment of confession -and fall back from it baffled. And though Margaret in her time had heard -many confidences from many men and had made much progress in the subtle -arts of the confidante, this was a case beyond her powers. The deftly -sympathetic corkscrew failed to unbottle whatever moved in his mind; he -evidently meant to bide his time. Meanwhile, seen from afar, he was a -feature of the before-breakfast hour, part of the upholstery of the -morning. - -It was when she heard Mr. Samson pass her door on his way to the bath -that she knew the house was definitely awake. He wore Turkish slippers -that announced him as he went with the slap-slap of their heels upon the -floor. Once, putting her head forth from the door incautiously to scout -for Fat Mary she had beheld him, with his bath-robe girt about him by -its tasseled cord and bath towels round his neck, going faithfully to -the ritual initiation of his daily round, a figure consistent with the -most correct gentlemanly tradition. The loose robe and the towels gave -him girth and substance, and on the wary, intolerant old face, with its -gay white mustache, was fixed a look of serious purpose. Mr. Samson -never trifled with his toilet, by gad--what? Later, on his return, she -would hear his debonair knock on Ford's door. "Out with you!" he would -pipe--he never varied it. "Out with you! Bright and early, my -boy--bright and early--what?" An answer growled from within contented -him, and he would turn in at his room, there to build up the completed -personality which he offered daily to the world. It took time, too, and -a meek Kafir valet, for a man is not made and perfected in a minute or -two, and the result never failed to justify the labor. When next he -appeared it would be as a member of the upper classes, armored and -equipped, treading the stoep in a five-minutes' constitutional in a -manner that at once dignified and lightened it. When one looked at him, -one thought instinctively of exclusive clubs, of fine afternoons in -Piccadilly, of the landed interest and the Church of England. One -judged that his tailor loved him. He had a cock of the head, with a -Homburg hat upon it, and a way of swelling his neck over the edge of his -conservative collar, that were the very ensign of gallantry and spirit. -It was only when he coughed that the power abandoned him, and it was -shocking and pitiful to see the fine flower of gentility rattled like a -dice-box in the throes of his malady and dropped at last against a wall, -wheezing and gasping for breath in the image of a weak and stricken old -man. - -"Against the ropes," he would stammer shakily as he gathered himself -together again, sniffling into his beautiful handkerchief. "Got me -against the ropes, it did. Damn it--what?" - -He suffered somewhat in his aggressive effect from the lack of victims. -He had exhausted his black valet's capacity for being blasted by a -glance, and had fallen back on Dr. Jakes. The wretched little doctor -had to bear the brunt of his high severity when he came among his -patients racked and quivering from his restless bed, and his bleared and -tragic eyes appealed in vain for mercy from that high priest of correct -demeanor. Mr. Samson looked at him as a justice of the peace, detained -upon the bench when he should be at lunch and conscious that his -services to the State are gratuitous, might look upon a malefactor who -has gone to the length of being without visible means of subsistence. -The doctor might wriggle and smile painfully and seek the obscurity of -corners, but it could not serve him; there was no getting out of range -of that righteous and manly battery while he stayed in the same room -with it. Once, however, he spiked its guns. The glare across the -tea-table, the unspoken sheer weight of rebuke and condemnation, seemed -to suddenly break up the poisoned fog that clouded his faculties, and he -lifted his face, shining a little as with sweat, in a quick look at Mr. -Samson. Margaret, who saw it, recognized it; just so he had looked in -his study when he questioned her on her case and bent his mind to the -consideration of it. It was direct, expert, impersonal, the dehumanized -scrutiny of the man whose trade is with flesh and blood. Something had -stirred the physician in the marrow of the man, and from a judge and an -executioner of justice, a drawing-room hangman, Mr. Samson had become a -case. At the beginning of it, Mrs. Jakes, unfailingly watchful, had -opened her mouth to speak and save the situation, but she too saw in -time and closed her mouth again. Mr. Samson glowered and the hectic in -his thin cheeks burned brighter. - -"You 've seen me before, Jakes!" he said, crisply. - -The little doctor nodded almost easily. "Your hand, please," he said. -"Thanks." - -His forefinger found the pulse and dwelt on it; he waited with lips -pursed, frowning. - -"As I thought," he said, dropping the stringy white hand again. "Yes! -I 'll see you in the study, Mr. Samson, please--in half an hour." - -Mr. Samson gulped but stood up manfully. He was at his best, standing, -by reason of a certain legginess which had been taken into account in -the design of his clothes, but now those clothes seemed big for him. - -"What is it?" he demanded, throwing his courage into his voice. - -Dr. Jakes warned him with an uplifted finger. - -"Sit down," he said. "Keep quiet. I 'll see you in half an hour." - -He looked round at Margaret and the rest of them thoughtfully and went -back to his place by the mantel-piece, sighing. It was his signal to -them that his brief display of efficiency was over, and as though to -screen his retreat, Mrs. Jakes coughed and hoped loudly that the rain -would hold off. - -But Mr. Samson made his way to a chair and sat down in it heavily, -grasping its arms with his hands, and Margaret noticed for the first -time that he was an old man. - -Apparently the thing that threatened Mr. Samson was not very serious, or -else the doctor had found means to head it off in time, for though he -went from the study to his bed, he was at breakfast next morning, with a -fastidious appetite and thereafter the course of his life remained -unaltered. - -Breakfast at the Sanatorium was in theory a meal that might be taken at -any hour from eight till half past eleven. In the days of his dream, -Dr. Jakes had seen dimly silver dishes with spirit lamps under them and -a house-party effect of folk dropping in as they came down and helping -themselves. But Mrs. Jakes' thousand pounds had stopped short of the -silver dishes and Mrs. Jakes herself could not be restrained from -attending in person to see that the coffee was hot. Therefore, since it -was not possible in any conscience to bind Mrs. Jakes to her post till -noon, breakfast occurred between half-past eight and half-past nine. - -The freshness, the exuberance, of the morning were not for her; already -she wore the aspect of one who has done a stage of the day's journey and -shed the bloom of her vigor upon it. The sunlight, waxing like a tide -in flood, was powerless to lift her prim, black-dressed personality from -the level of its cares and functions. She made to each as he entered the -same mechanical little bow across the crockery, smiled the same formal -smile from the lips outwards and uttered the same small comment on the -blaze of day that filled the earth without the window. She had her life -trimmed down to a routine for convenience of handling; she was one of -those people--they are the salt of the earth!--whose passions are -monosyllabic, whose woes are inarticulate. The three who sat daily at -meat with her knew and told each other that her composure, her face -keyed up like an instrument to its pitch of vacant propriety, were a -mask. Sometimes, even, there had been sounds in the night to assure -them of it; occasionally Jakes, on his way to bed in the small hours, -would slip on the stairs and bump down a dozen or so of them, and lie -where he fell till he was picked up and set on his way again; there -would be the rasp of labored breath as he was supported along the -corridor, and the mumble of his blurred speech hushed by prayerful -whispers. A door slammed, a low cry bitten off short, and then silence -in the big house, and in the morning Mrs. Jakes with her coffee pot and -trivial tinkle of speech and treble armor of practised bearing against -the pity of those who knew! The sheer truculence of it held them dumb; -it was the courage of a swashbuckler, of a bravo, and it imposed on them -the decorum of silence. - -The doctor, she gave them to understand, suffered from the climate. - -"He never was strong," she would say, with her eyes fixed on the person -addressed as though she would challenge him to dispute or question it. -"Never! It 's the sun, I think; he suffers from his head, you know. He -used to take aspirin for it when we were first married, but it doesn't -seem to do him any good now." - -The three of them would nod sympathetically and look hastily elsewhere, -as though ashamed to be the spectators of her humiliation. - -Poor Mrs. Jakes! Seven thousand miles from the streets of Clapham -Junction, an exile from the cheeriness and security of its little decent -houses, she held yet with a frail hand to the skirts of its beatitude. -In the drawer in her bedroom which also contained Jakes' dress suit, she -kept in tissue paper and sincere regard a morocco-bound mausoleum of -memory--an album. Only two or three times in Mr. Samson's -experience--and he had been an inmate of the Sanatorium for four -years--had she brought it forth. Once was on the night before young -Shaw died, and when no soothing would hold him at peace in his bed, he -had lain still to look through those yellowing portraits and hear Mrs. -Jakes tell how this one was doing very well as a job-master and that one -had turned Papist. But Margaret Harding had seen it. Mrs. Jakes had -sat on her bed, quelling Fat Mary with her eye, and seen her unpack her -clothes, the frocks new from dressmakers and tailors in London, the hats -of only a month ago. Margaret had been aided in buying them by a -philosophic aunt who had recently given up vegetarianism on the advice -of her hairdresser. "My child, play light," had been the counsel of -this relative. "Don't surprise the natives; they never like it. No -frills; a vigorous vicarage style is what you want." And she had -brought considerable powers of personality and vocabulary to bear on -Margaret's choice, so that in the result there predominated a certain -austerity of raiment which Margaret found unexciting. But Mrs. Jakes -received them as canons of fashion, screwing up her mouth and nodding -gravely as she mastered saliencies. - -"I can't quite imagine them in these styles," she said; "the people in -the Park, I mean. I suppose it's this golf that's done it." - -In return for the exhibition, she had shown Margaret her album. It had -many thick pages with beveled gilt edges, each framing from one to six -portraits or groups, and she had led her hearer through the lot of them, -from the first to the last. They sat side by side on the bed in Mrs. -Jakes' room, and the album lay open on their laps, and Mrs. Jakes' -finger traveled like a pointer among the pictures while she elucidated -them in a voice of quiet pride. These pale and fading faces, fixed to -the order of the photographer in more than human smiles, with sleek and -decorative hair and a show of clothes so patently reserved for Sundays, -were neither pale nor faded for her. She knew the life behind them, -their passions and their strength, and spoke of them as she might have -spoken had they been waiting in the next room. - -"That 's my sister," she said, her finger pausing. "Two years older than -me, but she never married. And what she used to suffer from indigestion, -words can't tell. And here 's my Aunt Martha--yes, she died seven years -ago. My mother's sister, you know. My mother was a Penfold--one of the -Penfolds of Putney. You 've heard of them? Ah, and here 's Bill -Penfold, my cousin Bill. Poor Bill, he didn't do well, ever. He had a -fancy for me, once, or so they said, but my father never could bear him. -No harm, you know, no real harm, but larky--sort of. This one? Oh, -that 's nobody--a Mr. Wrench, who used to collect for my father; he had -a hair-lip. I did n't like him." - -The thick page turned, and showed on the other side a single cabinet -portrait of a thin woman, with her head a little on one side. - -"My mother," said Mrs. Jakes, and shifted the album that Margaret might -see better. - -"She was a Penfold of Putney," she said, gently. "I think she shows it, -you know. A bit quiet and refined, especially about the eyes. Don't -you think so?" - -It was the picture of the wife of a robust and hardy man, Margaret -thought, and as for the eyes and their slight droop, the touch of -listlessness which bespeaks an acquired habit of patience and -self-suppression, she had only to look up and they returned her look -from the face of Mrs. Jakes. - -"And this?" she asked. - -Mrs. Jakes smiled quite brightly; the photograph was one of a baby. - -"That 's little Eustace," she answered, with no trace of the softness of -regret which had hushed her tone when she spoke of her mother. "My -little baby; he 'd have been a big boy now. He was like his -father--very like. Everybody noticed it. And that"--her finger passed -on--"is George Penfold, Sergeant-Major in the Guards. His widow married -again, a gunner in the Navy." - -No sorrow for little Eustace. He, at any rate, would never see his -dreams dislimn and fail him; no wife would watch the slow night through -for his unsteady step nor read the dishonor written in his eyes. The -first of the crosses in the barbed wire enclosure, Mrs. Jakes' empty and -aching heart and her quick smile of triumph at his easy victory over all -the snares of life--these and the faint, whitening photograph remained -of little Eustace. Many a man leaves less when his time comes in South -Africa. - -"The weather is holding up nicely," she would say at breakfast. "Almost -too fine, isn't it? But I suppose we oughtn't complain." - -It was a meal over which one lingered, for with the end of it there -closed the eventful period of the day. While it lasted, the Sanatorium -was at its best; one saw one's fellows in faint hues of glamour after -the night's separation and heard them speak with a sense of receiving -news. But the hour exhausted them of interest and one left the table, -when all pretexts for remaining there had been expended, to face the -emptiness of a morning already stale. That, in truth, was the price one -paid for healing, the wearing, smothering monotony of the idle days, -when there was nothing to do and one saw oneself a part of the -stagnation that ruled the place. Mrs. Jakes withdrew herself to become -the motor of the domestic machinery, and till lunch time was not -available for countenance and support. Ford occupied himself gravely -with his little canvases, plastering upon them strange travesties of -landscape, and was busy and intent and impatient of interruption for -long periods at a time, while Mr. Samson, keeping a sufficient offing -from all human contact, alternately strutted to and fro upon the stoep -in a short quarter-deck promenade of ten steps and a right about turn, -and lay in a deck chair with a writing case upon his knee and wrote -fitfully and with deep thought long, important looking letters which -never reached the post. - -"You 're feeling the need of something to do," Ford told Margaret, when -in desperation she came behind him and watched him modeling--as it -seemed--in burnt sienna. "Why don't you knit--or something?" - -"Knit?" said Margaret with huge scorn. - -"You 'll come to it," he warned her. "There was a chap here before you -came who taught himself the harp. A nuisance he was, too, but he said -he 'd have been a gibbering idiot without it." - -"That was n't saying much, perhaps," retorted Margaret. - -"Oh, I don't know. He was a barrister of sorts, I believe. Not many -barristers who can play the harp, you know." - -"For goodness' sake, don't knead the stuff like that!" cried Margaret, -watching his thumb at work. "You 're painting, not--not civil -engineering! But what were you?" - -"Eh?" He looked up at her. - -"Before you had to come here, I mean? Oh, do talk for a minute," she -begged. - -"Sorry," he said. "I was in the army." - -"And was it rather awful to have to give up and nurse yourself?" - -"Well!" He glanced at her consideringly, as though to measure her -intelligence. "It was rough," he admitted. "You see, the army 's not -like barristering, for instance. It 's not a thing you can drop for a -bit and then take up again; once you 're out, you 're out for good." He -paused. "And I meant it," he added. - -"Meant it?" - -"Yes, there 's a chance nowadays for a chap with a turn for soldiering. -There 's a lot to know, you see, and, well--I was by way of knowing it. -That 's all." - -He turned to his canvas again, but did not fall to work. Margaret saw -his back, thin under his silk coat but flat and trim as a drilled man's -should be. - -"So for you, it meant the end of everything?" she suggested. - -"Looks like it, doesn't it!" he answered. "Still--we 'll see. They -trained me and there 's just a chance, in the event of a row, that they -might have a use for me. They 'd be short of officers who knew the -game. You see--" - -He hitched sideways on his camp-stool so that he might make himself -clear to her. - -"You see, the business of charging at the head of your men is a thing of -the past, pretty nearly. All that gallery play is done away with. But -take a hundred Tommies and walk 'em about for half a year, dry-nurse -'em, keep them fed and healthy and moderately happy and as clean as you -can, be something between an uncle and a schoolmaster to them, and have -'em ready at the end of it to march forty miles in a day and then -fight--that's an art in itself! In fact, it's a trade, and it can't be -learned in a week." - -"I 'm perfectly sure it can't," agreed Margaret. - -"Well, that was my trade," said Ford. "That's where I 'll come in when -the band begins to play. See?" - -He nodded at her expressively but with finality. If was plain that he -considered the subject drained dry, and only waited for her to go to -return to the mysteries of art. - -"Oh, well," sighed Margaret, and left him to it. - -Lunch lacked the character of breakfast. For one thing, it was -impossible for three feeble people, debarred from exercise, to arrive at -a state of appetite during a morning of semi-torpor, with a prospect -before them of an afternoon of the same quality. For another, tempers -had endured the heat and burden of four hours of enforced idleness and -emerged from the test frayed at the edges. - -This meant more labor for poor Mrs. Jakes, who could by no means allow -the meal to be eaten in a bitter silence, and was driven by a stern -sense of duty to keep up a dropping fire of small talk. Their sour -faces, the grimness with which they passed the salt, filled her with -nervous tremors, and she talked as a born hostess might talk to cover -the confusion induced by an earthquake under the table, trembling but -fluent to the last. There were times when her small, hesitating voice -wrought Margaret up to the very point of flat interventions. At one -such moment, it was Ford who saved the situation. - -"Miss Harding," he said, in a matter-of-fact way. "You are a pig!" - -Mrs. Jakes gasped and bounded in her chair, and old Mr. Samson choked. - -"And you," replied Margaret with intensity, "are just a plain beast!" - -"That 's the idea," said Ford. "You feel better now?" - -"Ever so much better, thank you," answered Margaret. "It was just what I -wanted." - -Mrs. Jakes was staring at them as though convinced that sudden mania had -attacked them both at the same moment. - -"It 's all right," Ford assured her. "It's a dodge for blowing off -temper. If you 'd just call Mr. Samson something really rude, he 'd be -ever so grateful. Call him a Socialist, Mrs. Jakes." - -"Oh, I couldn't," said Mrs. Jakes, while Mr. Samson, mastering his -emotions, glared and reddened. "You did alarm me," she said. "I thought -for a moment--well, I don't know what I did think." - -She was distinctly not at her ease for the remainder of the meal, and -even at tea that afternoon, she kept an eye on the pair of them. To her -mind, they were playing with edged tools. - -It was at tea, as a rule, that Dr. Jakes was first visible, very -tremulous and thirsty, but always submissive and content to be -overlooked and forgotten. At dinner, later on, he would be better and -able to talk with a jerky continuity to Margaret who sat at his right -hand. He bore himself always with an air of effort, like one who is not -at home and whose acquaintance with his fellows is slight, and drank at -table nothing but water. His eyes kept the Kafir servants under -observation as they waited, and the black boys were full of alacrity in -the consciousness that he was watching. "It 's strange," Mrs. Jakes -used to say; "Eustace is so quiet, and yet the natives obey him -wonderfully." Afterwards, in the drawing-room, he would flicker to and -fro restlessly, growing each moment more irritable and incapable of -hearing a sentence to the end. Half-way through the evening, he would -seize an occasion to escape to his own quarters, and thereafter would be -invisible till next day. Every one knew whither he went and for what -purpose; eyes met in significant glances as the door closed softly -behind him and Mrs. Jakes raised her voice in rapid speech to hide the -sound of his tiptoe crossing of the hall; his secret was anybody's and -even the Kafirs shared it, and yet the man had the force of mystery. He -slid to and fro in the interstices of their lives and came to the -surface only to serve and heal them. That done, he dropped back again -to the solace that was his behind his locked door, while about him the -house slept. He knew himself and yet could look his patients and his -wife in the face. Mingled with their contempt and disgust, there was an -acknowledgment of the quality of him, of a kind of wry and shabby -greatness. - -And thus the day came to its end. One by one, Margaret, Ford and Mr. -Samson drew off and made their way to the dignified invitation of the -big staircase and their rooms. Mrs. Jakes was always at hand to bid -them good night, for her day was yet a long way from its finish. - -"Tired, my dear?" she would ask Margaret. "It 's been a tiring day; I -feel it myself. Good night to you." - -In her room, Margaret would find Fat Mary waiting for her, sleepy in her -vast, ridiculous way, but still prodigal of smiles, and ready to put her -to bed with two left hands equipped with ten thumbs. She had a yawn -which would have reminded Jonah of old times, but nothing could damp her -helpful ardor, not even being discovered stretched fast asleep on -Margaret's bed and being waked with the bath sponge. She made it clear -that she would stop at few things to be of service. - -"Missis not sleepy? Ah!" She stood in thought for five seconds. "Me -nurse Missis, all same baby? Plenty strong--me!" - -She dandled an imaginary child in her great arms, smiling cheerfully but -quite in earnest. "Plenty strong," she assured the young lady from -Kensington. "No? No? All a-right!" - -Darkness at last, and the window wide to the small, whispering winds -which people the veld at night! A sky of blue-black powdered with misty -white stars, and from the distance, squeaks, small cries, the wary voice -of the wilderness! Sometimes a jackal would range within earshot and -lift up his voice under the stars to cry like a child, in the very -accent of heartbroken, helpless woe. The nightly traffic of the veld -was in full swing ere her eyes closed and its subdued clamor followed -her into her dreams. - -Silence in the big house and along the matted corridors--and one voice, -speaking guardedly, in the hall. It never happened to Margaret to hear -it and go to the stair-head and look down. Thence she might have seen -what would have made her less happy--Mrs. Jakes on her knees at the -locked door of the study, with her candle set on the floor beside her, -casting a monstrous shadow-caricature of her upon the gray stone wall. -In her sober black dress she knelt on the mat and her small, -kitchen-reddened hands tapped gently, carefully on the panels. She -spoke through the keyhole and her fruitless whisperings rustled in light -echoes about the high ceiling. - -"Eustace, it's me. Eustace! I 'm so tired, Eustace. Please open the -door. Please, Eustace! It 's only me, dear." - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - -"Hardly smart," pronounced Mrs. du Preez, speaking low into Mrs. Jakes' -ear. "Smart 's not the word I 'd use for her myself. _Distangay_, now, -or _chic_, if you understand what that means!" - -"Oh, quite!" replied Mrs. Jakes coldly. - -They were seated side by side upon the sofa in the little parlor of the -farm; its dimensions made it impossible for Mrs. Jakes to treat her -hostess as distantly as she could have wished. There was nothing for it -but to leave her ear and her unresponsive profile, composed to a -steadfast woodenness, to the mercy of those critical and authoritative -whispers until deliverance should offer itself. She settled her small -black-gowned figure and coughed behind three gloved fingers. - -Near the window looking forth across the kraals, Margaret Harding, the -subject of Mrs. du Preez's comments, had the gaunt Boer for a companion. -This was her visit of ceremony, her "return call"; two or three earlier -visits, mere incidents of morning walks, when she had stopped to talk to -Paul and been surprised and captured by Paul's mother, were understood -not to count, and the Recording Angel would omit them from his notes. -Mrs. du Preez had taken the initiative in due order by appearing at the -Sanatorium one afternoon at tea-time; she had asked Dr. Jakes if he had -"a mouth on him" and Margaret if there were many people in town. The -next step in the transaction was for Margaret to put on a real frock and -a real hat, and take herself and her card-case through the white, -scornful sunshine to the farm; and behold! by virtue of this solemnity, -two women marooned at the heart of an ocean of sun-swamped desert had -license to distinguish one another from common objects of the country -side. - -Even Mrs. Jakes, whose attitude towards Mrs. du Preez was one of -disapproval tempered by dread, could see no alternative to this course. -She shook her head at Margaret's amusement. - -"This is not London, of course," she said reasonably. "I know that. -But, my dear, we 're Christian people--even here." - -At Margaret's side, the tall Boer, Christian du Preez, leaned against -the wall and regarded her with shy, intent eyes that were oddly like -Paul's. There was lacking in him that aloof and almost reverent quality -of the boy which made him seem as though he regarded all things with an -equal wonder and an equal kinship; he was altogether harder and more -immediately forceful, a figure at home in his narrow world; but the -relationship between him and his son was obvious. Margaret had only to -glance across the room to where Paul sat by the door, following the -trickle of conversation around the room from face to face with his eyes, -to see the resemblance. What was common to them both was a certain -shadowy reserve, a character of relationship to the dumbness and -significance of the Karoo, and something else which had the gloom of -melancholy and the power of pride. In each of them the Boer, the -world's disinherited son, was salient. - -Mrs. du Preez had secured his presence to grace the occasion after some -resistance on his part, for he entered the parlor seldom and was not at -his ease there. Its atmosphere of indoor formality daunted and oppressed -him, and he felt coarse and earth-stained under the eyes of the serene -young men who watched him from their plush and fret-work frames. He had -nothing to set against their sleek beauty and their calm sophistication -but his fathom and odd inches of lean, slow-moving strength, his eyes of -patient expectancy and the wild beard that redeemed his countenance from -mildness. He had come under protest and for the sake of peace, and sat -scowling in a chair, raw with shyness and irritation, in the dreadful -interval between the completion of Mrs. du Preez's preparations and the -arrival of the guests, while in face of him "yours blithely, Boy -Bailey," set him a hopeless example of iron-clad complacency. - -Then came Margaret and Mrs. Jakes, and at the first sign of them he was -screened as in a cloud by the welcome of Mrs. du Preez. Their step upon -the threshold was her cue for a cordiality of greeting that filled the -room and overflowed into the passage in a rapid crescendo of compliment, -inquiries as to health, laughter and mere bustle; it was like the -entrance of two star performers supported by a full chorus and _corps de -ballet_. - -"So here you are, the two of you," was her style. "On time to a tick, -too! Come right in, Miss Harding, and look out for that step--it 's a -terror. A death-trap, _I_ call it! And you, Mrs. Jakes. I won't say I -'m glad to see you, 'cause you 'll believe that without me telling you. -You found it pretty hot walking, I know; we 're all pretty warm members -in this community, aren't we? Sit down, sit down; no extra charge for -sitting down, y'know. And now, how are you? Sitting up and taking -nourishment, eh? That's the style!" - -Margaret was aware, across her shoulder, of a gloomy male presence -inhabiting the background. - -"Let me introduce my husband," said Mrs. du Preez, following her glance. -"Christian, this is Miss Harding. And now, Mrs. Jakes, let you an' me -have a sit-down over here. You first--age before innocence, y'know. -And how 's the poor old doctor?" - -"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes firmly, "he is quite well." - -She smiled graciously at Paul, who was watching her, and took her seat, -resigned to martyrdom. - -Christian du Preez gave the girl a slack hand and murmured incoherently -some salutation, while his gaze took in avidly each feature of her and -summed up her effect of easy modernity. He recognized in her a certain -feminine quality for which he had no name. Once before he had glimpsed -it as in a revelation, when, as a youth newly returned from service on -commando against rebellious Kafirs, he had spent an evening in a small -town and there seen a performance by a traveling theatrical company. It -was a crude and ill-devised show, full of improbable murders that -affronted the common-sense of a man fresh from various killings; but in -an interval between slaughters, there was a scene that brought upon the -stage a slim girl who walked erect and smiled and shrugged easily at the -audience. Her part was brief; she was not visible for more than a few -minutes, and assuredly her shaft, so soon sped, struck no one else. It -needed a Boer, with his feet in the mud and his head among the stars, to -clothe her with dignity as with a robe and add to her valuation of -herself the riches of his woman-haunted imagination. She passed from -sight again, and for the time he scarcely regretted her, for she left -glamour behind her and a vision of womanhood equipped, debonnaire, -heart-breaking in its fragility and its daring. - -The outcome of that revelation was marriage within the week; but it -never revisited the bored and weary woman whom Christian du Preez had -brought home to his farm and its solitudes. It was as though he had -tried to pick an image from still water; the fruit of that endeavor was -memory and an empty hand. Even as he greeted Margaret he turned slowly -and looked from her to his wife in unconscious comparison, and turned as -unconsciously back again. Only Mrs. du Preez knew the meaning of that -glance; she answered it with an obstinate compression of the mouth and -went on talking to Mrs. Jakes about the hang of Margaret's skirt. - -"It 's all right for her," she was saying. "These leggy ones can wear -anything. But think how you 'd look in it, for instance. Why you 'd -make a horse laugh!" - -"Indeed!" said Mrs. Jakes, unhappy but bristling. She never grew -reconciled to Mrs. du Preez's habit of using her as a horrible example. - -"You would that," Mrs. du Preez assured her. "You see, my dear, yours is -an elderly style." - -At the window, Margaret was doing what she could to thaw the tall Boer -into talk, and meeting with some success. He liked, while possibly he -did not quite understand, her relish for the view from the window, with -the rude circles of the kraals near at hand, the scattered huts of the -farm Kafirs beyond them, and the all-subduing brown of the Karoo -slipping forth to the edge of the sky. He had once heard a young man -from the Sanatorium agree with Mrs. du Preez that the Karoo resembled a -brick-field established in a cemetery. Margaret did better than that. - -"I suppose you 've traveled all over it?" she asked him. - -"When I was a young man, I rode transport," he answered. "Then I -traveled; now I sit still in the middle of it and try to grow wool." - -"Is it all like this?" she asked. - -"Sometimes there is grass--a little--not much, and milk bushes and -prickly pear," he told her. "But it is hard ground, all of it. It is -very peaceful, though." - -She nodded comprehendingly, and he found a stimulant in her quiet -interest. He had not Paul's tense absorption in the harvest of the eye, -but he would have been no Boer had the vacant miles not exercised a -power over him. - -"You 're never--discontented with it?" asked Margaret. "I mean, you -find it enough for you, without wanting towns and all that?" - -He shook his head, hesitating. "I do not know towns," he answered. -"No, I don't want towns. But--every day the same sights, and the sun and -the silence--" - -"Yes?" she asked. - -He was little used to confessing himself and his shyness was an obstacle -to clear speech. Besides, the matter in his mind was not clear to -himself; he was aware of it as a color to his thoughts rather than as a -fact to be stated. - -"It makes you guess at things," he said at last. "You guess, but you -don't ever know." - -"What things?" asked Margaret. - -"A lot of things," he answered. "God, and the devil, and all that. -It's always there, you see, and you must think." - -A rattle in the passage and a start from Mrs. du Preez heralded tea, -borne in upon a reverberating iron tray by a timid and clumsy Kafir -maid, who set her burden insecurely upon the table and fled in panic. -Christian du Preez ceased to speak as if upon a signal and Mrs. du Preez -entered the arena hospitably. - -"You 're sure you wouldn't rather have something else?" she asked -Margaret, as she filled the cups. "There 's afternoons when a -whisky-and-soda is more in my line than tea. Sure you won't? P'r'aps -Mrs. Jakes will, then? We won't tell, will we, Paul? Well, 'ave it -your own way, only don't blame me! Christian, reach this cup to Miss -Harding." - -The tall man did as he was bidden, ignoring Mrs. Jakes. In his world, -women helped themselves. Paul carried her cup to Mrs. Jakes and sat -down beside her in the place vacated by his mother. From there, he -could see Margaret and look through the window as well. - -"If you 'll have one, I 'll keep you company," suggested Mrs. du Preez -privately to Mrs. Jakes. - -"One what?" inquired Mrs. Jakes across her cup. The poor lady was -feeling very grateful for the strong tea to console her nerves. - -"One what!" Mrs. du Preez was scornful. "A drink, of course--a drink -out of a glass!" - -"No, thank you," replied Mrs. Jakes hastily. "I never touch -stimulants." - -"Oh, well!" Mrs. du Preez resigned herself to circumstances. "I -suppose," she enquired, nodding towards Margaret, "_she_ don't either?" - -"I believe not," replied Mrs. Jakes. - -Mrs. du Preez considered the matter. "You 'd think they 'd grow out of -it," she observed enigmatically. "She seems to be lively enough, too, in -her way. First person I ever saw who could make Christian talk." - -Christian was talking at last. Margaret had paused to watch a string of -natives pass in single-file, after the unsociable Kafir fashion, before -the window, going towards the huts, with the sun-gilt dust rising about -them in a faint haze. They were going home after their day's work, and -she wondered suddenly to what secret joy of freedom they re-entered when -the hours of the white man's dominion were over and the coming of night -made a black world for the habitation of black men. - -"I suppose there is no knowing what they really feel and think?" she -suggested. - -That is the South African view, the white man's surrender to the -impregnable reserve of the black races; native opinion is only to be -gathered when the native breaks bounds. Christian du Preez nodded. - -"No," he agreed. "I have always been among them, and I have fought -them, too; but what they think they don't tell." - -"You have fought them? How was that?" - -"When I was young. On commando," he explained, with his eyes on her. -It was luxury to see the animation of her pale, clear-cut face as she -looked up and waited for him to go on. - -"It was a real war," he answered her. "A real war. There was a -chief--Kamis, they called him--down there in the south, and his men -murdered an officer. So the government called out the burghers and sent -Cape Mounted Rifles with us to go and punish him. I was twenty years -old then, and I went too." - -In the background Mrs. du Preez sniffed. "He 's telling her about that -old Kafir war of his," she said. "He always tells that to young women. -I know him!" - -Christian went on, lapsing as he continued from the careful English he -had spoken hitherto to the cruder vernacular of the Cape. He told of -the marching and the quick, shattering attack against Kafirs at bay in -the low hills bordering the Karoo, of a fight at night in a rain-squall, -when the "pot-leg," the Kafir bullets hammered out of cold iron, sang in -the air like flutes and made a wound when they struck that a man could -put his fist into. His eyes shone with the fires of warm remembrance as -he told of that advance over grass-grown slopes slippery with wet, when -the gay desperadoes of the Cape Mounted Rifles went up singing, "Jinny, -my own true loved one, Wait till the clouds roll by," and on their flank -the burghers found cover and lit the night with the flashes of their -musketry. It was an epic woven into the fiber of the narrator's soul, a -thing lived poignantly, each moment of it flavored on the palate and the -taste remembered. He had been in the final breathless rush that broke -the Kafirs and sent them scuttling like rock-rabbits--"dassies," he -called them--through the rocks to the kopje-ringed hollow where they -would be held till morning. - -And then that morning! - -"Man, it was cold," he said. "There was no fires. We were lying in the -bushes with our rifles under our bellies till coffee-time, and that -Lascelles, our general, walked up and down behind us all the night. He -was a little old soldier-officer from Capetown; his face was red and his -mustache was white. The rain was falling on my back all the time, but -sometimes I slept a little. And when it was sun-up, I could see down the -krantz to the veld below, and there was all the Kafirs together, all in -a bunch, in the middle of it. They didn't look much; I was surprised to -see so few. They were standing and lying on the wet grass, and they -seemed tired. Some were sleeping, even, stretched out like dead men -below us, but what made me sorry for them was, they were so few. - -"I was sorry," he added, thoughtfully. - -Margaret nodded. - -"But it was a real war," he assured her quickly. "When the sun was well -up, we moved, and presently all the burghers were lying close together -with our rifles ready. It was Lascelles that ordered it. I didn't -understand, then, for I knew a beaten Kafir when I saw one, and those -below were beaten to the ground. By and by the Cape Mounted Rifles went -past behind us, and dipped down into a hollow on our right; we had only -to wait, and it was very cold. I was wondering when they would let us -make coffee and talking to the next man about it, when from our right, -so sudden that I jumped up at the sound of it, the Cape Mounted Rifles -fired at the Kafirs down below. Man, that was awful! It was like a -thunder on a clear day. All of us were surprised, and some called out -and swore and said Lascelles was a fool. But it was queer, all the -same, to see the Kafirs. Twenty of them was killed, and one of them had -a bullet in his stomach and rolled about making screams like laughing. -The rest--they didn't move; they didn't run; they didn't cry out. A few -looked up at us; I tell you, it was near enough to see their white eyes; -but the others just stopped as they were. They was like cattle, like -sick cattle, patient and weak and finished; the Cape Mounted Rifles -could have killed them all and they wouldn't have lifted their hands. - -"Our commandant--Van Zyl, he was called, a very fat man--clicked with -his tongue. 'Wasting them,' he said. 'Wasting them!' - -"Then we went down the hill and came all round them, standing among the -dead bodies, and Lascelles with his interpreter and his two young -officers in tight belts went forward to look for Kamis, the chief. The -interpreter--he was a yellow-faced Hollander--called out once, and in -the middle of the Kafirs there stood up an old Kafir with a blanket on -his shoulders and his wool all gray. He came walking through the others -with a little black boy, three or four years old, holding by his hand -and making big round eyes at us. It was the son that was left to him; -the others, we found out, were all killed. He was an old man and walked -bent and held the blanket round him with one hand. He looked to me like -a good old woman who ought to have been sitting in a chair in a kitchen. - -"'Are you Kamis?' they asked him. - -"'I am Kamis,' he said, 'and this is my son who is also Kamis.' - -"He showed them the little plump piccanin, who hung back and struggled. -One of the young officers with tight belts put an eye-glass in his eye -and laughed. Lascelles did not laugh. He was a little man, as neat as a -lady, with ugly, narrow eyes. - -"'Tell him he 's to be hanged,' he ordered. - -"Old Kamis heard it without a sign, only nodding as the interpreter -translated it to him. - -"'And what will they do to my son?' he asked. - -"Lascelles snuffled in his nose angrily. 'The Government will take care -of his son,' he said, and turned away. But when he had gone a few steps -he turned back again. 'Tell the old chap,' he ordered, 'and tell him -plainly, that his son will be taken care of. He 'll be all right, he -'ll be well looked after. Savvy?' he shouted to Kamis. 'Piccanin all -right; plenty _skoff_, plenty _mahli_, plenty everything.' - -"The Hollander told the old chief while Lascelles waited, and the men of -the Cape Mounted Rifles who had the handcuffs for him stood on each -side. Kamis heard it with his head on one side, as if he was a bit -deaf. Then he nodded and put out his hands for the irons. - -"Lascelles held out his hands to the baby Kafir. - -"'Come with me, kid!' he said. - -"The baby hung back. He was scared. Old Kamis said something to him -and pushed him with his knee, and at last the child went and took -Lascelles' hand. - -"'That 's it,' said Lascelles, and lifted him up. As he carried him -away, I heard him talking to the young officer with the eye-glass. -'That 's a damned silly grin you 've got, Whitburn,' he said, 'and you -may as well know I 'm sick of it.' - -"I think he was a bit ashamed of carrying the baby. He had n't any of -his own. I saw his wife later, when we were disbanded--a skinny, yellow -woman who played cards every evening. - -"And then, at Fereira, they hanged old Kamis, while we all stood round -with our rifles resting on the ground. There was a man to hang him who -wore a mask, and I was sorry about the mask, because I thought I might -meet him sometime and not know him and be friends with him. He had red -hair though; his mask couldn't hide that, and there is something about -red hair that turns me cold. There were about fifty of his tribe who -were brought there to see the end of Kamis and take warning by him, and -when he came out of the jail door, between two men, with his hands tied -behind him, they all lifted a hand above their heads to salute him. The -men on each side of him held him by the elbows and hurried him along. -They took him so fast that he tripped his foot and nearly fell. -'Slower, you swine!' said Lascelles, who was there with a sword on. He -walked across and spoke to Kamis. 'Piccanin all right!' he said, 'All-a -right!' said Kamis, and then they led him up the steps. They were all -about him there, the jail men and the man with the mask; for a minute I -couldn't see him at all. Then they were away from him, and there was a -bag on his head and the rope was round his neck. The man with the mask -seemed to be waiting, and at last Lascelles lifted his hand in a tired -way and there was a crash of falling planks and a cry from the Kafirs, -and old Kamis, as straight and lean as a young man, was hanging under -the platform just above the ground and swinging a little." - -Christian du Preez frowned and looked at Margaret absently. - -"And then I was sick," he said reflectively. "Quite sick!" - -"I don't wonder," said Margaret. "But the baby! What happened to the -Kafir baby?" - -"I didn't see the baby any more," replied the Boer. "But I read in a -newspaper that they sent it to England. Perhaps it died." - -"But why send it to England?" asked Margaret. "What could it do there?" - -Christian du Preez shrugged one shoulder. "The Government sent it," he -replied, conclusively. No Boer attempts to explain a government; it is -his eternal unaccountable. "You see it was the Chief, that baby was, so -they wanted to send it a long way off, perhaps." - -"And now, I suppose it 's a man," said Margaret; "a poor negro all alone -in London, who has forgotten his own tongue. He wears shabby clothes -and makes friends with servant girls, and never remembers how he held -his father's hand while you burghers and the soldiers came down the -hillside. Don't you think that's sad?" - -"Yes," said the Boer thoughtfully, but without alacrity, for after all a -Kafir is a Kafir and his place in the sympathies of his betters is a -small one. "Kafirs look ugly in clothes," he added after a moment. - -At the other side of the room, the others had ceased their talk to -listen. Mrs. du Preez laughed a little harshly. - -"They 're worse in boots," she volunteered. "Ever seen a nigger with -boots on, Miss Harding? He walks as if his feet weighed a ton. Make a -clatter like clog-dancin'. But round here, of course, there 's no boots -for them to get." - -"There 's one now," said Margaret. "Look--he 's passing the kraals. He -'s got boots on." - -They all looked with a quick curiosity that was a little strange to see; -one would have thought a passing Kafir would scarcely have interested -them by any eccentricity of attire. Even Mrs. Jakes rose from her place -on the sofa and stood on tip-toe to see over Mrs. du Preez's shoulders. -There is an instinct in the South African which makes him conscious, in -his dim, short-sighted way, that over against him there looms the -passive, irreconcilable power of the black races. He is like a man -carrying a lantern, with the shifting circle of light about him, and at -its frontier the darkness pregnant with presences. - -The Boer, learned in Kafir varieties, stared under puckered brows at the -single figure passing below the kraals. He marked not so much any -unusual feature in it as the absence of things that were usual. - -"Paul," he said, "go an' see what he 's after." - -Paul was already at the door, going out silently. He paused to nod. - -"I 'm going now," he said. - -"Strange Kafirs want lookin' after," explained Mrs. du Preez to Margaret -as the boy passed the window outside. "You never know what they 're up -to. Hang out your wash when they 're around and you 're short of linen -before you know where you are, and there 's a nigger on the trek -somewhere in a frilled petticoat or a table-cloth. They don't care what -it is; anything 'll do for them. Why, last year one of 'em sneaked a -skirt off Mrs. Jakes here. Didn't he, now?" - -"It was a very good skirt," said Mrs. Jakes, flushing. "A very good -one--not even turned." - -"Well, he was in luck, then," said Mrs. du Preez. "And what he looks -like in it--well, I give it up! Miss Harding, you ain't going yet, -surely?" - -"I 'm afraid _I_ must," put in Mrs. Jakes, seizing her opportunity. "I -have to see about dinner." - -They shook hands all round. "You must all come up to tea with me some -afternoon soon," suggested Margaret. "You will come, won't you?" - -"Will a duck swim?" inquired Mrs. du Preez, genially. "You just try us, -Miss Harding. And oh! if you want to say good-by to Paul, I know where -he 's gone. He 'll be down under the dam, makin' mud pies." - -"Not really?" - -"You just step down and see; it won't take you a moment. He makes -things, y'know; he made a sort of statue of me once. 'If that 's like -me,' I told him, 'it 's lucky I 'm off the stage.' And what d 'you -think he had the cheek to answer me? 'Mother,' he says, 'when you -forget what you look like, you look like this.'" - -"I think I will just say good-by to Paul," said Margaret, glancing at -Mrs. Jakes. - -"Come on after me, then," answered the doctor's wife. "I really must -fly." - -"Pigs might fly," suggested Mrs. du Preez, enigmatically. - -The Boer did not go to the door with them; he waited where he stood -while Mrs. du Preez, her voice waxing through the leave-takings to a -shrill climax of farewell, accompanied them to her borders. When she -returned to the little room, he was still standing in his place, -returning "Boy Bailey's" glazed stare with gloomy intensity. - -His wife looked curiously at him as she moved to the table and began to -put the scattered tea-cups together on the tray. - -"She 's a nice girl, Christian," she said, as she gathered them up. - -He did not answer, though he heard. She went on with her work till the -tray was ready to be carried forth, glancing at his brooding face under -her eyebrows. - -"Christian," she said suddenly. "I remember when you told me about the -war and the Kafir baby." - -He gave her an absent look. "You said, 'Hang the Kafir baby!'" he -answered. - -He turned from her, with a last resentful glare at the plump perfection -of Boy Bailey, and slouched heavily from the room. Mrs. du Preez, with -a pursed mouth, watched him go in silence. - -Mrs. Jakes was resolute in her homeward intentions; she had a -presentiment of trouble in the kitchen which turned out to be well -grounded. So Margaret went alone along the narrow rut of a path which -ran down towards the shining water of the dam, which the slanting sun -transmuted to a bath of gold. She was glad of the open air again, after -Mrs. du Preez's carefully guarded breathing-mixture with its faint odor -of furniture polish and horsehair. Paul, by the way, knew that elusive -fragrance as the breath of polite life; it belonged to the parlor, where -his father might not smoke, and to nowhere else, and its usual effect -was to rarefy human intercourse to the point of inanity. In the parlor, -one spoke in low tones and dared not clear one's throat and felt like an -abortion and a monstrosity. Years afterwards, when the doors of the -world had been forced and it had turned out to be a smallish place, only -passably upholstered, it needed but a sniff of that odor to make his -hands suddenly vast and unwieldy and reduce him to silence and -discomfort. - -The path skirted the dam, at the edge of which grew rank grass, and -dipped to turn the corner of the sloping wall of earth and stones at its -deeper end. As she went, she stooped to pick up a fragment of sun-dried -clay that caught her eye; it had been part of a face, and on it the -mouth still curved. It was rudely done, but it was there, and it had, -even the broken fragment that lacked the interpretation of its context, -some touch of free vigor that arrested her in the act of letting it -drop. She went on carrying it in her hand, and at the corner of the wall -stopped again at the sound of voices. Some one was talking only twenty -paces away, hidden from her by the bulk of the wall. - -"You must shape it in the lump," she heard. "You must go for the mass. -That's everything--the mass! Do you see what I mean?" - -She knew the tones, the clear modulations of the pundit-speech which -belonged to her class, but there was another quality in the voice that -was only vaguely familiar to her, which she could not identify. It -brought to her mind, by some unconscious association, the lumbering -gaiety of Fat Mary. - -"Ye-es," very slowly. That was Paul's voice answering. "Yes. Like you -see it in the distance." - -"That 's it," the baffling voice spoke again. "That 's it exactly. And -work the clay like this, without breaking it, smoothly." - -She still held the broken fragment in her hand as she stepped round the -corner of the wall to look. Paul, sitting cross-legged on the ground, -had his back to her, and facing him, with a lump of red clay between his -hands, which moved upon it deliberately, molding it with care, sat a -Kafir. He was intent upon his work, and the brim of his hat, -overhanging his eyes, prevented him from seeing her arrival. She stood -for a moment watching; the two of them made a still group to which all -the western sky and the wide land were a background. And then the clay -fragment dropped from her hand, hit on a stone underfoot and cracked -into pieces that dissolved the dumb curve of the mouth in ruin. - -At the little noise it made, Paul turned sharply and the Kafir raised -his head and looked at her. There was an instant of puzzled staring and -then the Kafir lifted his hat to her. - -"I 'll be going," he said, and began to rise to his feet. - -"Don't," said Paul. "Don't go." He was looking at the girl -expectantly, waiting for her to justify herself. Now was the time to -confirm his faith in her. "Don't go," he repeated. "It's Miss Harding -that I told you about." He hesitated a moment, and now his eyes -appealed to her. "She 's from London," he said; "she 'll understand." - -The Kafir waited, standing up, a slender, upright young man in worn -discolored clothes. To Margaret then, as to Paul in his first encounter -with him at the station, there was a shock in the pitiful, gross negro -face that went with the pleasant, cultivated voice. It added something -slavish to his travel-stained appearance that touched the girl's quick -pity. - -She stepped forward impulsively. - -"Please don't go," she begged, "I should be so sorry. And Paul will -introduce us." - -He smiled. "It shall be as you like, of course," he answered. "Will -you sit down? The grass is always dry here." - -He made an oddly conventional gesture, as though the slope of the dam -wall were a chair and he were going to place it for her. - -"Oh, thanks," said Margaret, and sat down. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - -The Kafir seated himself again in his old place and let his hand fall -upon the mass of clay which he had been fashioning for Paul's -instruction. He was the least perturbed of the three of them. He sank -his finger-tops in the soft plasticity of the stuff, and smiled across -it at the others, at the boy, embarrassed and not sure of Margaret yet, -and at her, still mastered by her curiosity. It was almost as if he -were used to being regarded with astonishment, and his self-possession -had a touch of that deliberate lime-lit quality which distinguishes the -private lives of preachers and actors and hunchbacks. - -For the rest, he seemed to be about Margaret's age, clean run and of the -middle stature. Watching him, Margaret was at a loss to discover what -it was about him that seemed so oddly commonplace and familiar till she -noted his clothes. They were "tweeds." Though he had apparently slept -on the bare ground in them and made them a buffer between his skin and -many emergencies of travel, they were still tweeds, such as any -sprightly youth of Bayswater might affect for a week-end in the country. - -It needed only a complexion and an attitude to render him inconspicuous -on a golf-course, but in that place, under the majestic sun, with the -heat-dazzle of the Karoo at his back, his very clothes made him the more -incomprehensible. - -Margaret realized that he was waiting for her to speak. - -"You model, then?" she asked, striving to speak in an altogether -matter-of-fact tone, as though to come across gifted, English-speaking -negroes, giving art lessons in odd corners, were nothing unusual. - -"Just a little," he answered. "Enough to help Paul to make a beginning. -Eh, Paul?" - -Paul nodded, turning to Margaret. "He knows lots," he said. "_He 's_ -been in London, too. It was there he learned to--to model." - -Paul had a way of uttering the word "London" which conveyed to -Margaret's ready sympathies some little part of what it meant to him, -the bright unattainable home of wonderful activities, the land of -heart's desire. - -"In London?" She turned to the Kafir, "London seems a long way from -here, doesn't it?" - -"Yes; a long way." He was not smiling now. "It is seven months since I -left London," he said; "and already it seems dim and unreal. It's as if -I 'd dreamed about it and only remembered parts of my dream." - -Paul was listening with that profound attention he seemed to give to all -things. - -"I don't feel it 's as far as all that," said Margaret. "But then, I was -there two months ago. Probably that makes a difference." - -She was only now beginning to realize the strangeness of the encounter, -and as she talked her faculties, taken by ambush and startled from their -functions, regained their alertness. She watched him composedly as he -replied. - -"Yes," he said. "And there are other differences, too. Since I left -London I have not slept under a roof." - -While he spoke he did not cease to finger the clay; as he turned it here -and there, Margaret was able to see it was the head of a negro that he -was shaping and the work was already well forward. It was, indeed, the -same head whose unexpected scowl had astonished Paul; and as he moved it -about, the still gloomy face of clay seemed to glance backward and -forward as though it heard him and doubted. - -"But why not?" demanded Margaret. - -He seemed to hesitate before answering, and meanwhile his hands were -busy and deft. - -"Why not?" she repeated. "Seven months! I don't understand. Why have -n't you slept under a roof all that time?" - -"Well!" He smiled as he spoke at last. "You see--I don't speak Kafir. -That's where the trouble is. When first I came up here, I went across to -the southern districts, where Kafirs are pretty numerous. My idea was -to live among them, in order to--well, to carry out an idea of mine." - -He paused. "They didn't know what to make of you?" suggested Margaret. - -"No--unless it was a corpse," he answered. "I don't really blame them; -they must have been horribly suspicious of me. At the first kraal I -came to--the first village, that is--I tried to make myself known to a -splendid old chap, sitting over a little fire, who seemed to be in -charge. That was awfully queer. Every man, woman and child in the -place stood round and stared and made noises of distrust--that's what -they sounded like; and the old chap just squatted in the middle and -blinked up at me without a word. I 'd heard that most of the Kafirs -about here could understand a little English, so I just talked away and -tried to look innocent and useful and I hoped I was making the right -impression. The chap listened profoundly till I had quite done, looking -as though he were taking in every word of it. Then he lifted both arms, -with exactly the movement of a cock when it 's going to crow, and two -young fellows behind him leaned down and took hold of them and helped -him very slowly to his feet. I made sure I 'd done the trick and that -he was getting up to shake hands or something. But instead of that he -groped about with his right hand in a blind, helpless kind of way, till -one of his private secretaries put a knobherry, a bludgeon with a knob -on the end, into it. And then, the poor old thing who had to be helped -to his feet took one quick step in my direction and landed me a bang on -the head with the club. I just remember that all the others burst into -screams of laughter; I must have heard them as I went down." - -"What a horrible thing!" exclaimed Margaret. - -He smiled again, his teeth flashing brilliantly in his black face. - -"It was awkward at the time," he admitted. "I came to later on the veld -where they dragged me, with a lump on my head the size of my fist. And -sore--by Jove! I was sore. Still, it's just possible I might have gone -back for another try, if the first thing I saw hadn't been a tall black -gentleman sitting at the entrance to the kraal with an assegai--a spear, -that is--ready for me. I concluded it was n't good enough!" - -"No!" Margaret agreed with him. "I should think not. But why should -they receive you like that?" - -"Perhaps," he suggested, "they learned it from the white men!" - -("He means to look ironical," Margaret thought. "It isn't a leer; it 's -irony handicapped by a negro face. Poor thing!") - -"Then you had a bad time somewhere else?" she asked aloud. "Would you -mind telling how? If you would, please don't tell me. But I 'd like to -hear." - -"Then you shall. Of course you shall." The look that tried to be -ironical vanished. "If you could only know how grateful I am for--for -this--for just your politeness. For you being what you are--" - -"Please," interrupted Margaret. "Please don't. I want to hear. Just -tell me." - -There was something pathetic in his prompt obedience. He shifted ground -at once like a child that is snubbed. - -"It was in Capetown," he said; "when I landed from the boat. There was -trouble on the boat, too; it was full of South Africans, and I had to -have my meals alone and only use the deck at certain hours. I could n't -even put my name down for a sovereign in the subscription they raised -for the ship's band; the others wouldn't have it. I only got rid of -that sovereign on the last evening, when the leader of the band came to -me as I walked up and down on the boat deck. He passed me once or twice -before he stopped to speak to me--making sure that nobody was looking. -'Hurry up!' he said, in a whisper. 'Where 's the quid you was going to -subscribe?' 'Say Sir!' I said--for the fun of the thing. He couldn't -manage it for fully a minute; his share of it wasn't more than -half-a-crown. I went on walking and left him where I stood, but as I -came back again he was ready for me. 'No offense, sir,' he said, quite -clearly. I gave him the money and passed on. But he was still there -when I turned again, and ever so anxious to put himself right with his -conscience. 'D'you know what I 'd do with you niggers if I had my way?' -he began, still in a large hoarse whisper, like air escaping from a -pipe. 'I 'd 'ave you back into slavery, I would. I 'd sell the lot of -you.' I laughed. 'You couldn't buy many of us with that sovereign!' I -told him. Really, I rather liked that man." - -"There are men like that," said Margaret thoughtfully. "And women, too." - -"Yes, aren't there?" he agreed quickly. "But I 'd rather--it 's a pity -you should know it. However, you wanted to hear about Capetown." - -The afternoon was waning; the Kafir, with his hat at the back of his -head and the rim of its brim framing his patient face, was set against a -skyful of melting color. Even in face of those two attentive hearers, he -sat as though in an immense and significant isolation, imposing himself -upon them by virtue of his strong aloofness. Margaret was conscious of a -great gulf set between them, an unbridgable hiatus of spirit and -purpose. The man saw the life of the world not from above or below but -as through a barred window, from a room in which he was prisoned and -solitary. - -He was entirely matter-of-fact as he told of his troubles and -difficulties when he landed in Capetown; he spoke of them as things -accepted, calling for no comment. On the steamer from England he had -been told of the then recent experiences of a concert party of American -negroes who visited Africa and had been obliged to sleep in the streets, -but the tale had the sound of a smoking-room ingenuity and had not -daunted him. But it was true for all that and he ran full-tilt into the -application of it, when nightfall of the day of his arrival found him -still seeking vainly for a lodging. He had money in plenty, but neither -money nor fair words availed to bribe an innkeeper into granting him a -bed. - -"But I saw a lot of Capetown," he said. "I walked that afternoon and -evening full twenty miles--once all the way out to Sea Point and back -again. And I was perhaps a little discouraged: there were so many -difficulties I hadn't expected. I knew quite well before I left England -that I should have difficulties with the whites, but I hadn't allowed -for practically the same difficulties with the blacks. There was a -place behind the railway station, a tumble-down house in which about a -dozen Kafirs were living, and I tried that. They fetched a policeman -who ordered me away, and I had to go. You see, they could n't make head -or tail of me; I was much too unusual for them to keep company with. So -about midnight I found myself walking down towards the jetty at the foot -of Adderly Street. You don't know Capetown, I suppose? The jetty -sticks out into the bay; it 's no great use except for a few boats to -land and at night it serves the purpose of the Thames Embankment for men -who have nowhere else to go. I was very tired by then. As I passed the -Van Riebeck statue, a woman spoke to me." - -He hesitated, examining Margaret's listening face, doubtfully. - -"I understand," she said. "Go on. A white woman, was it?" - -"Yes, a white woman," he replied with the first touch of bitterness she -had seen in him. "A poor devil who had fallen so far that she had lost -even the scruples of her trade. I heard her coughing in the shadow when -she was some distance from me, and saw her come out into the lamplight -still breathless, with the shadows making a ruin of her poor painted -face. But she had herself in hand; she was game. At the moment I was -near enough, she smiled--I suppose the last thing they forget is how to -smile. 'Koos!' she called to me, softly. 'Koos!' 'Koos' is the Taal -for cousin, you know; it 's a sort of familiar address. I couldn't pass -her without a word, so I stopped. 'You ought to see to that cough,' I -told her. She was horribly surprised, of course, and I rather think she -started to bolt, but her cough stopped her. It was a bad case, that--a -very bad case, and of course she wasn't sufficiently clad or nourished. -I advised her to get home to bed, and she leaned against the wall wiping -her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief wrapped round her finger so -as not to smudge the paint, and stared at me with a sort of surrender. -I got her to believe at last that I was what I said--a doctor--" - -"_Are_ you a doctor?" interrupted Margaret. - -"Yes," he answered. "I hold the London M.B.; oh, I knew what I was -talking about. When she understood it, she changed at once. She was -pretty near the end of her tether, and now she had a chance, her first -chance, to claim some one's pity. The lives they lead, those poor -smirched things! She had a landlady; can you imagine that landlady? -And unless she brought money with her, she could not even go back to her -lodgings. She told me all about it, coughing in between, under the -windows of a huge shopful of delicate women's wear, with a big arc-light -spluttering above the empty street and Van Riebeck looking over our -heads to Table Mountain. Wasn't it strange--us two homeless people, -cast out by our own folk and rejected by the other color?" - -"Yes," answered the girl; "very strange and sad." - -"It was like a dream," said the Kafir. "It was weird. But I like the -idea that she accosted a possible customer and found a deliverer. I -gave her the money she needed, of course, and listened to her lungs and -wrote her a prescription on the back of a card she produced. No real -use, you know--just something to go on with. She was past any real -help. No use going into details, but it was a bad case!" - -He shook his head thoughtfully, in a mood of gloom. - -"And then?" asked Margaret. - -"Oh, then she went away," he said, "and I watched her go. She crossed -the road, holding up her skirt clear of the mud; she was a neat, -appealing little figure in spite of everything. She passed with her -head drooped to the corner opposite and there she turned and waved her -hand to me, I waved back and she went into the shadows. She 's in the -Valley of the Shadows now, though; she hadn't far to go. - -"But you can't conceive how still and wonderful it was on the jetty, -with the water all round and the moon making a broad track of beams -across it, and over the bay the bulk of inland hills massive and -inscrutable. It was like looking at Africa from a great distance; and -yet, you know, I was born here!" - -His hands had fallen idle on the clay, but as he ceased to speak he -began to work again, with eyes cast down to his task. The light was -already failing, and as the three of them waited in the silence that -followed on his words, there reached them the dull pulse of the -gourd-drum at the farm, stealing upon their consciousness gradually. -Paul frowned as he recognized it, coming out of the trance of his -faculties unwillingly. He had sat motionless with parted lips through -the Kafir's story, so still in his absorption that the others had -forgotten his presence. - -"That 's for me," he said, slowly, but took his time about getting up. -He was looking at the Kafir with the solemn, sincere eyes of a child. - -"I would like," he said, "to make a clay of that woman." - -"Eh!" The Kafir suppressed his smile. "Time enough, Paul. Plenty of -time and plenty of clay for you to do that--and plenty of women, too." - -Paul was on his feet by now, looking down at the other two. - -"But," he hesitated, "I _must_ make it," he said. "I must." - -The Kafir nodded. "All right," he said. "You make it, Paul, and show -it to me. As you see her, you know; that 's how you must do it." - -"Yes," said Paul seriously. "Brave and smiling and dying. I know!" - -The gourd-drum throbbed insistently. He moved towards it reluctantly. -"Good night," he said. - -"Goodnight, Paul!" - -A moment later he was vague in the growing dusk, and they heard his long -whistle of answer to the drum. - -Margaret, with her chin propped on her hand, sat on the slope of the -wall. The Kafir began to put away the clay on which he had been -working. Paul's store was an abandoned ant-bear's hole across which -there trailed the broad dry leaves of a tenacious gourd. He put the -unfinished head carefully in this receptacle, and then drew from it -another object, which he held out to the girl. - -"A bit of Paul's work," he explained. - -She took it in her hand, but for the time being her interest in the -immaturities of art gave place to the strange realities in whose -presence she felt herself to be. She glanced at it perfunctorily, a -little sketch of a woman carrying a basket, well observed and -sympathetic. - -"Yes," she answered. "He has a real gift. But just now I can't think -about that. I 'm thinking about you." - -"I 've saddened you," he said. "I didn't want to do that. I should -have held my tongue. But if you could know what it means to talk to you -at all, you 'd forgive me. I 'm not regretting, you know; I 'm going -through it of my own free will; but it 's a lonely business. I 'm -always glad of a tramp making his way along the railway line, and Paul -was a godsend. But you! Oh, you 'll never understand how splendid it is -to tell you anything and have you listen to it." - -He spoke almost humbly, but with a warmth of sincerity that moved her. - -"You 'll have to tell me more," she said. "You 'll be coming here -again?" - -"Indeed I will," he replied quickly. "I 'll be here often, if only in -the hope that you 'll come down to the dam sometimes. But--there 's one -thing." - -"Yes?" asked Margaret. - -"You know, it won't do for you to be seen with me," he said gently. "It -won't do at all." - -Margaret laughed. "I think I can bear up against the ill-report of the -neighborhood," she said. "My kingdom is not of this particular world. -We won't bother about that, please." - -The Kafir shook his head. "There 's no help for it," he answered. "I -must bother about it. It bothers me so much that unless you will let me -know best in this (for I really do know) I 'll never come this way -again. Do you think I could bear it, if people talked about you for -suffering the company of a nigger? You don't know this country. It 's -a dangerous place for people who go against its prejudices. So if I am -to see you, for God's sake be careful. I 'll look forward to it -like--like a sick man looking forward to health; but not if you are to -pay for it. Not at that price." - -"Oh, well!" Margaret found the topic unpleasant. "I don't see any risk. -But you 're rather putting me into the position of the bandmaster on the -ship, are n't you? I 'm to have the sovereign; that is, I 'm to hear -what I want to hear; but only when nobody 's looking. However, it shall -be as you say." - -"Thank you." He managed to sound genuinely grateful. "You 're awfully -kind to me. You shall hear everything you want to hear. Paul can -always lay hands on me for you." - -Margaret rose to her feet. The evening struck chill upon her and she -coughed. In the growing dark, the Kafir knit his brows at the sound of -it. - -"I must be going now," she said. "Paul didn't introduce me after all, -did he? But I don't think it's necessary." - -She stood a little above him on the slope of the wall, a tall, slight -figure seen against its dark bulk. - -"I know your name," he answered. - -"And I know yours," she put in quickly. "Tell me if I 'm not right. -You 're Kamis. I 've heard about you this afternoon." - -He stared at her for a space of seconds. "Yes," he said slowly. "I 'm -Kamis. But--who told you?" - -She laughed quietly. "You see," she said, "I 've got something to tell, -too. Oh, I know lots about you; you 'll have to come and hear that, at -any rate." - -She put out her hand to him. - -"Good night, Mr. Kamis," she said. - -The Kafir bared his head before he took her hand. He seemed to have some -difficulty in speaking. - -"Good night," he said. "Good night! I'll never forget your goodness." - -He let her go and she turned back to the path that should take her past -the farmhouse and the kraals to the Sanatorium and dinner. At the turn -of the wall, its lights met her with their dazed, unwinking stare, -shining from the dining-room which had no part in the spacious night of -the Karoo and those whose place is in the darkness. She had gone a -hundred yards before she looked back. - -Behind her the western sky treasured still the last luminous dregs of -day, that leaked from it like water one holds in cupped hands. In the -middle of it, high upon the dam wall, a single human figure, swart and -motionless, stood to watch her out of sight. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - -"Looks pooty bad for the huntin'," remarked Mr. Samson suddenly, -glancing up from the crinkly sheets of the letter he was reading. "Here -'s a feller writin' to me that the ground 's like iron already. You -hunt, Miss Harding?" - -"Oh, dear, yes," replied Margaret cheerfully. "Lions and elephants -and--er--eagles. Such sport, you know!" - -"Hah!" Mr. Samson shook his head at her indulgently. "Your grandmother -wouldn't have said that, young lady. But you youngsters, you don't know -what 's good for you--by gad! Eagles, eh?" - -Once in a week, breakfast at the Sanatorium gained a vivid and even a -breathless quality from the fact that one found the weekly letters piled -between one's knife and fork, as though Mrs. Jakes knew--no doubt she -did--that her guests would make the chief part of their meal on the -contents of the envelopes. The Kafir runner who brought them from the -station arrived in the early dawn and nobody saw him but Mrs. Jakes; she -was the human link between the abstractions of the post-office and those -who had the right to open the letters and be changed for the day by -their contents. It was not invariably that the mail included letters -for her, and these too would be put in order on the breakfast table, -under the tap of the urn, and not opened till the others were down. -Then Mrs. Jakes also, like a well-connected Jack Horner, could pull from -the eloquence of her correspondents an occasional plum of information to -pass round the table. - -"Only think!" she would offer. "The Duchess of York has got another -baby. Let me see now! How many does that make?" - -It was always Mr. Samson who was down first on mail-mornings, and his -was always the largest budget. His seat was at the end of the table -nearest the window, and he would read sitting a little sideways in his -chair, with the letter held well up to the light and his right eyebrow -clenched on a monocle. Fat letters of many sheets, long letters on thin -foreign paper, newspapers, circulars--they made up enough to keep him -reading the whole morning, and thoughtful most of the afternoon. From -this feast he would scatter crumbs of fashionable or sporting -intelligence, and always he would have something to say about the state -of the weather in England when the post left, three weeks before. - -"Just think!" he continued. "Frost already--and fogs! Frost, Miss -Harding; instead of this sultry old dust-heap. How does that strike -you? Eh?" - -"It leaves me cold," returned Margaret agreeably. - -"Cold!" he retorted, snorting. "Well, I 'd give something to shiver -again, something handsome. What 's that you 're saying, Ford?" - -Ford had passed a post-card to Mrs. Jakes to read and now received it -back from her. - -"It 's Van Zyl," he replied. "He writes that he 'll be coming past this -afternoon, about tea time, and he 'll look in. I was telling Mrs. -Jakes." - -"Good!" said Mr. Samson. - -"It's a man I know," Ford explained to Margaret. "He looks me up -occasionally. He 's in the Cape Mounted Police and a Dutchman. You 'll -be in for tea?" - -"When somebody 's coming? Of course I will," said Margaret. "A -policeman, is he?" - -"Yes," answered Ford. "He 's a sub-inspector, an officer; but he was a -trooper three years ago, and he 's quite a chap to know. You see what -you think of him." - -"I 'll look at him carefully," said Margaret. "But tell me some more, -please! Is he a mute, inglorious Sherlock Holmes, or what?" - -Ford laughed. "No," he said. "No, it 's not that sort of thing, at -all. It 's just that he 's a noticeable person, don't you know? He 's -the kind of chap who 's simply born to put into a uniform and astride of -a horse; you 'll see what I mean when he comes." - -Mrs. Jakes leaned to the right to catch Margaret's eye round the urn. - -"My dear," she said seriously. "Mr. Van Zyl is the image of a perfect -gentleman." - -"All right!" said Margaret. "Between you, you 've filled me with the -darkest forebodings. But so long as it's a biped, and without feathers, -I 'll do my best." - -Her own letters were three in number. One was from an uncle who was -also her solicitor and trustee, the source of checks and worldly -counsel. His letter opened playfully; the legal uncle, writing in the -inner chamber of his offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, hoped that she did -not find the local fashions in dress irksome, and made reference to -three mosquitos and a smile. The break of a paragraph brought him to -business matters and the epistle concluded with an allusion to the -effect of a Liberal Government on markets. It was, thought Margaret, a -compact revelation of the whole mind of the legal uncle, and wondered -why she should get vaguely impatient with his implied suggestion that -she was in an uncivilized country. The next was from the strong-minded -aunt who had imposed austerity upon her choice of clothes for her -travels--a Chinese cracker of a letter, detonating along three sheets in -crisp misstatements that had the outward form of epigrams. The aunt -related, tersely, her endeavor to cultivate a physique with Indian clubs -and the consequent accident to her maid. "But arms like pipe-stems can -be trusted to break like pipe-stems," she concluded hardily. "I 've -given her cash and a character, and the new one is fat. No pipe-stems -about her, though she bruises with the least touch!" - -These two she read at the breakfast table, drinking from her coffee-cup -between the bottom of one sheet and the top of the next, savoring them -for a vintage gone flat and perished. It came to her that their writers -lived as in dim glass cases, seeing the world beyond their own small -scope as a distance of shadows, indeterminate and void, while -trivialities and toys that were close to them bulked like impending -doom. She laid down the legal uncle in the middle of a sentence to hear -of Van Zyl and did not look back to pick up the context when she resumed -her reading. The legal uncle, in her theory, had no context; he ranked -as a printer's error. It was the third letter which she carried forth -when she left the table, to read again on the stoep. - -The jargon of the art schools saves its practitioners much trouble in -accounting for those matters and things which come under their -observation, since a phrase is frequently indistinguishable from a fact -and very filling at the price. But Margaret was not ready with a name -for that quality in the third letter which caused her to read it through -again and linger out its substance. It was from a girl who had been her -school-fellow and later her friend, and later still a gracious and -rarely-seen acquaintance, smiling a welcome at chance meetings and ever -remoter and more abstracted from those affairs which occupied Margaret's -days. The name of a Kensington square stood at the head of her letter -as her address; Margaret knew it familiarly, from the grime on the iron -railings which held its melancholy garden a prisoner, to the deep areas -of its houses that gave one in passing glimpses of spacious kitchens -under the roots of the dwellings. Three floors up from the pavement, -Amy Hollyer, in her brown-papered room, with the Rossetti prints on the -wall and the Heleu etching above the mantel, had set her mild and -earnest mind on paper for Margaret's reading, news, comment, small jest -and smaller dogma, a gentle trickle of gossip about things and people -who were already vague in the past. It was little, it was trivial, but -through it there ran, like the red thread in a ripping-cord, a vein of -zest, of sheer gusto in the movement and thrill of things. It suggested -an ant lost in a two-inch high forest of lawn-grass, but it rendered, -too, some of the ant's passionate sense of adventure. - -"She 's alive," thought Margaret, laying the letter at last in her lap. -"Dear old Amy, what a wonderful world she lives in! But then, she 'd -furnish any world with complications." - -Twenty feet way, Ford had his little easel between his outstretched legs -and was frowning absorbedly from it to the Karoo and back again. Twenty -feet away on her other side, Mr. Samson was crackling a three-weeks-old -copy of _The Morning Post_ into readable dimensions. Before her, across -the railing of the stoep, the Karoo lifted its blind face to the -gathering might of the sun. - -"Even this," continued Margaret. "She 'd find this inexhaustible. She -was born with an appetite for life. I seem to have lost mine." - -From the great front door emerged to the daylight the solid rotundity of -Fat Mary, billowing forth on flat bare feet and carrying in her hand a -bunch of the long crimson plumes of the aloe, that spiky free-lance of -the veld which flaunts its red cockade above the abomination of -desolation. Fat Mary spied Margaret and came padding towards her, her -smile lighting up her vast black face with the effect of "some great -illumination surprising a festal night." - -"For Missis," she remarked, offering the crimson bunch. - -Margaret sat up in her chair with an exclamation. "Flowers!" she said. -"Are they flowers? They 're more like great thick feathers. Where did -you get them, Mary?" - -Fat Mary giggled awkwardly. "A Kafir bring 'um," she explained. "He -say--for Missis Harding, an' give me a ticky (a threepenny piece). -Fool--that Kafir!" - -Margaret stared, holding the fat, fleshy crimson things in her hands. - -"Oh!" she said, understanding. "Where is he, Mary? The Kafir, I mean?" - -Fat Mary shook her head placidly. "Gone," she said; and waved a great -hand to the utter distance of the heat haze. "That Kafir gone, Missis. -He come before breakfus'; Missis in bed. Say for Missis Harding an' -give me ticky. Fool! Talk English--an' boots!" - -She shrugged mightily to express the distrust and contempt she could not -put into words. - -"Boots!" she repeated darkly. - -"Well," said Margaret, "they 're very pretty, anyhow." - -Fat Mary wrinkled her nose. "Stink," she observed. "Missis smell 'em. -Stink like a hell! Missis throw 'um away." - -Margaret looked at the stout woman and smiled. Fat Mary's hostility to -the Kafir and the aloe plumes and the ticky was plainly the fruit of -jealousy. - -"I won't throw them away yet," she said. "I want to look at them first. -But did you know the Kafir, Mary?" - -"Me!" Fat Mary drew herself up. "No, Missis--not know that _skellum_. -Never see him before. What for that Kafir come here, an' bring -stink-flowers to my Missis? An' boots? Fool, that Kafir! _Fool_!" - -"All right, Mary," said Margaret, conciliatingly. "Very likely he won't -come again. So never mind this time." - -Fat Mary smiled ruefully. Most of her emotions found expressions in -smiles. - -"That Kafir come again," she said thoughtfully, "I punch 'im!" - -And comforted by this resolve, she retired along the stone stoep and -betook herself once more to her functions indoors. - -At his post further along the stoep, Ford was looking up with a smile, -for the sounds of Fat Mary's grievance had reached him. Margaret did -not notice his attention; she was turning over the great bouquet of cold -flaunting flowers which had come to her out of the wilderness, as though -to remind her that at the heart of it there was a voice crying. - -Ford's friend was punctual to his promise to arrive for tea. Upon the -stroke of half-past four he reined in his big horse at the foot of the -steps and swung stiffly from the saddle. He came, indeed, with -circumstances of pomp, armed men riding before him and captives padding -in the dust between them. Old Mr. Samson sighted him while he was yet -afar off and cried the news and the others came to look. - -"Who 's he got with him?" demanded Mr. Samson, fumbling his papers into -the pockets of his writing case. "Looks like a bally army. Can you see -what it is, Ford?" - -Ford was staring with narrowed eyes through the sunshine. - -"Yes," he said slowly. "He 's got prisoners. But what 's he bringing -them here for?" - -"Prisoners? Oh, do let me look!" - -Margaret came to his side and followed his pointing finger with her -eyes. A blot of haze was moving very slowly towards them over the -surface of the ground, and through it as she watched there broke here -and there the shapes of men and horses traveling in that cloud of dust. - -"Why, they 're miles away," she exclaimed. "They'll be hours yet." - -"Say half-an-hour," suggested Ford, his face still puckered with the -effort to see. "They 're moving briskly, you know. He 's shoving them -along." - -"But why prisoners?" enquired Margaret. "What prisoners could he get on -the Karoo? There 's nobody to arrest." - -"Van Zyl seems to have found somebody, anyhow," answered Ford. "I had a -glimpse of people on foot. But I can't imagine why he brings 'em here." - -"Ask him," suggested Mr. Samson. "What 's your hurry? Wait till he -comes and then ask him." - -First Mrs. Jakes and then the doctor joined the spectators on the stoep -as the party drew out of the distance and defined itself as a string of -Kafirs on foot, herded upon their way by five Cape Mounted Police with a -tall young officer riding in the rear. It was a monstrous phenomenon to -emerge thus from the vagueness and mystery of the haze, and Margaret -uttered a sharp exclamation of distress as it came close and showed -itself in all its miserable detail. There were perhaps twenty Kafirs, -men and women both, dusty, lean creatures with the eyes, at once -timorous and untameable, of wild animals. They shuffled along -dejectedly, their feet lifting the dust in spurts and wreaths, their -backs bent to the labor of the journey. Three or four of the men were -handcuffed together, and these made the van of the unhappy body, but -save for these fetters, there was nothing to distinguish one from -another. Their separate individualities seemed merged in a single -slavishness, and as they turned their heads to look at the white people -elevated on the stoep, they showed only a row of white hopeless eyes. -Beside them as they plodded, the tall beautiful horses had a look of -nonchalance and superiority, and the mounted men, bored and thirsty, -looked over their heads as perfunctorily as drovers keeping watch on -docile cattle. - -"How horrible!" said Margaret, in a low voice, for the officer, followed -by an orderly, was at the foot of the steps. - -The prisoners and their guards did not halt; they continued their way -past the house and on towards the opposite horizon. Their backs, as -they departed, showed gray with clinging dust. - -Sub-Inspector Van Zyl, booted and spurred, trim in his dust-smirched -blue uniform, with his holster at his hip and the sling across his tight -chest, lifted his hand in the abrupt motions of a salute as he received -Mrs. Jakes' greeting. - -"Kind of you," he said, with a sort of curt cordiality and the least -touch in life of the thick Dutch accent. "Most kind! Tea 's the very -thing I 'd like. Thank you." - -At sight of Margaret, grave and young, as different from Mrs. Jakes as -if she had been of another sex, a slight spark lit in his eye for a -moment and there was an even stronger abruptness of formality in his -salute. His curiously direct gaze rested upon her several times during -the administration of tea in the drawing-room, where he sat upright in -his chair, with knees apart, as though he were still astride of a horse. -He was a man made as by design for the wearing of official cloth. His -blunt, neatly-modeled Dutch face, blond as straw where it was not tanned -to the hue of the earth of the Karoo, had the stolid, responsible cast -that is the ensign of military authority. His uniform stood on him like -a skin; and his mere unconsciousness of the spurs on his boots and the -revolver on his hip strengthened his effect of a man habituated to the -panoply and accoutrement of war. Even his manners, precise and ordered -like a military exercise, never slackened into humanity; the Dutch -Sub-Inspector of Cape Mounted Police might have been a Prussian -Lieutenant with the eyes of the world on him. - -"Timed myself to get here for tea," he explained to Ford. "Just managed -it, though. Hot work traveling, to-day." - -Hotter, thought Margaret, for those of his traveling companions who had -no horses under them, and who would not arrive anywhere in time for tea. - -"You seem to have made a bag," replied Ford. "What 's been the trouble?" - -"Fighting and looting," answered Sub-Inspector Van Zyl carelessly. "A -row between two kraals, you know, and a man killed." - -"Any resistance?" enquired Ford. - -"A bit," said Van Zyl. "My sergeant got his head split open with an -axe. Those niggers in the south are an ugly lot and they 'll always -fight. You see, it 's only about twenty years ago they were at war with -us; it 'll need another twenty to knock the fighting tradition out of -'em." - -"They looked meek enough as they passed," remarked Ford. "There didn't -seem to be a kick left among them." - -Van Zyl nodded over the brim of his tea-cup. "There isn't," he said -shortly. "They 've had the kick taken out of 'em." - -He drank imperturbably, and Margaret had a momentary blurred vision of -defeated, captured Kafirs in the process of having the kick extracted -from them and the serene, fair-haired sub-inspector superintending its -removal with unruffled, professional calm. - -"Been here long, Miss Harding?" - -Van Zyl addressed her suddenly across the room. - -"Not quite long enough to understand," she replied. "Did you say those -poor creatures were fighting--among themselves?" - -"Yes." - -"But why?" she persisted. "What did they fight for?" - -He shrugged his neat shoulders. "Why does a Kafir do anything?" he -enquired. "They told a cock-and-bull story that seems to be getting -fashionable among them of late, about a son of one of their old chiefs -appearing among them dressed like a white man. He went from kraal to -kraal, talking English and giving money, and at one kraal the headman, -an old chap who used to be a native constable of ours, actually seems to -have laid his stick across some wandering nigger who couldn't explain -what he wanted. The next kraal heard of this, and decided at once that -a chief had been insulted, and the next thing was a fight and the old -headman with an assegai through him. But if you want my opinion, Miss -Harding--it does n't make such a good story, but I 've had to do with -niggers all my life--" - -"Yes?" said Margaret. "Tell me." - -"Well," said Van Zyl, "my opinion is that if the old headman had n't -been the owner of twelve head of cattle, all ready to be stolen, he -might have gone on whacking stray Kafirs all his life without hurting -anybody's feelings." - -"Except theirs," suggested Mr. Samson. "Hah, ha! Except the chaps that -he whacked--what?" - -"Quite so!" Sub-Inspector Van Zyl smiled politely. "He was a vigorous -old gentleman, and rather given to laying about him with anything that -came handy. Probably picked up the habit in the police; the Kafir -constables are always pretty rough with people of their own color. -Anyhow, he 's done for; they drove a stabbing assegai clean through him -and pinned him to a post of his own hut. I think I 've got the nigger -that did it." - -Mrs. Jakes at the tea-table shook her skirts applaudingly. At any rate, -the rustle of them as she shook came in like applause at the tail of the -sub-inspector's narrative. - -"He ought to be hanged," she said. - -"He will be," said the sub-inspector. "But we 're not at the bottom of -it yet. There is a fellow, so far as I can find out, coming and going -on the Karoo, dressed in clothes and talking a sort of English. He 's -the man I want." - -"What for?" demanded Margaret, and knew that she had spoken too sharply. -Van Zyl seemed to remark it, too, for his eye dwelt on her inquiringly -for a couple of seconds before he replied. - -"It'll probably be sedition," he replied. "The whole lot of 'em are -uneasy down in the south there and we 're strengthening our posts. No!" -he said, to Mrs. Jakes' exclamation; "there 's no danger. Not the -slightest danger. But if we could just lay hands on that wandering -nigger who talks English--" - -He left the sentence unfinished, and his nod signified that dire -experiences awaited the elusive Kafir when he should come into the -strong hands of authority. The Cape Mounted Police, he replied, would -cure him of his eccentricities. - -He passed on to talk with Ford and Mrs. Jakes about common -acquaintances, officers in the police and the Rifles and people who -lived in Dopfontein, sixty miles away, and belonged to a tennis club. -Then the sound of the softly-closing door advertised them of the tiptoe -departure of Dr. Jakes, and soon afterwards Van Zyl rose and announced -that he must leave to overtake his party. - -"If you can come to Dopfontein, Miss Harding," he said, as he took his -leave, "hope you 'll let me know. Decent little place; we 'll try to -amuse you." - -The orderly, refreshed but dusty still, came quickly to attention as the -sub-inspector appeared in the doorway, and his pert cockney face took on -the blankness proper to discipline. At a window above, Fat Mary shed -admiring glances upon him, and a certain rigor of demeanor might have -been taken to indicate that the warrior was not unconscious of them. He -looked back over his shoulder as he cantered off in the wake of the -sub-inspector. - -"What 's the trouble?" asked Ford, discreetly, as the sun-warmed dust -fluffed up and enveloped the riders in a soft cloud of bronze. - -Margaret turned impatiently from looking after them. - -"I hate cruelty," she said, irritably. - -Ford looked at her shrewdly. "Of course you do," he said. "But Van -Zyl's not cruel. What he said is true; he 's been among Kafirs all his -life." - -"And learned nothing," retorted Margaret. "It 's beastly; it's just -beastly. He can't even think they ever mean well; they only fight to -steal, according to him. And then he 'takes the kick out of them!' -Some day he 'll work himself up to crucify one of them." - -"Hold on," said Ford. "You mustn't get excited; you know, Jakes doesn't -allow it. And you 're really not quite just to Van Zyl." - -"Isn't he proud of it?" asked Margaret scornfully. - -"I wonder," said Ford. "But it 's just as likely he 's proud of -policing a smallpox district single-handed and playing priest and nurse -when he was only paid to be jailer and executioner. He got his -promotion for that." - -"Mr. Van Zyl did that?" asked Margaret incredulously. "Did he arrange to -have the deaths over in time for tea?" - -Ford laughed shortly. "You must ask him," he replied. "He 'll probably -say he did. He 's very fond of tea. But at any rate, he sees as much -downright hard fighting in a year as a man in the army might see in a -lifetime and--" he looked at Margaret out of the corners of his -eyes--"the Kafirs swear by him." - -"The Kafirs do?" asked Margaret incredulously. - -"They swear by him," Ford assured her. "You try Fat Mary some time; she -'ll tell you." - -"Oh, well," said Margaret; "I don't know. Things are beastly, anyhow, -and I don't know which is worse--cruelty to Kafirs or the Kafirs' -apparent enjoyment of it. That man has made me miserable." - -Ford frowned. "Don't be miserable," he said, awkwardly. "I hate to -think you 're unhappy. You know," he went on, more fluently as an -argument opened out ahead of him, "you 've no business really to concern -yourself with such things. You don't belong among them. You 're a bird -of passage, just perching for a moment on your way through, and you -mustn't eat the local worms. It 's poaching." - -"There 's nothing else to eat," replied Margaret lugubriously. - -"You should have brought your knitting," said Ford. "You really should! -Capital thing for staying the pangs of hunger, knitting!" - -"Thank you," said Margaret. "You 're very good. But I prefer worms. -Not so cloying, you know!" - -She did not, however, act upon Ford's suggestion to ask Fat Mary about -the sub-inspector. Even as rats are said to afford the means of travel -to the bacillus of bubonic plague, it is probable that the worms of a -country furnish vehicles for native prejudices and habits of mind. At -any rate, when Margaret surveyed Fat Mary, ballooning about the room and -creased with gaiety, there came to her that sense of the impropriety of -discussing a white man with her handmaid which is at the root of South -African etiquette. - -"Them flowers gone," announced Fat Mary tranquilly, when Margaret was in -bed and she was preparing to depart. - -"Gone! Where?" asked Margaret. - -"I throw 'um away," was the contented answer. "Stink--pah! So I throw -'um. Goo' night, missis." - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - -"Don't you some times feel," asked Margaret, "as though dullness had -gone as far as it possibly can go, and something surprising simply must -happen soon?" - -Ford glanced cautiously about him before he answered. - -"Lots of things might happen any minute to some of us," he said. "You -haven't been ill enough to know, but we are n't all keen for surprises." - -It was evening, and the big lamp that hung from the ceiling in the -middle of the drawing-room breathed a faint fragrance of paraffin upon -the inhabitants of the Sanatorium assembled beneath it. From the piano -which stood against the wall, Mrs. Jakes had removed its usual load of -photographs and ornamental pottery, and now, with her back to her fellow -creatures, was playing the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana." Her -small hands moving upon the keys showed the red knuckles and uneven -nails which had come to her since first she learned that composition -within earshot of the diapason of trains passing by Clapham Junction, -mightily challenging her laborious tinkle-tinkle, and with as little -avail as now the night of the Karoo challenged it. Like her gloves and -her company manners, it stood between her shrinking spirit and those -poignant realities which might otherwise have overthrown her. So when -she came to the end of it she turned back the pages of the score which -was propped before her, and without glancing at the notes, played it -through again. - -"For instance," whispered Ford, under cover of the music; "look at -Jakes. He carries a catastrophe about with him, don't you think?" - -The doctor was ranging uneasily to and fro on the hearth-rug, where the -years of his exile were recorded in patches worn bare by his feet. -There was already a change to be remarked in him since Margaret had -first made his acquaintance; some of his softness and appealing -guiltiness was gone and he was a little more desperate and unresponsive. -She had mentioned this once to Ford, who had frowned and replied, "Yes, -he 's showing the strain." She looked at him now covertly. He was -walking to and fro before the empty fireplace with quick, unequal steps -and the fingers of one hand fidgeted about his mouth. His eyes, -flickering back and forth, showed an almost frantic impatience; poor -Mrs. Jakes' melodious noises that smoothed balm upon her soul were -evidently making havoc with his nerves. He seemed to have forgotten, in -the stress of his misery, that others were present to see him and enter -his disordered demeanor upon their lists of his shortcomings. As he -faced towards her, Margaret saw the sideward sag of his mouth under his -meager, fair mustache and the panic of his white eyeball upturned. His -decent black clothes only accentuated the strangeness of him. - -"He looks dreadful," she said; "dreadful. Oughtn't you to go to him--or -something?" - -"No use." Ford shook his head. "_I_ know. But I wish he 'd go to his -study, all the same. If he stays here he may break down." - -"Why doesn't he go?" asked Margaret. - -"He can't make up his mind. He 's at that stage when to decide to do -anything is an effort. And yet the chap 's suffering for the only thing -that will give his nerves relief. Can't help pitying him, in spite of -everything, when you see him like that." - -"Pitying him--yes," agreed Margaret. Mrs. Jakes with her foot on the -soft pedal, was beginning the intermezzo again for the fifth time and -slurring it dreamily to accord with her brief mood of contentment and -peace. - -"You know," Margaret went on, "it 's awfully queer, really, that I -should be in the same room with a man in that condition. Three months -ago, I couldn't have borne it. Except sometimes on the streets, I don't -think I 'd ever seen a drunken man. I must have changed since then in -some way." - -"Learned something, perhaps," suggested Ford. "But you were saying you -found things dull. Well, it just struck me that you 'd only got to lift -up your eyes to see the makings of a drama, and while you 're looking -on, your lungs are getting better. Aren't you a bit hard to satisfy?" - -"Am I? I wonder." They were seated at opposite ends of a couch which -faced them to the room, and the books which they had -abandoned--loose-backed, much-handled novels from the doctor's inelastic -stock of literature--lay face down between them. Margaret looked across -them at Ford with a smile; he had always a reasonable answer to her -complainings. - -"You don't take enough stock in human nature," he said seriously. "Too -fastidious--that's what you are, and it makes you miss a lot." - -"Perhaps you 're right," she answered. "I 've been thinking something -of the kind myself. A letter I had--from a girl at home--put it in my -mind. She writes me six sheets all about the most trivial and futile -things you can imagine, but she speaks of them with bated breath, as it -were. If only she were here instead of me, she 'd be simply thrilled. -I wish you knew her." - -"I wish I did," he said. "I 've always had an idea that the good -Samaritan was a prying, inquisitive kind of chap, and that 's really -what made him cross the road to the other fellow. He wanted to know -what was up, in the first place, and the rest followed." - -"Whereas--" prompted Margaret. "Go on. What 's the moral?" - -Ford laughed. "The moral is that there 's plenty to see if you only -look for it," he answered. - -"I 've seen one thing, at any rate, without looking for it, since I 've -been here," retorted Margaret. "Something you don't know anything about, -Mr. Ford." - -"What was that?" he demanded. "Nothing about Jakes, was it?" - -"No; nothing about him." - -She hesitated. She had it in her mind to speak to him about the Kafir, -Kamis, and share with him that mystery in return for the explanations -which he could doubtless give of its less comprehensible features. But -at that moment Mrs. Jakes ceased playing and began to put the score -away. - -"I 'll tell you another time," she promised, and picked up her book -again. - -The cessation of the music seemed to release Dr. Jakes from the spell -which had been holding him. He stopped walking to and fro and strove to -master himself for the necessary moment before his departure. He turned -a writhen, twitching face on his wife. - -"You played it again and again," he said, with a sort of dull -resentment. - -Mrs. Jakes looked up at him swiftly, with fear in her eyes. - -"Don't you like it, Eustace?" she asked. - -He only stared without answering, and she went on speaking hurriedly to -cover him. - -"It always seems to me such a sweet piece," she said. "So haunting. -Don't you think so, Miss Harding? I 've always liked it. I remember -there was a tea-room in Oxford Street where they used to have a band in -the afternoons--just fiddles and a piano--and they used to play it -there. Many 's the time I 've dropped in for a cup of tea when I was -shopping--not for the tea but just to sit and listen. Their tea wasn't -good, for the matter of that, but lots of people went, all the same. -Tyler's, was the name, I remember now. Do you know Tyler's, Miss -Harding?" - -She was making it easy for the doctor to get away, after his custom, but -either the enterprise of making a move was too difficult for him or else -an unusual perversity possessed him. At any rate, he did not go. He -stood listening with an owlish intentness to her nervous babble. - -"I know Tyler's very well," answered Margaret, coming to her aid. -"Jolly useful place it is, too. But I don't remember the band." - -"_I_ used to go to the Queen's Hall," put in Dr. Jakes hoarsely. -"Monday afternoons, when I could get away. And afterwards, have dinner -in Soho." - -From the window, where Mr. Samson lay in an armchair in apparent torpor, -came a wheeze, and the single word, "Simpson's." - -Margaret laughed. "How sumptuous," she said. "Now, Mr. Ford, you tell -us where you used to go." - -"Club," answered Ford, promptly. "I had to have something for my -subscription, you know, so I went there and read the papers." - -Mrs. Jakes was watching her husband anxiously, while Ford and Margaret -took up the burden of inconsequent talk and made a screen of -trivialities for her. But to-night Dr. Jakes needed expression as much -as whisky; there was the hopeless, ineffectual anger of a baited animal -in his stare as he faced them. - -"Why aren't any of you looking at me?" he said suddenly. - -None answered; only Mr. Samson sat up on his creaking armchair of -basketwork with an amazed, "Eh? What 's that?" Margaret stared -helplessly and Mrs. Jakes, white-faced and tense, murmured imploringly, -"Eustace." - -"Dodging with your eyes and babbling about tea-shops," said the doctor -hotly. "You think, because a man 's a bit--" - -"Eustace," cried Mrs. Jakes, clasping her hands. "Eustace _dear_." - -It was wonderful to notice how her habit of tone held good in that peril -which whitened her face and made her tremble from head to foot as she -stood. From her voice alone, one would have implied no more than some -playful extravagance on the doctor's part; she still hoped that it could -be carried off on the plane of small affairs. - -"You would go out without a proper hat on, Jakes," said Ford suddenly. -"Feel stuffy in the head, don't you?" - -"What do you mean--stuffy?" demanded Jakes. - -But already the vigor that had spurred him to a demonstration was -exhausted and the need for alcohol, the burning physical famine for -nerve-reinforcement, had him in its grip. - -"Stuffy?" repeated Ford, watching him closely. "Oh, you know what I -mean. I 've seen chaps like it heaps of times after a day in the sun; -they get the queerest fancies. You really ought to get a proper hat, -though." - -Mrs. Jakes took him by the arm persuasively. "Don't you think you 'd -better lie down for a bit, Eustace--in the study?" - -"In the study?" He blinked twice or thrice painfully, and made an -endeavor to smile. "Yes, perhaps. This--er--stuffy feeling, you -know--yes." - -His wife's arm steered him to the door, and once out of the room he -dropped it and fairly bolted across the echoing hall to his refuge. In -the drawing-room they heard his eager feet and the slam of the door that -shut him in to his miserable deliverance from pain, and the double snap -of the key that locked out the world and its censorious eyes. - -"You--you just managed it," said Margaret to Ford. The queer -inconsequent business had left her rather breathless. "But wasn't it -horrible?" - -"Some day we shan't be able to talk him down, and then it 'll be worse," -answered Ford soberly. "That 'll be the end for Mrs. Jakes' home. But -you played up all right, you know. You did the decent thing, and in -just the right way. And I was glad, because, you know, I 've never been -quite sure how you 'd shape." - -"You thought I 'd scream for help, I suppose," suggested Margaret. - -"No," he replied slowly. "But I often wondered whether, when the time -came, you 'd go to your room or stay and lend a hand. Not that you -wouldn't be quite right to stand out, for it 's a foul business, all -this, and there 's nothing pretty in it. Still, taking sides is a sign -of life in one's body--and I 'm glad." - -"That's all right, then," said Margaret. "And it 's enough about me for -the present, too. You said that some day it won't be possible any more -to talk him down. Did you mean--some day _soon_?" - -"Goodness knows," said Ford. He leaned back and turned his head to look -over the back of the couch at Mr. Samson. "Samson," he called. - -"Yes; what?" - -"That was bad, eh! What's the meaning of it?" - -Mr. Samson blew out his breath windily and uncrossed his thin legs. -"Don't care to go into it before Miss Harding," he said pointedly. - -"Oh, bother," exclaimed Margaret. "Don't you think I want to know too?" - -"Well, then," said Mr. Samson, with careful deliberation, "since you ask -me, I 'd say it was a touch of the horrors casting its shadow before. -He doesn't exactly see things, y' know, but that 's what 's coming. -Next thing he knows, he 'll see snakes or cuttle-fish or rats all round -the room and he 'll--he 'll gibber. Sorry, Miss Harding, but you wanted -to know." - -"But--but--" Margaret stared aghast at the feeble, urbane old man -asprawl in the wicker chair, who spoke with genial authority on these -matters of shadowy horror. "But how can you possibly know all this?" - -Mr. Samson smiled. He considered it fitting and rather endearing that a -young woman should be ignorant of such things and easily shocked when -they were revealed. - -"Seen it all before, my dear young lady," he assured her. "It 's -natural you should be surprised, but it's not so uncommon as you think. -Why, I remember, once, in '87, a feller gettin' out of a cab because he -said there was a bally great python there--a feller I knew; a member of -Parliament." - -Margaret looked at Ford, who nodded. - -"He knows all right," he said, quietly. "But I don't think you need be -nervous. When it comes to that, we 'll have to do something." - -"I 'm not nervous--not in that way, at least," said Margaret. -"Only--must it come to that? Isn't there anything that can be done?" - -"If we got a doctor here, the chances are he 'd report the matter to the -authorities," said Ford. "This place is licensed or certified or -something, and that would be the end of it. And then, even if there -wasn't that, it isn't easy to put the matter to Mrs. Jakes." - -"I--I suppose not," agreed Margaret thoughtfully. "Still, if you decided -it was necessary--you and Mr. Samson--I 'd be willing to help as far as -I could. I wouldn't like to see Mrs. Jakes suffer for lack of anything -I could do." - -"That's good of you," answered Ford. "I mean--good of you, really. We -won't leave you out of it when the time comes, because we shall need -you." - -"Always knew Miss Harding was a sportsman," came unexpectedly from Mr. -Samson in the rear. And then the handle of the door, which was loose -and arbitrary in its workings, rattled warningly and Mrs. Jakes -re-appeared. - -She made a compunctious mouth, and expressed with headshakes a sense -that all was not well, though perfectly natural and proper, with the -doctor. Her eyes seemed rather to dwell on Margaret as she gave her -bulletin. - -"Mr. Ford was perfectly right about the hat," she said. "Perfectly -right. He ought to have one of those white ones with a pugaree. He -never was really strong, you know, and the sun goes to his head at once. -But what can I do? He simply won't listen to me when I tell him we -ought to go Home. The number of times I 've said to him, 'Eustace, give -it up; it 's killing you, Eustace,'--you wouldn't believe. But he 's -lying down now, and I think he 'll be better presently." - -Mr. Samson spoke again from the background. He didn't believe in -hitting a man when he was down, Mr. Samson didn't. - -"Better have that pith helmet of mine," he suggested. "That 's the thing -for him, Mrs. Jakes. No sense in losin' time while you 're writin' to -hatters--what?" - -"You 're very good, Mr. Samson," answered Mrs. Jakes, gratefully, -pausing by the piano. "I 'll mention it to the doctor in the morning; I -'m sure he 'll be most obliged. He 's--he 's greatly troubled, in case -any of you should feel--well--annoyed, you know, at anything he said." - -"Poor Dr. Jakes," said Margaret. "Of course not," chorused the others. -"Don't know what he means," added Mr. Samson. - -Mrs. Jakes looked from one to another, collecting their responses and -reassuring herself. - -"He 'll be so glad," she said. "And now, I wonder--would you mind if I -just played the intermezzo a little again?" - -The easy gradual cadences of the music resumed its government of the -room as Mrs. Jakes called up images of less poignant days to aid her in -her extremity, sitting under the lamplight very upright and little upon -the pedestal stool. For the others also, those too familiar strains -induced a mood of reflection, and Margaret fell back on a word of Ford's -that had grappled at her mind and fallen away again. His mention of the -need of a doctor and the difficulty of obtaining one who could be relied -upon to keep a shut mouth concerning Dr. Jakes' affairs returned to her, -and brought with it the figure of Kamis, mute, inglorious, with his -London diploma, wasting his skill and knowledge literally on the desert -air. While Mrs. Jakes, quite involuntarily, recalled the flavor of the -music-master of years ago, who played of nights a violin in the -orchestra of the Putney Hippodrome and carried a Bohemian glamour about -him on his daily rounds, Margaret's mind was astray in the paths of the -Karoo where wandered under the stars, unaccountable and heartrending, a -healer clothed with the flesh and skin of tragedy. She remembered him -as she had seen him, below the dam wall, with Paul hanging on his words -and the humble clay gathering shape under his hands, lifting his blunt -negro face to her and speaking in deliberate, schooled English of how it -fared in Africa with a black man who was not a savage. He had thanked -her then very movingly for merely hearing him and being touched by the -pity and strangeness of his fate, and had promised to come to her -whenever she should signify a wish to speak with him again. The wish -was not wanting, but the opportunity had failed, and since then the only -token of him had been the scarlet aloe plumes, fruit of the desert -gathered in loneliness, which he had conveyed to her by the hands of Fat -Mary. Like himself, they came to her unexpected and unexplained, and -she had had them only long enough to know they existed. - -Her promise to Kamis to keep her acquaintance with him a secret had -withheld her so far from sharing the matter with Ford, though she told -herself more than once that in his particular case the promise could not -apply. With him she was sure there could be no risk; he would take his -stand on the clear facts of the situation and be free from the first -from the silly violence of thought which complicates the racial question -in South Africa. She had even pictured to herself his reception of the -news, when he received it, say, across the top of his little easel; he -would pause, the palette knife between his fingers, and frown -consideringly at the sticky mess before him on the canvas. His lean, -sober, courageous face would give no index to the direction of his mind; -he would put it to the test of his queer, sententious logic with all due -deliberation, till at last he would look up decidedly and commit himself -to the reasonable and human attitude of mind. "As I see it," he would -probably begin; or "Well, the position 's pretty clear, I think. It 's -like this." And then he would state the matter with all his harsh, -youthful wisdom, tempered a little by natural kindliness and gentleness -of heart. And all would be well, with a confidant gained into the -bargain. But, nevertheless, he had not yet been told. - -Mrs. Jakes was perfunctory, that evening with her good nights; with all -her efforts to appear at ease the best she could do was to appear a -little absent-minded. She gave Margaret her breakfast smile instead of -her farewell one and stared at her curiously as she stood aside to let -the girl pass up-stairs. She had the air of passing her in review. - -It seemed to Margaret that she had been asleep for many hours when she -was awakened and found the night still dark about her. Some blurred -fragments of a dream still clung to her and dulled her wits; she had -watched again the passing before the stoep of Van Zyl's captives and -seen their dragging feet lift the dust and the hopelessness of their -white eyes. But with them, the mounted men seemed to ride to the -accompaniment of hoofs clattering as they do not clatter on the dry -earth of the Karoo; they clicked insistently like a cab horse trotting -smartly on wood pavement, and then, when that had barely headed off her -thoughts and let her glimpse a far vista of long evening streets, -populous with traffic, she was awake and sitting up in her bed, and the -noise was Mrs. Jakes standing in the half-open door and tapping on the -panels to wake her. She carried a candle which showed her face in an -unsteady, upward illumination and filled it unfamiliarly with shadows. - -"What is it?" called Margaret. "Come in, Mrs. Jakes. Is there anything -wrong?" - -Mrs. Jakes entered and closed the door behind her. She was fully dressed -still, even to the garnet brooch she wore of evenings, which she had -once purchased from a countess at a bazaar. Stranger far, she wore an -embarrassed, confidential little smile as though some one had turned a -laugh against her. She came to Margaret's bedside and stood there with -her candle. - -"My dear," she said; "I know it's very awkward, but I feel I can trust -you. We are friends, aren't we?" - -"Yes," said Margaret, staring at her. "But what is it?" - -"Well," said Mrs. Jakes, very deliberately, and still with the same -little smile, "it 's an awkward thing, but I want you to help me. I -don't care to ask Mr. Samson or Mr. Ford, because they might not -understand. So, as we 're friends--" - -"Is anybody dead?" demanded Margaret. - -Mrs. Jakes made a shocked face. "Dead. No. My dear, if that was it, -you may be sure I should n't trouble you. No, nobody 's dead; it 's -nothing of that kind at all. I only just want a little help, and I -thought--" - -"You 're making me nervous," said Margaret. "I 'll help if I can, but -do say what it is." - -Mrs. Jakes' smile wavered; she did not find it easy to say what it was. -She put her candle down upon a chair, to speak without the strain of -light on her face. - -"It's the doctor," she said. "He's had a--a fit, my dear. He thought a -little fresh air would do him good and he went out. And the fact is, I -can't quite manage to get him in by myself." - -"Eh?" Margaret stared. "Where is he?" she asked. - -"He got as far as the road and then he fell," said Mrs. Jakes. "I -wouldn't dream of troubling you, my dear, but I 'm--I 'm rather tired -to-night and I really couldn't manage by myself. And then I remembered -we were friends." - -"Not till then?" asked Margaret. "You don't care to wake Mr. Ford? He -wouldn't misunderstand." - -"Oh, no--please," begged Mrs. Jakes, terrified. "No, _please_. I 'd -rather manage alone, somehow--I would, really." - -"You can't do that," said Margaret, decidedly. She sat a space of -moments in thought. The doctor's fit did not deceive her at all; she -knew that for one of the euphemisms that made Mrs. Jakes' life livable -to her. He was drunk and incapable upon the road before the house, and -Mrs. Jakes, helpless and frightened, had waked her in the middle of the -night to help bring the drunken man in and hide him. - -"I 'll help you," she said suddenly. "Don't you worry any more, Mrs. -Jakes; we 'll manage it somehow. Let me get some things on and we 'll -go out." - -"It 's very kind of you, my dear," said Mrs. Jakes humbly. "You 'll put -some warm things on, won't you? The doctor would never forgive me if I -let you catch cold." - -Margaret was fumbling for her stockings. - -"I 'm not very strong, you know," she suggested. "I 'll do all I can, -but hadn't we better call Fat Mary? She 's strong enough for anything." - -"Fat Mary! A Kafir!" Mrs. Jakes forgot her caution and for the moment -was shrill with protest. "Why--why, the doctor would never hold up his -head again. It wouldn't do at _all_; I simply couldn't _think_ of it." - -"Oh, well. As you like; I did n't know. Here 's me, anyhow; and -awfully willing to be useful." - -But Mrs. Jakes had been startled in earnest. While Margaret completed a -sketchy toilet she stood murmuring: "A Kafir! Why, the very idea--it -would break the doctor's heart." - -With her dressing-gown held close about her, Margaret went down-stairs -by the side of Mrs. Jakes and her candle, with the abrupt shadows -prancing before them on wall and ceiling like derisive spectators of -their enterprise. But there was no sense of adventure in it; somehow -the matter had ranged itself prosaically and Mrs. Jakes, prim and -controlled, managed to throw over it the commonplace hue of an -undertaking which is adequately chaperoned. The big hall, solemn and -reserved, had no significant emptiness, and from the study there was -audible the ticking of some stolid little clock. - -The front door of the house was open, and a faint wind entered by it and -made Margaret shiver; it showed them a slice of night framed between its -posts and two misty still stars like vacant eyes. - -"It 's not far," said Mrs. Jakes, on the stoep, and then the faint wind -rustled for a moment in the dead vines and the candle-flame swooped and -went out. - -"You haven't matches, my dear?" enquired Mrs. Jakes, patiently. "No? -But we 'll want a light. I could fetch a lantern if you wouldn't mind -waiting. I think I know where it is." - -"All right," agreed Margaret. "I don't mind." - -It was the first thrill of the business, to be left alone while Mrs. -Jakes tracked that lantern to its hiding-place. Margaret slowly -descended the steps from the stoep and sat down on the lowest of them to -look at the night. There was a touch of chill in it, and she gathered -herself up closely, with her hands clasped around her knees. The wide -sleeves of the dressing-gown fell back and left her arms bare to the -elbow and the recurring wind, like a cold breath, touched her on the -chest where the loose robe parted. The immensity of the night, veiling -with emptiness unimaginable bare miles, awed her like a great presence; -there was no illumination, or none but the faintest, making darkness -only apparent, from the heavenful of pale blurred stars that hung over -her. Behind her, the house with those it held was dumb; it was the Karoo -that was vocal. As she sat, a score of voices pressed upon her ears. -She heard chirpings and little furtive cries, the far hoot of some bold -bird and by and by the heartbroken wailing of a jackal. She seemed to -sit at the edge of a great arena of unguessed and unsuspected destinies, -fighting their way to their fulfilment in the hours of darkness. And -then suddenly, she was aware of a noise recurring regularly, a civilized -and familiar noise, the sound of footsteps, of somebody walking on the -earth near at hand. - -She heard it before she recognized it for what it was, and she was not -alarmed. The footsteps came close before she spoke. - -"Is anybody there, please?" she called. - -The answer came at once. "Yes," it said. - -"Who is it?" she asked again, and in answer to her question, the -night-walker loomed into her view and stood before her. - -She rose to her feet with a little breathless laugh, for she recognized -him. - -"Oh, it 's you," she exclaimed. "Mr. Kamis, isn't it? But what are you -doing here at this time of night?" - -It was not light enough to see his face; she had recognized him by the -figure and attitude; and she was glad. She was aware then that she -rather dreaded the negro face of him. - -"What are you doing, rather?" he asked. "Does anybody know you 're out -here like this? Is it part of some silly treatment, or what?" - -"I 'm waiting for Mrs. Jakes," said Margaret. "She 's coming with a -lantern in a minute or two and you 'll have to go. It's all right, -though; I shan't take any harm." - -"I hope not." He was plainly dissatisfied, and it was very strange to -catch the professional restraint in his voice. "Your being here--if I -may ask--hasn't got anything to do with a very drunk man lying in the -road over there?" - -"You 've seen him, then?" asked Margaret. "It is just drunkenness, of -course?" - -He nodded. "But why--?" he began again. - -"That's Dr. Jakes," explained Margaret. "And I 'm going to help Mrs. -Jakes to fetch him in, quietly, so that nobody will know. So you see -why you must keep very quiet and slip away before she sees you--don't -you?" - -There was a pause before he answered. - -"But, good Lord," he burst out. "This is--this is damnable. You can't -have a hand in this kind of thing; it 's impossible. What on earth are -these people thinking of? You mustn't let them drag you into -beastliness of this kind." - -"Wait," said Margaret. "Don't be so furious. Nobody is dragging me into -anything, and I don't think I 'm a very draggable person, anyhow. I 'd -only to be a little shocked once or twice and I should never have heard -of this. I 'm doing it because--well, because I want to be useful and -Mrs. Jakes came to me and asked, 'Was I her friend?' That isn't very -clear to you, perhaps, but there it is." - -"Useful." He repeated the word scornfully. "Useful--yes. But do you -mean that this is the only use they can find for you?" - -"I 'm an invalid," said Margaret placidly. "A crock, you know. I 've -got to take what chances I can find of doing things. But it 's no use -explaining such a thing as this. If you 're not going to understand and -be sympathetic, don't let 's talk about it at all." - -He did not at once reply. She stood on the last step but one and looked -down towards him where he stood like a part of the night, and though she -could see of him only the shape, she showed to him as a tall -slenderness, with the faint luminosity of bare arms and face and neck. -He seemed to be staring at her very intently. - -"Anyhow," he said suddenly--"what is wanted principally is to bring him -in. That is so, is n't it? Well, I 'll fetch him for you. Will you be -satisfied with that?" - -"No, you mustn't," said Margaret. "Mrs. Jakes wouldn't allow it. Never -mind why. She simply wouldn't." - -"I know why," he answered. "I 've come across all that before. But -this Kafir has seen the state of that white man. That does n't make any -difference? No?" - -Margaret had shaken her head. "I 'm awfully sorry," she said. "I feel -like a brute--but if you had seen her when I suggested getting help. It -was the one thing that terrified her. You see, it 's her I want to -help, much more than Dr. Jakes, and she must have her way. So please -don't be hurt, will you?" - -He laughed a little. "Oh, _that_ doesn't hurt me," he said. "If it -were you, it would be different, but Mrs. Jakes can't help it. -However--do you know where this man keeps his drugs?" - -"In the study," answered Margaret. "In there, on the left. But why?" - -"I 'm a doctor too; you 'd forgotten that, had n't you? If I had two or -three things I could mix something that would sober him in a couple of -minutes." - -"Really?" Margaret considered it for a minute, but even that would not -do. She could not bring herself to brave Mrs. Jakes' horror and sense -of betrayal when she should see the deliverer who came out of the night. -And, after all, it was she who had claimed Margaret's help. "We're -friends, aren't we?" she had asked, and the girl had answered "Yes." It -was not the part of a friend to press upon her a gift that tasted -pungently of ruin and shame. - -"No," said Margaret. "Don't offer any more help, please. It hurts to -keep on refusing it. But it isn't what Mrs. Jakes woke me up to beg of -me and it isn't what I got up from bed to grant her. Can't you see what -I mean? I 've told you all about it, and I 'm trusting you to -understand." - -"I understand," he answered. "But I hate to let you go down to that -drunken beast. And suppose the pair of you can't manage him--what will -you do then? You 'll have to get help somewhere, won't you?" - -"I suppose so," said Margaret. - -"Well, get me," he urged, and came a pace nearer, so that only the width -of the two bottom steps separated them and she could feel his breath -upon the hands that hung clasped before her. "Let me help, if you need -it," he begged. "I 'll wait, out of sight. Mrs. Jakes shan't guess I 'm -there. But I won't be far, and if you just call quietly, I 'll hear. -It--it would be kind of you--merciful to let me bear just a hand. And -if you don't call, I 'll not show myself. There can't be any harm in -that." - -"No," agreed Margaret, uncertainly. "There can't be any harm in that." - -She saw that he moved abruptly, and had an impression that he made some -gesture almost of glee. But he thanked her in quiet tones for her grace -of consent. - -Mrs. Jakes, returning, found Margaret as she had left her. She had in -her hand one of those stable lanterns which consist of a glass funnel -protected by a wire cage, and she spilled its light about her feet as -she went and walked in a shifting ring of light through a darkness made -more opaque by the contrast. There was visible of her chiefly her worn -elastic-sided boots as she came down the steps with the lantern swinging -in her hand; and the little feet in those uncomely coverings were -somehow appealing and pathetic. - -"I found it in Fat Mary's room," she explained. "She nearly woke up when -I was taking it." - -Margaret wondered whether Kamis were near enough to hear and acute -enough to picture the tiptoe search for the lantern by the bedside of -snoring Kafirs, the breathless halts when one stirred, the determination -that carried the quest through, and the prosaic matter-of-factness of it -all. - -They stumbled their way arm in arm across the spit of patched grass that -stood between the house and the road, and the lantern diffused about -them a yellow haze. Then their feet recognized soft loose dust and they -were on the road and moving along it. - -"It is n't far," said Mrs. Jakes, in her flat quiet voice. "Be careful, -my dear; there are sometimes snakes on the road at night." - -Dr. Jakes was apparent first as an indeterminate bulk against the dust -that spread before them under the lantern. Mrs. Jakes saw him first. - -"He has n't moved," she remarked. "I was rather afraid he might have. -These fits, you know--he 's had them before." - -She stood at his head, with the lantern held before her, like a sentinel -at a lying-in-state, and the whole unloveliness of his slumbers was -disclosed. He sprawled upon the road in his formal black clothes, with -one arm outstretched and his face upturned to the grave innocence of the -night. It had not the cast of repose; he seemed to have carried his -torments with him to his couch of dust and to brood upon them under his -mask of sleep. What was ghastly was the eyelids which were not fully -shut down, but left bare a thin line of white eyeball under each, and -touched the broken countenance with deathliness. His coat, crumpled -about him and over him, gave an impression of a bloated and corpulent -body, and he was stained from head to foot with dust. - -Mrs. Jakes surveyed him without emotion. - -"He 's undone his collar, anyhow," she remarked. - -"Did n't you do it?" asked Margaret, seeing the white ends that rose on -each side of his chin. - -"No; I forgot," was the answer. "He can't be very bad, since he did -that." - -Margaret detected the hand of Kamis in this precaution. She said -nothing, but stooped with Mrs. Jakes to try to rouse the doctor. The -sickening reek of the man's breath affronted her as she bent over him. - -Mrs. Jakes shook him and called on him by name in a loud half-whisper, -lowering her face close to his ear. She was persuasive, remonstrant; she -had the manner of reasoning briskly with him and rousing him to better -ways. - -"Eustace, Eustace," she called, hushing her tones as though the night -and the desert were perilous with ears. "Come, Eustace; you can get up -if you try. Make just one effort, now, and you 'll be all right." - -The gurgle of his breath was the only answer. - -"We 'll have to lift him," she said, staring across his body at -Margaret. - -"All right," agreed the girl. - -"Get hold of his right arm and I 'll take his left," directed Mrs. -Jakes. "If we get him on his feet, perhaps he 'll rouse. Are you -ready?" - -Margaret closed her lips and put forth the strength that she had, and -between them they dragged him to a sitting posture, with his head -hanging back and his heels furrowed deep in the dust. - -"Now, if I can just get behind him," panted Mrs. Jakes. "Don't let go. -That's it. Now! Could you just help to lift him straight up?" - -Margaret went quickly to her aid. It had become horrible. The gross -carcass in their hands was inert like a flabby corpse, and its mere -weight overtaxed them. They wrestled with it sobbingly, to the noise of -their harsh breath and the shuffle of their straining feet on the grit -of the road. Suddenly Margaret ceased her laboring and the doctor -collapsed once more upon the ground. - -"Why did you do that?" cried Mrs. Jakes. "He was nearly up." - -"It was my chest," answered Margaret weakly. "It--it hurt." - -There was a warm feeling in her throat and a taste in her mouth which -she knew of old. She found her handkerchief and dabbed with it at her -lips. The feeble light of the lantern showed her the result--the red -spots on the white cambric. - -"It 's just a strain," said Mrs. Jakes, dully. "That 's all. The doctor -will see to it to-morrow. If you rest a moment, you 'll be all right." -She hesitated, but her husband and her life's credit lay upon the ground -at her feet, and she could not weigh Margaret's danger against those. -"You wouldn't leave me now, my dear?" she supplicated. - -"No," said the girl, after a moment's pause. "I won't leave you." - -"What 's that?" cried Mrs. Jakes and put a quick frightened hand upon -her arm. "Listen! Who is it?" - -Steps, undisguised and clear, passed from the grass to the stone steps -of the house and ascended, crossed the stoep and were lost to hearing in -the doorway. - -The two women waited, breathless. It sprang to Margaret's mind that the -lantern must have shown her clearly to Kamis, where he waited in the -darkness, and he must have seen the climax of her efforts and her -handkerchief at her lips, and gone forthwith to the study for the drugs -which would put an end to the matter. - -"Look," whispered Mrs. Jakes. "Some one is striking matches--in the -study." - -The window brightened and darkened again and then lit with a steady -glow; the invader had found a candle. Mrs. Jakes dropped Margaret's arm. - -"I must see who it is," she said. "Walking into people's houses like -this." - -Margaret held her back; she was starting forthwith to bring the majesty -of her presence to bear on the unknown and possibly dangerous intruder. -Mrs. Jakes had a house as well as a husband and could die at need for -either. - -"No, don't go," said Margaret. "I know who it is. It's all right, if -only you won't be--well, silly about it." - -"Who is it, then?" demanded Mrs. Jakes. - -Margaret felt feeble and unequal to the position. Her chest was -painful, she was cold, and now there was about to be a delicate affair -with Mrs. Jakes. She could have laughed at the growing complexity of -things, but had the wit not to. - -"It 's a doctor," she said; "a real London doctor. He was passing when -you left me to get the lantern, and I wouldn't let him stay because I -thought you 'd be annoyed. He 's gone into the house to--" - -"Does he know?" whispered Mrs. Jakes, feverishly, thrusting close to -her. "Does he know--about this?" Her downward-pointing finger -indicated the slumbers of Dr. Jakes. "Say, can't you--does he know?" - -"He 'd seen him," said Margaret. "I expect he loosened the collar--you -know. He wanted to help but I wouldn't let him." - -"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Mrs. Jakes again, still in the same -agitated whisper. - -"Yes," answered Margaret. "He is. It 's all right, really, if only you -'ll be sensible and not make a fuss. He 'll help us and then he 'll go -away and he 'll say nothing. You did n't think I 'd do anything to hurt -you, did you? Are n't we friends?" - -Mrs. Jakes stood silent; she asked no questions as to how a London -doctor, a friend of Margaret's, chanced to be walking upon the Karoo at -night. - -"Well," she said at last, with a long sigh; "perhaps we might have -needed some help, in any case." - -That was all she said, till the footsteps came again across the stoep -and down the steps, more deliberately this time, as though something -were being carried with precaution. Then they were noiseless for a -minute or more on the grass, and at last the figure of Kamis came into -the further edge of the lighted circle. - -"I had to do it," he said, before either of them could speak, and showed -the graduated glass in his hand. "I saw you with your handkerchief." - -Margaret, with an instinct of apprehension, looked at Mrs. Jakes. At -the first dim view of him, she had roused herself from her dejection, -and put on her prim, social face to meet the London doctor effectively. -Her little meaningless smile was bent for him; she would make a -blameless and uneventful drawing-room of the August night and guard it -against unseemly dramatics. - -He turned from Margaret towards her and came further into the -lamp-light, and she had a clear view of the black face and sorrowful, -foolish negro features. She uttered a gasp that was like a low cry and -stood aghast, staring. - -"Madam," began Kamis. - -She shivered. "A Kafir," she said. "The doctor will never forgive us." -And then, wheeling upon Margaret, "And I 'll never forgive you. You -said we were friends--and this is what you do to me." - -"Mrs. Jakes," implored Margaret. "You must be sensible. It 's all -right, really. This gentleman--" - -"This gentleman," Mrs. Jakes uttered a passionate spurt of laughter. -"Do you mean this nigger? Gentleman, you call it? A London doctor? A -friend of yours? A friend. Ha, ha!" She spun round again towards -Kamis, waiting with the glass in his hand, the liquid in which shone -greenish to the lamp. "_Voetzaak!_" she ordered, shrilly. "_Hamba -wena--ch'che. Skellum. Injah. Voetzaak!_" - -Kamis stood his ground. He cast a look at Margaret, past Mrs. Jakes, -and spoke to her. - -"Will she let me give him this?" he asked. "Tell her I am a doctor and -this will bring him to very quickly. And then I 'll go away at once and -never say a word about it." - -"Don't you dare touch him," menaced Mrs. Jakes. "A filthy Kafir--I -should think so, indeed." - -Kamis went on in the same steady tone. "If she won't you must go in at -once and send for another doctor to-morrow. This man ought to be -reported." - -"You dare," cried Mrs. Jakes. "You 'd report him--a Kafir." She edged -closer to the prostrate body of Dr. Jakes and stood beside it like a -beast-mother at bay. "I 'll have you locked up--walking into my -husband's study like that." - -"Mrs. Jakes." Margaret tried once more. "Please listen. If you 'll -only let the doctor have this drink, he 'll be able to walk. If you -don't, he 'll have to stay here. I am your friend; I got up when you -came to me and I said I wouldn't leave you even when I hurt my chest. -Doesn't that prove that I am? I wouldn't do you any harm or shame you -before other people for anything. What will Dr. Jakes say if he finds -out that you let me stay here pleading when I ought to be in bed? He 's -a doctor himself and he 'll be awfully annoyed--after telling me I -should get well, too. Aren't you going to give him a chance--and me?" - -Mrs. Jakes merely glared stonily. - -"Come," said Margaret. "Won't you?" - -Kamis uttered a smothered exclamation. "I won't wait," he said. "I 'll -count ten, slowly. Then Miss Harding must go in and I go away." - -"Oh, don't begin that sort of thing," cried Margaret. "Mrs. Jakes is -going to be sensible. Aren't you?" - -There was no reply, only the stony and hostile stare of the little woman -facing them and the gray image of disgrace. - -"One," counted Kamis clearly. "Two. Three." - -He counted with the stolid regularity of a clock; he made as though to -overturn the glass and waste its contents in the dust as soon as he -should have reached ten. "Ten," he uttered, but held it safely still. -"Well?" - -Mrs. Jakes did not move for some moments. Then she sighed and, still -without speaking, moved away from the slumbering doctor. She walked a -dozen paces from the road and stood with her back to them. - -With quick skilful movements, Kamis lifted the unconscious man's head to -the crook of his arm and the rim of the glass clicked on his teeth. -Margaret walked after Mrs. Jakes. - -"Come," she said gently. "I don't misunderstand. You trusted me or you -would n't have waked me. Everything will be all right soon and then you -'ll forgive me." - -"I won't--never." - -Mrs. Jakes would not face her. She stood looking into the blackness, -tense with enmity. - -"Well, I hope you will," said Margaret. - -They heard grunts from the doctor and then quavering speech and one rich -oath, and a noise of spitting. The Kafir approached them noiselessly -from behind and paused at Margaret's side. - -"That's done the trick," he said; "and he doesn't even know who gave him -the draft. You 'll go in now?" - -"Yes," said Margaret. "You _have_ been good, though." - -Mrs. Jakes had returned to her husband; they were for the moment alone. - -"I didn't mean to force your hand," he whispered. "But I had to. A -doctor has duties." - -She gave him her hand. "There was something I wanted to tell you, but -there 's no time to explain now. Did you know you were wanted by the -police?" - -"Bless you, yes." He smiled with a white flash of teeth. "Were you -going to warn me? How kind! And now, in you go, and good night." - -Dr. Jakes was sitting up, spitting with vigor and astonishment. He had -taken a heroic dose of hair-raising restoratives on the head of a -poisonous amount of whisky, and his palate was a moldering ruin. But -the clearness of his faculties left nothing to be desired. - -"Who 's that?" he demanded at sight of Margaret. "Miss Harding. How do -you come to be out here at this time?" - -"You should time your fits more decently, doctor," answered Margaret -coolly. - -Mrs. Jakes hastened to explain more acceptably. "I was frightened, -Eustace. You looked so bad--and these fits are terrible. So I asked -Miss Harding if she wouldn't come and help me." - -"A patient," said the doctor. He turned over and rose stiffly to his -feet, dust-stained all over. He stood before her awkwardly. - -"I am unfortunate," he said. "You are in my care and this is what -happens. It is my misfortune--and my fault. You 'll go back to bed -now, Miss Harding, please." - -"Sure there 's nothing more you want?" inquired Margaret. - -"At once, please," he repeated. "In the morning--but go at once now." - -On the stoep she paused to listen to them following after her and heard -a portion of Mrs. Jakes' excuses to her husband. - -"You looked so dreadful, Eustace, and I was frightened. And then, you -'re so heavy, and I suppose I was tired, and to-night I couldn't quite -manage by myself, dear." - -Margaret passed in at the door in order to cough unheard, that nothing -might be added to the tale of Mrs. Jakes' delinquencies. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - -"And what have we here?" said the stranger loudly. "What have we here, -now?" - -Paul, sitting cross-legged in his old place under the wall of the dam, -with a piece of clay between his fingers, looked round with a start. -The stranger had come up behind him, treading unheard in his burst and -broken shoes upon the soft dust, and now stood leaning upon a stick and -smiling down upon him with a kind of desperate jauntiness. His attitude -and manner, with their parody of urbane ease, had for the moment power -to hide the miserable shabbiness of his clothes, which were not so much -broken and worn as decayed; it was decay rather than hardship which -marked the whole figure of the man. Only the face, clean-shaven save -for a new crop of bristles, had some quality of mobility and temper, and -the eyes with which he looked at Paul were wary and hard. - -"Oh, nothing," said Paul, uneasily, covering his clay with one hand. -"Who are you?" - -The stranger eyed him for some moments longer with the shrewdness of one -accustomed to read his fortune in other men's faces, and while he did so -the smile remained fixed on his own as though he had forgotten to take -it off. - -"Who am I!" he exclaimed. "My boy, it 'd take a long time to tell you. -But there 's one thing that perhaps you can see for yourself--I 'm a -gentleman." - -Paul considered this information deliberately. - -"Are you?" he said. - -"I 'm dusty," admitted the other; "dusty both inside and out. And I 'm -travelin' on foot--without luggage. So much I admit; I 've met with -misfortunes. But there 's one thing the devil himself can't take away -from me, and that 's the grand old name of gentleman. An' now, my lad, -to business; you live at that farm there?" - -"Yes," replied Paul. This tramp had points at which he differed from -other tramps, and Paul stared at him thoughtfully. - -"So far, so good," said the stranger. "Question number two: does it run -to a meal for a gentleman on his travels, an' a bed of sorts? Answer me -that. I don't mean a meal with a shilling to pay at the end of it, -because--to give it you straight--I 'm out of shillings for the present. -Now, speak up." - -"If you go up there, they 'll give you something to eat, and you can -sleep somewhere," said Paul, a little puzzled by the unusual rhetoric. - -The stranger nodded approvingly. "It's all right, then?" he said. -"Good--go up one. But say! Ain't you going there yourself pretty -soon?" - -"Presently," said Paul. - -"Then, if it 's all the same to you," said the stranger, "I 'll wait and -go up with you. Nothing like being introduced by a member," he added, -as he lowered himself stiffly to a seat among the rank grass under the -wall. "Gives a feller standing, don't it?" - -He took off his limp hat and let himself fall back against the slope of -the wall, grunting with appreciation of the relief after a day's tramp -in the sun. His rather full body and thin legs, ending in a pair of -ruinous shoes that let his toes be seen, lay along the grass like an -obscene corpse, and above them his feeble, sophisticated face leered at -Paul as though to invite him to become its confidant. - -"You go on with what you 're doing," urged the stranger. "Don't let me -hinder you. Makin' marbles, were you--or what?" - -"No," said Paul. He hesitated, for an idea had come to him while he -watched the stranger. "But--but if you 'll do something for me, I 'll -give you a shilling." - -"Eh?" The other rolled a dull eye on him. "It isn't murder, is it? I -should want one-and-six for that. I never take less." - -Paul flushed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "I only want you -to keep still like that while I--while I make a model of you. You said -you had n't got any shillings just now." - -"Did I say that?" inquired the stranger. "Well, well! However, chuck -us over your shilling and I 'll see what I can do for you." - -He made a show of biting the coin and subjecting it to other tests of -its goodness while the boy looked on anxiously. Paul was relieved when -at last he pocketed it and lay back again. - -"I 'll get rid of it somehow," he said. "It's very well made. And now, -am I to look pleasant, or what?" - -"Don't look at all," directed Paul. "Just be like--like you are. You -can go to sleep if you like." - -"I never sleep on an empty stomach," replied the stranger, arranging -himself in an attitude of comfort. - -"Is this all right for you? Fire away, then, Mike Angelo. Can I talk -while you 're at it?" - -"If you want to," answered Paul. The clay which he had been shaping was -another head, and now he kneaded it out of shape between his hands and -rounded it rudely for a sketch of the face before him. The Kafir, -Kamis, had bidden him refrain from his attempts to do mass and detail at -once, to form the features and the expression together; but Paul knew he -had little time before him and meant to make the most of it. The tramp -had his hands joined behind his head and his eyes half-closed; he -offered to the boy the spectacle of a man beaten to the very ground and -content to take his ease there. - -"D'you do much of this kind of thing?" asked the tramp, when some silent -minutes had passed. - -"Yes," said Paul, "a lot." - -"Nothing like it, is there?" asked the other. He spoke lazily, absorbed -in his comfort. "We 've all got our game, every bally one of us. Mine -was actin'." - -"Acting?" Paul paused in his busy fingering to look up. "Were you an -actor?" - -The actors he knew looked out of frames in his mother's little parlor, -intense, well-fed, with an inhuman brilliance of attire. - -"Even me," replied the tramp equably. He did not move from his posture -nor uncover his drowsy eyes; the swollen lids, in which the veins stood -out in purple, did not move, but his voice took a rounder and more -conscious tone as he went on: "And there was a time, my boy, when actin' -meant me and I meant actin'. In '87, I was playing in 'The Demon -Doctor,' and drawing my seven quid a week--you believe me. Talk of -art--why! I 've had letters from Irving that 'd make you open your -eyes." - -"I 've heard about Irving," said Paul, glancing back and fore from his -clay to the curiously pouched mouth of his recumbent model. - -"Fancy," exclaimed the tramp softly. "But it was a great game, a great -game. Sometimes, even now, I sort of miss it. And the funny thing -is--it is n't the grub and the girls and the cash in my breeches pocket -that I miss so much. It 's the bally work. It 's the work, my boy." -He seemed to wonder torpidly at himself, and for some seconds he -continued to repeat, as though in amazement: "It 's the work." He went -on: "Seems as if once an actor, always an actor, don't it? A feller 's -got talent in him and he 's got to empty it out, or ache. Some sing, -some write, some paint; you prod clay about; but I 'm an actor. Time -was, I could act a gas meter, if it was the part, and that 's my trouble -to this day." - -He ceased; he had delivered himself without once looking up or -reflecting the matter of his speech by a change of expression. For all -the part his body or his features had in his words, it might have been a -dead man speaking. Paul worked on steadily, giving small thought to -anything but the shape that came into being under his hands. His -standard of experience was slight; he knew too little of men and their -vicissitudes to picture to himself the processes by which the face he -strove to reproduce sketchily could have been shaped to its cast of -sorrowful pretense; he only felt, cloudily and without knowledge, that -it signaled a strange and unlovely fate. - -His knack served him well on that evening, and besides, there was not an -elusive remembrance of form to be courted, but the living original -before him. The tramp seemed to sleep; and swiftly, with merciless -assurance, the salient thing about him came into existence between -Paul's hands. Long before the light failed or the gourd-drum at the -farmhouse door commenced its rhythmic call, the thing was done--a mere -sketch, with the thumb-prints not even smoothed away, but stamped none -the less with the pitiless print of life. - -"Done it?" inquired the tramp, rousing as Paul uncrossed his legs and -prepared to put the clay away. "Let 's have a look?" - -"It wants to be made smooth," explained Paul, as he passed it to him. -"And it's soft, of course, so don't squeeze it." - -"I won't squeeze it," the tramp assured him and took it. He gazed at it -doubtfully, letting it lie on his knee. "Oho!" he said. - -"It's only a quick thing," said Paul. "There was n't time to do it -properly." - -"Wasn't there?" said the tramp, without looking up. "It 's like me, is -it? Damn you, why don't you say it and have done with it?" - -"Why," cried Paul bewildered, and coloring furiously. "What's the -matter? It _is_ like you. I modeled it from you just now as you were -lying there." - -"An' paid me a shilling for it." The tramp thrust an impetuous hand -into his pocket; possibly he was inspired to draw forth the coin and -fling it in Paul's face. If so, he decided against it; he looked at the -coin wryly and returned it to its place. - -"Well," he said finally; "you 've got me nicely. The cue is to shy you -and your bally model into the dam together--an' what about my supper? -Eh? Yes, you 've got me sweetly. Here, take the thing, or I might make -up my mind to go hungry for the pleasure of squashing it flat on your -ugly mug." - -"You don't like it?" asked Paul, as he received the clay again from the -tramp's hands. He did not understand; for all he knew, there were men -who surprised their mothers by being born with that strange stamp upon -them. - -The tramp gave him a slow wrathful look. "The joke 's on me," he -answered. "_I_ know. I look a drunk who 's been out all night; I 'm -not denying it. I 've got a face that 'll get me blackballed for -admission to hell. I know all that and you 've made a picture of it. -But don't rub it in." - -Paul looked at the clay again, and although the man's offense was -dawning on his understanding, he smiled at the sight of a strong thing -strongly done. - -"I didn't mean any joke," he protested. - -"Let 's call it a joke," said the tramp. "Once when I was nearly dying -of thirst up beyond Kimberly, a feller that I asked for water gave me a -cup of paraffin. That was another joke. Tramps are fair game for you -jokers, aren't they? Well, if that meal you spoke about wasn't a joke, -too, let 's be getting up to the house." - -"All right," said Paul. He hesitated a minute, for he hated to part -with the thing he had made. "Oh, it can go," he exclaimed, and threw -the clay up over the wall. It fell into the dam above their heads with -a splash. - -"I didn't mean any joke, truly," he assured the tramp. - -"Don't rub it in," begged the other. "We don't want to make a song -about it. And anyhow, I want to try to forget it. So come on--do." - -They came together through the kraals and across the deserted yard to -the house-door, the tramp looking about him at the apparatus of well-fed -and well-roofed life with an expression of genial approval. Paul would -have taken him round to the back-door, but he halted. - -"Not bad," he commented. "Not bad at all, considering. An' this is the -way in, I suppose." - -"We 'd better go round," suggested Paul, but the tramp turned on the -doorstep and waved a nonchalant hand. - -"Oh, this 'll do," he said, and there was nothing for Paul to do but to -follow him into the little passage. - -The door of the parlor stood open, and within was Mrs. du Preez, -flicking a duster at the furniture in a desultory fashion. The tramp -paused and looked at her appraisingly. - -"The lady of the house, no doubt," he surmised, with his terrible showy -smile, before she could speak. "It 's the boy, madam; he wouldn't take -no for an answer. I _had_ to come home to supper with him." - -His greedy quick eyes were busy about the little room; they seemed to -read a price-ticket on each item of its poor pretentious furniture and -assess the littleness of those signed and framed photographs which -inhabited it like a company of ghosts. - -"Why," he cried suddenly, and turned from his inspection of these last -to stare again at Mrs. du Preez. - -His plausible fluency had availed for the moment to hide the quality of -his clothes and person, but now Mrs. du Preez had had time to perceive -the defects of both. - -"What d'you mean?" she demanded. "How d 'you get in here? Who are -you?" - -The tramp was still staring at her. "It 's on the tip of my tongue," he -said. "Give me a moment. Why"--with a joyous vociferation--"who 'd ha' -thought it? It 's little Sinclair, as I 'm a sinnair--little Vivie -Sinclair of the old brigade, stap my vitals if it ain't." - -"What?" - -The man filled the narrow door, and Paul had to stoop under his elbow to -see his mother. She was leaning with both hands on the table, searching -his face with eyes grown lively and apprehensive in a moment. The old -name of her stage days had power to make this change in her. - -"Who is it?" she asked. - -"Think," begged the tramp. "Try! No use? Well--" he swept her a -spacious bow, battered hat to heart, foot thrown back--"look on this -picture"--he tapped his bosom--"and on that." His big creased -forefinger flung out towards the photograph which had the place of honor -on the crowded mantel-shelf and dragged her gaze with it. - -"It 's not--" Mrs. du Preez glanced rapidly back and forth between the -living original and the glazed, immaculate counterfeit--"it isn't--it -can't be--_Bailey_?" - -"It is; it can," replied the tramp categorically, and Boy Bailey, in the -too, too solid flesh advanced into the room. - -Mrs. du Preez had a moment of motionless amaze, and then with a flushed -face came in a rush around the table to meet him. They clasped hands -and both laughed. - -"Why," cried Mrs. du Preez; "if this don't--but Bailey! Where ever do -you come from, an' like this? Glad to see you? Yes, I am glad; you 're -the first of the old crowd that I 've seen since I--I married." - -"Married, eh?" The tramp tempered an over-gallant and enterprising -attitude. "Then I mustn't--eh?" - -His face was bent towards hers and he still held her hands. - -"No; you mustn't," spoke Paul unexpectedly, from the doorway, where he -was an absorbed witness of the scene. - -They both turned sharply; they had forgotten the boy. - -"Don't be silly, Paul," said his mother, rather sharply. "Mr. Bailey -was only joking." But she freed her hands none the less, while Mr. -Bailey bent his wary gaze upon the boy. - -The interruption served to bring the conversation down to a less -emotional plane, and Paul sat down on a chair just within the door to -watch the unawaited results of promising a meal to a chance tramp. The -effect on his mother was not the least remarkable consequence. The veld -threw up a lamentable man at your feet; in charity and some bewilderment -you took him home to feed him, and thereupon your mother, your weary, -petulant, uncertain mother, took him to her arms and became, by that -unsavory contact, pink and vivacious. - -"There 's more of you," said Mrs. du Preez, making a fresh examination -of her visitor. "You 're fatter than what you were, Bailey, in those -old days." - -Boy Bailey nodded carelessly. "Yes, my figure 's gone too," he agreed; -"gone with all the rest. Friends, position, reputation--all but my -spirits and my talents. I know. Ah, but those were good times, weren't -they?" - -"Too good to last," sighed Mrs. du Preez. - -"They didn't last for me," said Boy Bailey. "When we broke down at -Fereira--lemme see! That must be nearly twenty years ago, ain't it?--I -took my leave of Fortune. Never another glance did I get from her; not -one bally squint. I did advance agent for a fortune-teller for a bit; I -even came down to clerking in a store. I 've been most things a man can -be in this country, except rich. And why is it? What 's stood in my way -all along? What 's been my handicap that holds me back and nobbles me -every time I face the starter?" - -"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez sympathetically. - -"I don't need to tell you," continued Boy Bailey, "you not being one of -the herd, that it 's temperament that has me all the time. I don't -boast of it, but you know how it is. You remember me when I had scope; -you 've seen me at the game; you can judge for yourself. A man with -temperament in this country has got as much chance as a snowflake in -hell. Perhaps, though, you 've found that out for yourself before now." - -"Don't I know it," retorted Mrs. du Preez. "Bailey, if you 'll believe -me, I have n't heard that word 'temperament,' since I saw you last. -Talk of scope--why you can go to the winder there and see with your eyes -all the scope I 've had since I married. It 's been tough, Bailey; it -'s been downright tough." - -"Still--" began Mr. Bailey, but paused. "We must have another talk," he -substituted. "There 's a lot to hear and to tell. Do you think you -could manage to put me up for a day or two? I suppose your husband -wouldn't mind?" - -"Why should he?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "You 're the first in all these -years. Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you was to have a change of -clothes before he sees you, Bailey. It isn't me that minds, you know; -so far as that goes, you 'd be welcome in anything; but--" - -Boy Bailey waved her excuses away. "I understand," he said. "I -understand. It's these prejudices--have your own way." - -The resources of Christian du Preez's wardrobe were narrow, and -Christian's wife was further hampered in the selection of clothes for -her guest by a doubt whether, if she selected too generously, Christian -might not insist on the guest stripping as soon as he set eyes on him. -Her discretion revealed itself, when Mr. Bailey was dressed, in a -certain sketchiness of his total effect, an indeterminate quality that -was not lessened by the fact that all of the garments were too narrow -and too long; and though no alteration of his original appearance could -fail to improve it, there was no hiding his general character of slow -decay. - -"It 's hardly a disguise," commented Boy Bailey, as he surveyed himself -when the change was made. "Disguise is n't the word that covers it, and -I 'm hanged if I know what word does. But these pants are chronic." - -"You can roll 'em up another couple of inches," suggested Mrs. du Preez. - -"It isn't that," complained Mr. Bailey. "If they want to cover my feet, -they can. But I 'd need a waist like a wasp before the three top -buttons would see reason. Damme, I feel as if I was going to break in -halves. What 's that dear boy of yours grinning at?" - -"I wasn't grinning," protested Paul. "I was only going to say that -father 's coming in now." - -The tramp and his mother exchanged a glance of which the meaning was -hidden from him, the look of allies preparing for a crucial moment. -Already they were leagued to defeat the husband. - -Christian du Preez came with heavy footsteps along the passage from the -outer door, saw that there was a stranger in the parlor and paused. - -"Christian," said Mrs. du Preez, with a false sprightliness. "Come in; -here 's a--an old friend of mine come to see us." - -"An old friend?" - -The Boer stared at the stranger standing with straddled legs before the -fireplace, and recognized him forthwith. Without speaking, he made a -quick comparison of the bold photograph, whose fleshy perfection had so -often invited him to take stock of his own imperfections, and then met -the living Boy Bailey's rigid smile with a smile of his own that had the -effect of tempering the other's humor. - -"I see," said the Boer. "What's the name?" He came forward and read -from the photograph where the bold showy signature sprawled across a -corner. "'Yours blithely, Boy Bailey,'" he read. "And you are Boy -Bailey?" - -"You 've got it," replied the photograph's original. "Older, my dear -sir, and it may be meatier; but the same man in the main, and happy to -make the acquaintance of an old friend's husband." - -His impudence cost him an effort in face of the Boer's stare of -contemptuous amusement, a stare which comprehended, item by item, each -article of his grotesque attire and came to rest, without diminishing -its intensity, upon the specious, unstable countenance. - -"_Allemachtag,_" was the Boer's only reply, as he completed his survey. - -"I don't think you saw Bailey, that time we were married, Christian," -said Mrs. du Preez. "But he was a dear old friend of mine." - -Christian nodded. "You walked here?" he inquired of the guest. On the -Karoo, the decent man does not travel afoot, and none of the three -others who were present missed the implication of the inquiry. Mrs. du -Preez colored hotly; Boy Bailey introduced his celebrated wave of the -hand. - -"I see you know what walking means," he replied. "It ain't a human -occupation--is it now? What I say is--if man had been meant for a -_voetganger_ (a walker)"--he watched the effect of the Dutch word on the -Boer--"he 'd have been made with four feet. Is n't that right? You bet -your shirt it is." - -"My shirt." Christian seemed puzzled for the moment, though the phrase -was one which his wife used. She watched him uneasily. "Oh, I see. -Yes, you can keep that shirt you 've got on. I don't want it." - -Boy Bailey made him a bow. "Ah, thanks. A shirt more or less don't -matter, does it?" - -Christian turned to Paul. "You brought him in?" - -"Yes," answered Paul. - -"Well, come and help me with the sacks. Your mother an' her friend -wants to talk, an' we don't want to listen to them talking." - -Boy Bailey watched them depart. - -"What 's he mean by that?" he asked of Mrs. du Preez. - -"Never mind what he means," she answered. "He can't have his own way in -everything. Sit down an' tell me about the others an' what happened to -them after I left. There was Kitty Cassel--what did she do? Go home?" - -Boy Bailey pursed his lips. "No," he answered slowly. "She and I went -down to Capetown together. She did n't come to any good, Kitty did n't. -Ask me about some one else; I don't want to offend your ears." - - -But Mrs. du Preez was in error in one particular: Christian had seen Boy -Bailey "that time we were married," and remembered him very clearly. -Those were days when he, too, lived vividly and the petty incidents and -personalities of the moment wrote themselves deep on his boyish mind. -As he worked at the empty sacks, telling them over by the stencils upon -them, while Paul waded among them to his knees and flung them towards -him, he returned in the spirit to those poignant years when a thin girl -walking across a little makeshift stage could shake him to his -foundations. - -He remembered the little town to which the commando had returned to be -paid off and disbanded, a single street straggling under a rampart of a -gray-green mountain, with the crude beginnings of other streets budding -from it on either side, and the big brown, native location like a -tuberous root at its lower end. Along its length, beetle-browed shops, -with shaded stoeps and hitching-rails for horses, showed interior -recesses of shade and gave an illusion of dignified prosperous commerce, -and at the edge of it all there was a string of still pools, linked by a -dribble of water, which went by the name of a river and nurtured along -its banks gums and willows, the only trees of greater stature than a -mimosa-bush that Christian had ever seen. - -It was a small, stagnant veld dorp, in fact, one of hundreds that are -littered over the face of the Colony, and have for their districts a -more than metropolitan importance. Christian knew it as a focus of -life, the center of incomprehensible issues and concerns and when his -corps returned to it, flavored in its single street the pungencies of -life about town. The little war in the neighborhood had drawn to it the -usual riff-raff of the country that follows on the heels of troops, -wherever armed men are gathered together, predatory women too wise in -their generation, a sample or two of the nearly extinct species of -professional card-sharper, a host of the sons of Lazarus intent upon -crumbs that should fall from the pay-table, and a fair collection of -ordinary thieves. These gave the single street a vivacity beyond -anything it had known, and the armed burgher, carrying his rifle slung -on his back from mere habit, would be greeted by the name of "Piet" and -invited to drink once for every ten steps he took upon it. - -Hither came Christian--twenty-two years of age, six-foot in his bare -soles of slender thew and muscle, not yet bearded and hungry with many -appetites after a campaign against Kafirs. The restless town was a bait -for him. - -At that time, there was much in him of that solemn-eyed quality which -came to be Paul's. The steely women laughed harshly as he passed them -by, with all the sweetness of his youth in his still face, his lips -parted, his look resting on them and beyond them to the virtues and the -delicacy they had thrown off to walk the faster on their chosen road. -His ears softened their laughter, his eyes redeemed their bitterness; -everything was transfigured for him by the dynamic power of his mere -innocence and his potent belief in his own inferiority to the splendor -of all that offered itself to his vision. He saw his comrades, fine -shots and hard men on the trek, lapse into drunkenness and evil -communications, and it was in no way incompatible with his own ascetic -cleanliness of apprehension that he excused them on the grounds of the -hardships they had undergone. He could idealize even a sot puking in a -gutter. - -It was here that he saw a stage-play for the first time in his life, -sitting in a back-seat in the town hall among young shop-assistants and -workmen, not a little distracted between the strange things upon the -stage which he had paid to witness and the jocular detachment from them -by the young men about him. The play at first was incomprehensible; the -chambermaid and the footman, conversing explanatorily, with which it -opened, were figures he was unable to recognize, and he could not share -the impression that seemed to prevail among the characters in general -that the fat, whitish heroine was beautiful. The villain, too, was -murderous in such a crude fashion; not once did he make a clean job of -an assassination. Christian felt himself competent to criticize, since -it was only a week or so since he had pulled a trigger and risen on his -elbow to see his man halt in mid-stride and pitch face forward to the -earth. He was confirmed in his dissatisfaction by the demeanor of his -neighbors; they, men about town, broken to the drama and its surprises, -were certainly not taking the thing seriously. After a while, -therefore, he made no effort to keep sight of the thread of the play; he -sat in an idle content, watching the women on the stage, curious to -discover what it was in each one of them that was wrong and vaguely -repellent. - -His neighbors had no doubts about it. "There 's not a leg in the whole -caboodle," one remarked. "It 's all mouth and murder, this is." - -Christian did not clearly understand the first phrase, but the second -was plain and he smiled in agreement. He looked up to take stock of -another character, a girl who made her entrance at that moment, and -ceased to smile. Her share in the scene was unimportant enough, and she -had but a few words to speak and nothing to do but to walk forward and -back again. She was thin and girlish and carried herself well, moving -with a graceful deliberation and speaking in an appealing little tinkle -to which the room lent a certain ring and resonance; she accosted the -villain who replied with brutality; she smiled and turned from him, made -a face and passed out again. And that was all. - -The young man who had deplored the absence of legs nudged his neighbor -to look at the tall young Boer and made a joke in a cautious whisper. -His precaution was unnecessary; he might have shouted and Christian -would not have heard. He was like a man stunned by a great revelation, -sitting bolt upright and staring at the stage and its lighted activity -with eyes dazzled by a discovery. For the first time in his life he had -seen a woman, little enough to break like a stick across his knee, brave -and gay at once, delicate and tender, touching him with the sense of her -strength and courage while her femininity made all the male in him surge -into power. Gone was his late attitude of humorous judgment, that could -detach the actress from her work and assess her like a cow; the smile, -the little contemptuous grimace had blown it all away. He was aghast, -incapable of reducing his impression to thoughts. For a while, it did -not occur to him that it would be possible to see her again. When it -did, he leaned across the two playgoers who were next to him and lifted -a program from the lap of the third, who gaped at him but found nothing -to say. - -"That _meisjie_, the one in a red dress--is her name in this?" he -inquired of his neighbor, and surprised him into assistance. Together -they found it; the unknown was Miss Vivie Sinclair. - -"Skinny, wasn't she?" commented the helpful neighbor sociably. - -But Christian was already on his feet and making his way out, and the -conversational one got nothing but a slow glare for an answer across -intervening heads. - -And yet the truth of it was, a connoisseur in girls could have matched -Miss Vivie Sinclair a hundred times over, so little was there in her -that was peculiar or rare. The connoisseur would have put her down -without hesitation for a product of that busy manufactory which melts -down the material of so many good housemaids to make it into so many bad -actresses. Her sex and a grimace--these were the total of her assets, -and yet she was as good a peg as another for a cloudy youth to drape -with the splendors of his inexperienced fancy and glorify with the hues -of his secret longings. Probably she had no very clear idea of herself -in those days; she was neither happy nor sad, as a general thing; and -her aspirations aimed much more definitely at the symptoms of -success--frocks, bills lettered large with her name, comely young men in -hot pursuit of her, gifts of jewelry--than at success itself. As she -passed down the main street next morning, on her way to the telegraph -office in the town hall, she offered to the slow, appraising looks from -the stoeps a sketchy impression of a rather strained modernity, an -effect of deftly managed skirts and unabashed ankles which in themselves -were sufficient to set Fereira thinking. It was as she emerged from the -telegraph office that she came face to face with Christian. - -"Well, where d'you think you 're comin' to?" - -This was her greeting as he pulled up all standing to avert a collision. -Clothes to fit both his stature and his esthetic sense had not been -procurable, and he had been only able to wash himself to a state of -levitical cleanliness. But his youthful bigness and his obvious -reverence of her served his purpose. She stood looking at him with a -smile. - -"I saw you," he said, "in the play." - -"Did you? What d' you think of it?" - -"_Allemachtag,_" he answered. "I have been thinking of it all night." - -To his eye, she was all she had promised to be. The fragility of her -was most wonderful to him, accustomed to the honest motherly brawn of -the girls of his own race. The rather aggressive perkiness of her -address was the smiling courage that had thrilled and touched him. He -stood staring, unable to carry the talk further. - -But it was for this kind of thing that Miss Vivie Sinclair had "gone on -the stage," and she was not at all at a loss. - -"I 'm going this way," she said, and in her hands, Christian was -wax--willing wax. He found himself walking at her side under the eyes -of the town. She waited before she spoke again till they were by the -stoep of Pagan's store, where a dozen loungers became rigid and watchful -as they passed. - -"You 've heard about the smash-up?" she inquired then. - -"Smash-up?" - -"Our smash-up? Oh, a regular mess we 're in, the whole lot of us. You -had n't heard?" - -"No," he answered. - -"Padden 's cleared out. He was our manager, you know, and now he 's run -away with the treasury and left us high and dry. Went last night, it -seems, after the show." - -"Left you?" repeated Christian. The old story was a new one to him and -he did not understand. Miss Sinclair thought him dense, but proceeded -to enlighten him in words of one syllable, as it were. - -"That 's why I was telegraphing," she concluded. "There was a feller in -Capetown I used to know; I want to strike him for my fare out of this." - -So she was in trouble; there was a call upon her courage, an attack on -her defenselessness. Miss Sinclair, glancing sidelong at his face, saw -it redden quickly and was confirmed in her hope that the "feller" in -Capetown was but an alternative string to her bow. - -"That telegram took all I 'd got but a couple of shillings," she added. -"Padden had been keeping us short for a long time." - -The long street straggled under the sun, bare to its harsh illumination, -a wide tract of parched dust hemmed between walls and roofs of gray -corrugated iron. The one thing that survived that merciless ordeal of -light without loss or depreciation was the girl. They halted at the -door of the one-storied hotel where her room was and here again the -shaded stoep was full of ears and eyes and Christian had to struggle -with words to make his meaning clear to her and keep it obscure to every -one else. - -"It 'll be all right," he assured her stammeringly. "I 'll see that it -'s all right. I 'll come here an' see you." - -"When?" she asked, and helped him with a suggestion. "This evening? -There 'll be no show to-night." - -"This evening," he agreed. - -Miss Sinclair gave him her best smile, all the better for the mirth that -helped it out. She was as much amused as she was relieved. As she -passed the bar on her way indoors, she winked guardedly to a florid -youth within who stood in an attitude of listening. - -If Christian had celebrated the occasion with libations in the local -fashion, if he had talked about it and put his achievement to the test -of words--if, even, he had been capable of thinking about it in any -clear and sober manner instead of merely relishing it with every fiber -of his body--the evening's interview might have resolved itself into an -act of charity, involving the sacrifice of nothing more than a few -sovereigns. As it was, he spent the day in germinating hopes and -educating his mind to entertain them. Under the stimulating heat of his -sanguine youth, they burgeoned superbly. - -As he walked away from the hotel, the florid youth spoke confidentially -to the fat shirt-sleeved barman. - -"Hear that?" he asked. "_She_ 'll do all right, she will. That 's -where a girl 's better off than a man. Who 's the feller, d'you know?" - -The barman heaved himself up to look through the window, and laughed -wheezily. He was a married man and adored his children, but it was his -business to be knowing and worldly. - -"It 's young Du Preez," he answered, as Christian stalked away. "One of -them Boers, y'know. Got a farm out on the Karoo." - -"Rich?" queried the other. - -"Not bad," said the barman. "Most of those Dutch could buy you an' me -an' use us for mantel ornaments, if they had the good taste." - -"So--ho," exclaimed the florid youth. "But they don't carry it about -with 'em, worse luck." - -He sighed and grew thoughtful. He was thoughtful at intervals for the -rest of the morning, and by the afternoon was melancholy and uncertain -of step. But he was on hand and watchful when Christian arrived. - -Christian was vaguely annoyed when a young man of suave countenance and -an expression of deep solemnity thrust up to him at the hotel door and -stood swaying and swallowing and making signs as though to command his -attention. - -"What d'you want?" he demanded. - -"Word with you," requested the other. "Word with you." - -He was sufficiently unlike anything that was native to Fereira to be -recognizable as an actor and Christian suffered himself to be beckoned -into the bar. - -"Shall I do it or you?" asked the other. "I shtood so many to-day, -sheems to me it 's your turn. Mine 's a whisky. Now, 'bout this li'l -girl upshtairs." - -"Eh?" Christian was startled. - -"I 'm man of the world," the other went on, with the seriousness of the -thoroughly drunken. "Know more 'bout the world then ever you knew in -yer bally life. An' I don't blame you--norra bit. Now what I want shay -is this: I can fix it for you if you 're good for a fiver. Jush a -fiver--shave trouble and time, eh? Nice li'l girl, too. Worth it." - -Christian watched him lift his glass and drink. He was perplexed; these -folk seemed to have a language of their own and to be incomprehensible -to ordinary folk. - -"Worth it?" he repeated. "Fix _what_?" he demanded. - -"Nod 's good 's wink," answered the other. "Don't want to shout it. -Bend your long ear down to me--tell you." - -They had a corner by the bar to themselves. Near the window the barman -had a customer after his own heart and was repeating to him an oracular -saying by his youngest daughter but two, glancing sideways while he -spoke to see if Christian and the other were listening. - -Christian bent, and the hot breath of the other, reeking of the day's -drinking, beat on his neck and the side of his head. The hoarse -whisper, with its infernal suggestion, seemed to come warm from a pit of -vileness within the man's body. - -"Is that plain 'nough?" - -Christian stood upright again, trembling from head to foot with some -cold emotion far transcending any rage he had ever felt. For some -instant he could not lift his hand; he had seen the last foul depths of -evil and was paralyzed. The other lifted his glass again. His movement -released the Boer from the spell. - -He took the man by the wrist that held the glass with so deadly a -deliberation that the barman missed his hostile purpose and continued to -talk, leaning with his fat, mottled arms folded on the bar. - -"What you doin', y' fool?" The cry was from the florid youth. - -"Ah!" Christian put out his strength with a maniac fury, and the -youth's hand and the glass in it were dashed back into that person's -face. No hand but his own struck him, and the countenance Christian saw -as a blurred white disk broke under the blow and showed red cracks. He -struck again and again; the barman shouted and men came running in from -outside. Christian dropped the wrist he held and turned away. Those in -the doorway gave him passage. On the floor in the corner the florid -youth bled and vomited. - -Christian knew him later as a bold and serene face in a plush photograph -frame, signed across the lower right corner: "Yours blithely, Boy -Bailey." - -How he made inquiries for the girl's room and came at last to the door -of it was never a clear memory to him. But he could always recall that -small austere interior of whitewash and heat-warped furniture to which -he entered at her call, to find her sitting on the narrow bed. He came -to her bereft of the few faculties she had left him, grave, almost -stern, gripping himself by force of instinct to save himself from the -outburst of emotion to which the scene in the bar had made him prone. -Everything tender and protective in his nature was awake and crying out; -he saw her as the victim of a sacrilegious outrage, threatened by -unnamable dangers. - -She looked at him under the lids of her eyes, quickly alive to the -change in him. It is necessary to record that she, too, had made -inquiries since the morning, and learned of the farm that stood at his -back to guarantee him solid. - -"I wondered if you 'd come," she said. "That feller in Capetown has n't -answered." - -"I said I 'd come," he replied gravely. - -"Yes, I know. All the same, I thought--you know, when a person 's in -hard luck, nothing goes right, an' a girl, when she 's in a mess, is -anybody's fool. Is n't that right?" - -She knew her peril then; she lived open-eyed in face of it. - -"You shall not be anybody's fool," he answered. "If anybody tries to be -bad to you, I 'll kill him." - -He was still standing just within the closed door, no nearer to her than -the size of the little chamber compelled. - -"Won't you sit down?" she invited. - -"Eh?" His contemplation of her seemed to absorb him and make him -absent-minded. "No," he replied, when she repeated her invitation. - -"As you like," she conceded, wondering whether after all he was going to -be amenable to the treatment she proposed for him. It crossed her mind -that he was thinking of getting something for his money and her silly -mouth tightened. If her sex was one of her assets, her virtue--the -fanatic virtue which is a matter of prejudice rather than of -principle,--was one of her liabilities. She had nothing to sell him. - -"You know," she said, "the worst of it is, none of us have n't had any -salary for weeks. That's what puts us in the cart. We 're all broke. -If Padden had let us have a bit, we would n't be stranded like this. -And the queer thing is, Gus Padden 's the last man you 'd have picked -for a wrong 'un. Fat, you know, and beaming; a sort of fatherly way, he -had. He used to remind me of Santa Claus. An' now he 's thrown us down -this way, and how I 'm going to get up again I can't say." She gave him -one of her shrewd upward glances; "tell me," she added. - -"I can tell you," he replied. - -"How, then?" she asked. - -"Marry me," said Christian. "This acting--it's no good. There 's men -that is bad all around you. One of them--I broke his face like a -window-glass downstairs just now--he said you was--bad, like him. And -it was time to see what he was worth. Unless you can you are -ach--so--so little, so weak. Marry me, my _kleintje_ and you shall be -nobody's fool." - -The girl on the bed stared at him dumbly: this was what she had never -expected. Salvation had come to her with both hands full of gifts. She -began to laugh foolishly. - -"Marry me," repeated Christian. "Will you?" - -She jumped up from her seat, still laughing and took two steps to him. - -"Will I?" she cried. "Will a duck swim? Yes, I will; yes, yes, yes!" - -Christian looked at her dazed; events were sweeping him off his feet. -He took one of her hands and dropped it again and turned from her -abruptly. With his arm before his face he leaned against the door and -burst into weeping. The girl patted him on the back soothingly. - -"Take it easy," she said kindly. "You'll be all right, never fear." - -"That 's all the Port Elizabeth ones," said Paul. "How many do you make -them?" - -Christian du Preez looked up uncertainly. "_Allemachtag,_" he said. "I -forgot to count. I was thinking." - -"Oh. About the tramp?" - -"Yes. Paul, what did you bring him in for? Couldn't you see he was a -_skellum_?" - -Paul nodded. "Yes, I could see that. But--_skellums_ are hungry and -tired, too, sometimes." - -His father smiled in a worried manner. He and Paul never talked -intimately with each other, but an intimacy existed of feeling and -thought. They took many of the same things for granted. - -"Like us," he agreed. "Come on to supper, Paul." - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - -It was nearing the lunch hour when Margaret walked down from the -Sanatorium to the farm, leaving Ford and Mr. Samson to their unsociable -preoccupations on the stoep, and found Paul among the kraals. He had -some small matter of work in hand, involving a wagon-chain and a number -of yokes; these were littered about his feet in a liberal disorder and -he was standing among them contemplating them earnestly and seemingly -lost in meditation. He turned slowly as Margaret called his name, and -woke to the presence of his visitor with a lightening of his whole -countenance. - -"Were you dreaming about models?" inquired Margaret. "You were very deep -in something." - -Paul shook his head. "It was about wagons," he answered seriously. "I -was just thinking how they are always going away from places and coming -to more places. That's all." - -"Wishing you had wheels instead of feet? I see," smiled the girl. -"What a traveler you are, Paul." - -He smiled back. In their casual meetings they had talked of this before -and Paul had found it possible to tell her of his dreams and yearnings -for what lay at the other end of the railway and beyond the sun mist -that stood like a visible frontier about his world. - -"I shall travel some day," he answered. "Kamis says that a man is -different from a vegetable because he hasn't got roots. He says that -the best way to see the world is to go on foot." - -"I expect he 's right," said Margaret. "It's jolly for you, Paul, -having him to talk to. Do you know where he is now?" - -"Yes," answered the boy. - -"Well, then, when can I see him? He told me you could always let him -know." - -"This afternoon?" suggested Paul. "If you could come down to the dam -wall then, he can be there. There is a signal I make for him in my -window and he always sees it." - -"I 'll come then," promised Margaret. "Thank you, Paul. But that -signal--that 's rather an idea. Did you think of it or did he?" - -"He did," answered Paul. "He said it wouldn't trouble him to look every -day at a house that held a friend. And he does, every day. There was -only once he didn't come, and then he had twisted his ankle a long way -off on the veld, walking among ant-bear holes in the dark." - -"Which window is it?" asked Margaret. - -Paul pointed. "That end one," he showed her. - -Margaret looked, and a figure lounging against one of the doorposts of -the house took her look for himself and bowed. - -"That's nobody," said Paul quickly. "Don't look that way. It 's--it 's -a tramp that came to me--and I gave him a shilling to keep still and be -modeled--and he knows my mother--and he 's staying in the house. He 's -beastly; don't look that way." - -His solicitude and his jealousy made Margaret smile. - -"I shouldn't see him if I did," she said. "Don't you worry, Paul. -Then--this afternoon?" - -"Under the dam," replied Paul. "Good-by. He's waiting for a chance to -come and speak to you." - -"Let him wait," replied Margaret, and turned homewards, scrupulously -averting her face from the ingratiating figure of Boy Bailey. - -That pensioner of fortune watched her pass along the trodden path to the -Sanatorium till she was clear of the farm, and then put himself into -easy movement to go across to Paul. The uncanny combination of -Christian's clothes and his own personality drifted through the arrogant -sunlight and over the sober earth, a monstrous affront to the temperate -eye. He was like a dangerous clown or a comical Mephistopheles. Paul, -pondering as he came, thought of a pig equipped with the venom of the -puff-adder of the Karoo. As he drew near, the boy fell to work on the -chain and yokes. - -"Well, my dear boy." The man's shadow and his voice reached Paul -together. He did not look up, but went on loosening the cross bar of a -yoke from its link. - -"There 's more in this place of yours than meets the eye at a first -glance," said Boy Bailey. "You 're well off, my lad. Not only milk and -honey for the trouble of lifting 'em to your mouth, but dalliance, -silken dalliance in broad daylight. What would your dear mother say if -she knew?" - -"I don't know," said the boy. "Ask her?" - -"And spoil sport? Laddie, you 'll know me better some day. Not for -worlds would I give a chap's game away. It's not my style. Poor I may -be, but not that. No. I admire your taste, my boy. You 've an eye in -your head. But you forgot to introduce the lady to your mother's old -friend. However, you 'll be seeing her again, no doubt, an' then--" - -"I didn't forget," said Paul. Still he did not look up. The iron links -shook in his hands, and he detached the stout crosspiece and laid it -across his knees. - -"Eh?" Boy Bailey's face darkened a little, and his wary eyes narrowed. -He looked down on the boy's bent back unpleasantly. - -"You didn't?" he said. "I see. Well, well. A chap that 's poor must -put up with these slights." His slightly hoarse voice became bland -again. "But have it your own way; Heaven knows, _I_ don't mind. She 's -a saucy little piece, all the same, an' p'r'aps you 're right not to -risk her with me. If I got her by herself, there 's no saying--" - -He stopped; the boy had looked up and was rising. His face stirred -memories in Boy Bailey; it roused images that were fogged by years, but -terrible yet. In the instant's grace that was accorded him, he felt his -wrist gripped once more and saw the livid clenched face, tense with the -spirit of murder, that burned above his ere his own hand and the glass -it held were dashed athwart his eyes. The boy was rising and he held -the cross-bar of the yoke like a weapon. - -Boy Bailey made to speak but failed. With a sort of squeak he turned -and set off running towards the house, pounding in panic over the ground -with his grotesque clothes flapping about him like abortive wings. -Paul, on his feet amid the tangled chains, watched him with the heavy -cross-bar in his hand. - -If he had any clear feeling at all, it was disappointment at the waste -of a rare energy. He could have killed the man in the heat of it, and -now it was wasted. Boy Bailey was whole, his pulpy face not beaten in, -his bones functioning adequately as he ran instead of creaking in -fractures to each squirm of his broken body. It was an occasion -squandered, lost, thrown away. It had the unsatisfying quality of mere -prevention when it might have been a complete cure. - -Margaret returned to the Sanatorium in time to meet Mrs. Jakes in the -hall as she led the way to lunch and to receive the unsmiling movement -of recognition which had been her lot ever since the night of Dr. Jakes' -adventure. Contrary to Margaret's expectation, Mrs. Jakes had not come -round; no treatment availed to convince her that she had not been made a -victim of black treachery and the doctor wantonly exposed and -humiliated. When she was cornered and had to listen to explanations, she -heard them with her eyes on the ground and her face composed to an -irreconcilable woodenness. When Margaret had done--she tried the line of -humorous breeziness, and it was a mistake--Mrs. Jakes sniffed. - -"If you please," she said frigidly, "we won't talk about it. The -subject is very painful. No doubt all you say is very true, but I have -my feelings." - -"So have I," said Margaret. "And mine are being hurt." - -"I am extremely sorry," replied the little wan woman, with stiff -dignity. "If you wish it, I will ask the doctor to recommend you a -Sanatorium elsewhere, where you may be more comfortable." - -"You know that is n't what I want," protested Margaret. "This is all -very silly. I only want you to understand that I have n't done you any -harm and that I did the best I could and let's stop acting as if one of -us had copied the other's last hat." - -"No doubt I am slow of understanding, Miss Harding," retorted Mrs. Jakes -formidably. "However--if you have quite finished, I 'm in rather a -hurry and I won't detain you." - -And she made her escape in good order, marching unhurried down the -matted corridor and showing to Margaret a retreating view of a rigid -black alpaca back. - -Dr. Jakes was equally effective in his treatment of the incident. He -went to work upon her lungs quite frankly, sending her to bed for a -couple of days and gathering all his powers to undo the harm of which he -had been the cause. On the third day, there was a further interview in -the study, a businesslike affair, conducted without unnecessary -conversation, with monosyllabic question and reply framed on the most -formal models. At the close of it, he leaned back in his chair and -faced her across the corner of his desk. He was irresistibly plump and -crumpled in that attitude, with his sad, uncertain eyes expressing an -infinite apprehension and all the resignation of a man who has lost -faith in mercy. - -"That is all, then, Miss Harding. Unless--?" - -The last word was breathed hoarsely. Margaret waited. He gazed at her -owlishly, one nervous hand fumbling on the blotting-pad before him. - -"There is nothing else you want to say to me?" he asked. - -"I can't think of anything," said Margaret. - -He continued to look at her, torpidly, helplessly. It was impossible to -divine what fervencies of inarticulate emotion burned and quickened -behind his mask of immobile flesh. The rumpled hair, short and blond, -lay in disorder upon his forehead and his lips were parted impotently. -He had to blink and swallow before he could speak again, visibly -recalling his wits. - -"If you don't tell me, I can't answer," he said, and sighed heavily. He -raised himself in his big chair irritably. - -"Nothing more, then?" he asked. "Well--take care of yourself, Miss -Harding. That 's all you have to do. Whatever happens, your business is -to take care of yourself; it's what you came here for." - -"I will," answered Margaret. She wished she could find a plane on which -it would be possible to talk to him frankly, without evasions and free -from the assumptions which his wife wove about him. But the resignation -of his eyes, the readiness they expressed to accept blows and penalties, -left her powerless. The gulf that separated them could not be bridged. - -"Then--" he rose, and in another pair of moments Margaret was outside -the study door in the hall, where Mrs. Jakes, affecting to be concerned -in the arrangement of the furniture, examined her in sidelong glances, -to know whether she had used the weapon which the doctor's adventure had -put into her hand. Apparently there was no convincing her that the -girl's intentions were not hostile. - -It did not simplify life for Margaret, this enmity of Mrs. Jakes. Lunch -and breakfast under her pale, implacable eye, that glided upon -everything but skipped Margaret with a noticeable avoidance, had become -ordeals to be approached with trepidation. Talk, when there was -anything to talk about, died still-born in that atmosphere of lofty -displeasure. It was done with a certain deftness; Mrs. Jakes was -incapable of anything crude or downright; and when it was necessary, in -order that the state of affairs should not be conspicuous, she could -smile towards the wall at the girl's back and spare her an empty word or -so, in a way that was sometimes as galling as much more dexterous snubs -that Margaret had seen administered. One can "field" a snub that -conveys its purpose in its phrasing and return it with effect to the -wicket; but there is nothing to be done with the bare word that just -stops a gap from becoming noticeable. - -Ford was waiting outside the front door when Margaret came out after -exercising the virtue of forbearance throughout a meal for which she had -had no appetite. - -"What 's the row with Mrs. Jakes?" he asked, without wasting words on -preamble. - -"Oh, nothing," answered Margaret crossly. "You 'd better ask her if you -want to know. I 'm not going to tell you anything." - -"Well, don't, then. But you couldn't arrange a truce for meal-times, -could you? It turns things sour--the way you two avoid looking at each -other." - -"I don't care," said Margaret. "It 's not my fault. I 've been as loyal -as anybody--more loyal, I think, and certainly more helpful. I 've done -simply everything she asked of me, and now she 's like this." - -Ford gave her a whimsical look of question. - -"Sure you haven't at some time done more than she asked you?" he -inquired. - -"Why?" Margaret was surprised. She laughed unwillingly. "Is it -shrewdness or have you heard something?" - -"I haven't heard a word," he assured her. "But is that it?" - -"It 's just your natural cleverness, then? Wonderful," said Margaret. -"You ought to go on the stage, really. Yes, that 's what it is--I -suppose. And now d'you think she 'll see the reasonable view of it? -Not she! I 'm a villain in skirts and if I won't stand it, she 'll ask -the doctor to recommend a Sanatorium where I can be more comfortable. -And just at this moment, I don't think I can stand much more of it." - -"Eh?" Ford scowled disapprovingly. "That 's a rotten thing to say. -You don't feel inclined to tell me about it?" - -"I can't; I mustn't. That 's the worst of it," answered Margaret. "I -can't tell you anything." - -"At any rate," said Ford, "don't take it into your head to go away. -This won't do you any harm in the end. You weren't thinking of it -seriously, were you?" - -"Wasn't I? I was, though. I hate all this." - -Ford took a couple of steps toward the door and a couple back. - -"It won't weigh with you," he said, "but I 'd be sorry if you went. _I_ -would, personally--awfully sorry. But if you must go, you must. It 's a -thing you can judge for yourself. Still, I 'd be sorry." - -Margaret shrugged impatiently. - -"Oh, I 'd be sorry, too. It 's been jolly, in a way, with you here, and -all that. I 'd miss you, if you want to know. But--" - -She stopped. Ford was looking at her very gravely. - -"Don't go," he said, and put his thin, sun-browned hand upon her -shoulder. "It 'll make things simpler for me if you say you won't. -Things will arrange themselves, but even if they don't--don't go away." - -"Simpler? How do you mean?" - -"Just that," he answered. "If you stay, here we are--friends. We help -each other out and talk and see each other and have time before us and -there 's no need to say anything. And it's because a lunger like me -must n't say anything till he sees whether he 's going to get well -or--or stay here forever, that it 'll be simpler if you don't go. Do -you see?" - -His hand upon her shoulder was pleasant to feel; she liked the freedom -he took--and gave--in resting it there; and his young, serious face, -touched to delicacy by the disease that governed him, was patient and -wise. - -"It 's not because of that _that_ you mustn't say anything," she -answered. "I did n't know--you 've given me no warning. What can I -say?" - -"Say you won't go," he begged. "Say you won't act on any decision you -'ve made at present. And then we can go on--me lecturing you, and you -flouting me, till--till I can say things--till I 'm free to say what I -like to anybody." - -She smiled rather nervously. "If I agree now," she answered, "it will -look as if--" she paused; the thing was difficult to put in its nicety. -But he was quick in the uptake. - -"It won't," he said. "I 'm not such a bounder as that." - -"But I 'd rather be here than take my chance among other people," she -went on. "I suppose I can stand Mrs. Jakes if I give my mind to it, -particularly if you 'll see me through." - -"I 'll do what I can," he promised. "You 'll do it, then? You'll -stay?" - -"I suppose so," said Margaret. His hand for a moment was heavier on her -shoulder; she felt as though she had been slapped on the back, with the -unceremoniousness of a good friend; and then he loosed her. - -"Good of you," he answered shortly. - -Both were weighted by the handicap of their race; they had been, as it -were, trapped into a certain depth of emotion and self-revelation, and -both found a difficulty in stepping down again to the safe levels of -commonplace intercourse. Ford shoved both hands into his pockets and -half-turned from her. - -"Well--doing anything this afternoon?" he inquired in his tersest -manner. - -"Yes," said Margaret, whom the position could amuse. - -"What?" - -"Oh--going yachting," she retorted. - -He sniffed and nodded. "I 'm going to paint," he announced. "So long." - -Margaret smiled at his back as he went, and its extravagant slouch of -indifference and ease. She knew he would not look round; once his mood -was defined, it was reliable entirely; but she felt she would have -forgiven him if he had. The last word in such a matter as this is -always capable of expansion, and probably some such notion was in the -mind of the oracle who first pronounced that to women the last word is -dear. - -He was still at his easel when she set forth to keep her appointment -under the dam wall, working on his helpless canvas with an intensity -that spared not a look as she went by on the parched grass below the -stoep. It was a low easel, and he sat on a stool and spread his legs to -each side of it, like a fighter crouched over an adversary, and his -thumb was busy smudging among masses of pigment. Margaret could see the -canvas as a faintly shining insurrection of colors which suggested that -he had broken an egg upon it. A score of times in the past weeks those -cryptic messes had irritated her or showed themselves as a weakness in -their author. The domineering thumb and the shock tactics of the palette -knife had supplied her with themes for ridicule, and the fact that the -creature could not paint and yet would paint and refused all instruction -had put the seal of bitterness on many a day of weary irritation. But -suddenly his incompetence and his industry, and even the unlovely fruit -of their union--the canvases that he signed large with his name and hung -unframed upon the walls of his room--were endearing; they were laughable -only as a little child is laughable, things to smile at and to prize. - -Her smiling and thoughtful mood went with her across the grass and dust -and around the curved shoulder of the dam wall, where Kamis, obedient to -Paul's signal, sat in the shade and awaited her. At her coming he -sprang up eagerly with his face alight. His tweed clothes were, if -anything, shabbier than before, but it seemed that no usage could subdue -them to congruity with the broad black face and its liberal smile. - -"This is great luck," he said. "I half expected you 'd find it too hot -for you. Are you all right again after that night?" - -Margaret seated herself on the slope of the wall and rested with one -elbow on the freshness of its water-fed grass. - -"Quite all right," she assured him. "Dr. Jakes has done everything that -needed to be done. But I didn't thank you half enough for what you -did." - -He smiled and murmured deprecatingly and found himself a place to sit on -at the foot of the wall, with legs crossed and his back to the sun. -Leaning forward a little in this posture, with his drooping hat-brim -shadowing him, it was almost possible for Margaret to avoid seeing the -blunt negro features for which she had come to feel something akin to -dread; they affected her in the same way that darkness with people -moving in it will affect some children. - -"I saw Paul's signal," said Kamis. "We have an understanding, you know. -He hangs a handkerchief in his window when he wants me and when you want -me he hangs two. It shows as far as one can see the window; all the -others are just black squares, and his has a white dash in it. That 's -rather how I see Paul, you know. Other people are just blanks, but he -means something--to me, at any rate. By the way, before I forget--did -you want me for anything in particular?" - -Margaret shook her head. "I wanted to talk," she said; "and to make -that police matter clear to you." - -"Oh, that." He looked up. "Thank you." - -"Do you know of a Mr. Van Zyl, a police-officer?" she asked him. "He -thinks you are guilty of sedition among the natives. I suppose it 's -nonsense, but he means to arrest you, and I thought you 'd better know." - -"It 's awfully good of you to bother about it," he answered. "I 'll -take care he doesn't lay hands on me. But it is nonsense, certainly, and -anybody but he would know it. He 's been scouring the kraals in the -south for me and giving the natives a tremendous idea of my importance. -They were nervous enough of me before, but now--" - -He shrugged his shoulders disgustedly, but still smiled. - -"That is what he said--they 're uneasy," agreed Margaret. "But why are -they? You see, I know scarcely more of you than Mr. Van Zyl. What is -it that troubles them about you?" - -"Oh," the Kafir deliberated. "It's simple enough, really. You see," he -explained, "the fact is, I 'm out of order. I don't belong in the -scheme of things as the natives and Mr. Van Zyl know it. These Kafirs -are the most confirmed conservatives in the world, and when they see a -man like themselves who can't exist without clothes and a roof to sleep -under, who can't walk without boots or talk their language and is -unaccountable generally, they smell witchcraft at once. Besides, it has -got about that I 'm Kamis, and they know very well that Kamis was hanged -about twenty years ago and his son taken away and eaten by the soldiers. -So it's pretty plain to them that something is wrong somewhere. Do you -see?" - -"Still"--Margaret was thoughtful--"Mr. Van Zyl is n't an ignorant -savage." - -"No," agreed Kamis. "He isn't that. For dealing with Kafirs, he 's -probably the best man you could find; the natives trust him and depend -on him and when they 're in trouble they go to him and he gives them the -help they want. When they misbehave, he 's on hand to deal with them in -the fashion they understand and probably prefer. And the reason is, -Miss Harding--the reason is, he 's got a Kafir mind. He was born among -them and nursed by them; he speaks as a Kafir, understands as a Kafir -and thinks as a Kafir, and he 'll never become a European and put away -Kafir things. They 've made him, and at the best he 's an ambassador for -the Kafirs among the whites. That 's how they master their masters. -Oh, they 've got power, the Kafirs have, and a better power than their -hocus-pocus of witchcraft." - -The afternoon was stored with the day's accumulated heat and the cool of -the grass beneath and the freshness of the water, out of sight beyond -the wall but diffusing itself like an odor in the air, combined to -contrast the spot in which they talked with the dazed sun-beaten land -about them and gave to both a sense of privacy and isolation. The -Kafir's words stirred a fresh curiosity in Margaret. - -"He thinks you are making the natives dangerous," she said. "I don't -believe that, of course, but what are you doing?" - -"What am I doing?" - -The black face was lifted to hers steadily and regarded her for a space -of moments without replying. Nothing mild or subtle could find -expression in its rude shaping of feature; the taciturnity of the Karoo -itself governed it. - -"What am I doing?" repeated Kamis. He dropped his eyes and his hands -plucked at the grass absently. "Well, I 'm looking for a life for -myself." - -Margaret waited for him to continue but he was silent, plucking the -grass shoots and shredding them in his fingers. - -"A life," she prompted. "Yes; tell me." - -Kamis finished with the grass in his hand and threw it with an abrupt -gesture from him. - -"I 'll tell you if you like," he said, as though suppressing a feeling -of reluctance. "It isn't anything wonderful; still--. You know already -how I began; Paul told me how you learnt that; and you can see where I -'ve got to with my education and my degree and my profession and all -that. I 'm back where I came from, and besides what I 've learned, I -'ve got a burden of civilized habits and weaknesses that keep me tied by -the leg. I need friendship and company and equality with people about -me, just as you do, and I 'm apt to find myself rather forlorn and lost -without them. In England, I had those things--I had some of them, at -any rate; but what was there for a black doctor to do, do you think, -among all those people who look on even a white foreigner as rather a -curiosity?" - -"Wasn't there anything?" Margaret was watching the nervous play of his -gesticulating hands, so oddly emphasizing his pleasant English voice. - -"Nothing worth while. That 's another of my troubles, you see. They -taught me and trimmed me till I could n't be content with occasional -niggers at the docks suffering from belaying-pin on the brain. It was -n't odd jobs I wanted, handed over to me to keep me happy; I wanted -work. We niggers, we 're a strong lot and we can stand a deal of wear -and tear, but we don't improve by standing idle. I wanted to come out -of that glass case they kept me in, with tutors and an allowance from -the Government and an official guardian and all that sort of thing, and -make myself useful." - -He paused. "You understand that, don't you?" he asked. - -"Of course I do," replied Margaret. "If I could only come out too! But -I 've got all those weaknesses of yours and this as well." Her hand -rested on her chest and he nodded. - -"You 're different," he said. "You must n't be worn and torn." - -"Well, so you came out here?" - -"It 's my country," he answered, and waved a hand at its barrenness. -"It was my father's, a good deal of it, in another sense too. When I -saw that living in England wasn't going to lead to anything, I thought -of this. Somebody ought to doctor the poor beggars who live here and -give them a lead towards a more comfortable existence, and I hoped I was -the man to do it. I must have relations among them, too; that 's queer, -is n't it? Aunts--my father had lots of wives--and lashings of cousins. -I thought the steamer was bringing me out to them and I had a great idea -of a welcome and all that; but I 'm no nearer it now than I was when I -started. If ever I seem too grateful to you for your acquaintance, Miss -Harding--if I seem too humble to be pleasant when I thank you for -letting me talk to you--just remember I know that over there my poor -black aunts are slaving like cattle and my uncles are driving them, and -when I come they dodge among the huts and maneuver to get behind me with -a club." - -"No," answered Margaret slowly. "I 'll remind you instead of all you -'re doing while I do nothing." - -He shook his head. "I know what you do to me," he said. "And I can't -let you pity me. It was n't for want of warnings I came out here. I -even had a letter from the Colonial Secretary. And I must tell you -about the remonstrances of my guardian." - -He laughed, with one of those quick transitions of mood which -characterize the negro temperament. It jarred a little on Margaret. - -"He was the dearest old thing," he went on. "He 's one of the greatest -living authorities on the Bantu tongues--those are the real old negro -languages, I believe--and he was out here once in his wild youth. The -Colonial Office appointed him to take charge of me and he used to come -down to the schools where I was and give me a sovereign. He 'd have -made a capital uncle. He had a face like a beefy rose, one of those big -flabby ones that tumble to pieces when you pick them--all pink and round -and clean, with kind, silly blue eyes behind gold spectacles. I had to -get his consent before I could move, and I went to see him in a little -room at the British and Foreign Bible Society's place in Queen Victoria -Street, where they grow the rarer kinds of Bible under glass in holes in -the wall; you know. He was correcting the proofs of a gospel in some -Central African dialect and he had smudges of ink round his mouth. -Sucking the wrong end of the pen, I suppose. He really was rather like -a comic-paper professor, but as kind as could be. I sat down in the -chair opposite to him, with the desk between us, and he heard what I 'd -got to say, wiping his pen and sucking it while I told him. I fancy I -began by being eloquent, but I soon stopped that. He 's good form to -the finger-tips and he looked so pained. So I cut it short and told him -what I wanted to do and why. And when I 'd finished, he gave me a -solemn warning. I must do what seemed right to me, he said; he wouldn't -take the responsibility of standing in my way; but there were grave -dangers. He had known young men, promising young men, talented young -men--all negroes, of course--who had returned to Africa after imbibing -and accepting the principles of our civilization. They, it was true, -were West Africans, but my danger was the same. They had left England -in clothes, with a provision of soap in their trunks, and the result of -their return to their own place was--they had lapsed! They had -discontinued the clothes and forsworn the soap. 'One of them,' he said, -'presented a particularly sad example. He whom we had known and -respected as David Livingstone Smith became the leader of a faction or -party whose activities necessitated the despatch of a punitive -expedition. Under a name which, being interpreted, signifies "The -Scornful," he presided over the defeat and massacre of that armed -force.' And he went on warning me against becoming an independent -monarch and forcing an alliance on Great Britain by means of an -ingenious war. He seemed relieved when I assured him that I had no -ambition to sit in the seat of the Scornful." - -He laughed again, looking up at Margaret with his white teeth flashing -broadly. - -"Yes," she said. "That was--funny." - -Odd! It made her vaguely restive to hear the Kafir make play with the -shortcomings of the white man. It touched a fund of compunction whose -existence she had not suspected. Something racial in her composition, -something partizan and unreasoning, lifted its obliterated head from the -grave in which her training and the conscious leanings of her mind had -buried it. - -He had no thoughts of what it was that kept her from returning his -smile. He imagined that his mission, his loneliness and his danger had -touched her and made her grave. - -"Well, you see how it all came about?" he went on. "It isn't really so -extraordinary, is it? And I 'm not discouraged, Miss Harding. I shall -find a way, sooner or later; they 're bound to get used to me in the -end. In the meantime, Paul is teaching me Kafir, and there 's you. You -make up to me for a lot." - -"Do I?" Margaret roused herself and sat up, deliberately thrusting down -out of her consciousness that instinctive element which bade her do -injustice and withhold from the man before her his due of -acknowledgment. - -"Do I?" she said. "I 'd be glad if that were so." - -He made to speak but stopped at her gesture. - -"No," she said. "I _would_ be glad. It 's a wonderfully great thing -you 've started to do, and you 're lucky to have it. You feel that, -don't you?" - -"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Oh, yes." - -She eyed him with a moment's hesitation, for he had not agreed with any -alacrity, and a martyr who regards his stake with aversion is always -disappointing. - -"Oh, you 're sure to succeed," she said. "People who undertake things -like this don't fail. And if, as you say, I 'm any kind of help to you, -I 'm glad. I 'm awfully glad of it. It makes coming out here worth -while, and I shall always be proud that I was your friend." - -"Will you? Does it strike you like that?" - -"Yes," said Margaret. - -She was above him on the bank and he sat on the ground with his head at -the level of her knees. His worn and shabby clothes, the patience of -his face, and even the hands that lay empty in his lap, joined with his -lowly posture to give him an aspect of humility. He was like a man -acclimatized to oppression and ill fortune, accepting in a mild -acquiescence, without question and without hope, the wrongs of a -tyrannous destiny. - -"I shall be proud," she repeated. "Always." She held forth her hand to -him in token of that friendship, leaning down that he might take. - -He did not do so at once. His eyes flashed to her with a startled -glance, and he seemed at a loss. He lifted himself to his knees and put -his own hand, large and fine for all the warm black of the back of it, -the hand of a physician, refined to nice uses, under hers without -clasping it. His movement had some of the timidity and slavishness of a -dog unused to caresses; a dumb-brute gratitude was in his regard. He -bent his black head humbly and printed a kiss upon her slender fingers. - -It was a thing that exhausted the situation; Margaret, a little -breathless and more than a little moved, met his gaze as he rose with a -smile that was not clear of embarrassment. Neither knew what to say -next; the kiss upon her hand had transformed their privacy into secrecy. - - "My love is like a black, black rose." - - -It sounded above them, from the top of the dam wall, an outrageous -bellow of melody that thrust itself obscenely between them and split -them asunder with the riving force of a thunderbolt. Intolerably -startled by the suddenness of it, Margaret nearly fell down the slope, -and saving herself with her hands turned her face, whitened by the -shock, towards the source of the noise. Another face met hers, parting -the long grasses on the crown of the wall. - -Her amazed and ambushed faculties saw it as a face only. It was -attached to no visible body, solitarily self-sufficient in an unworthy -miracle. It did not occur to her that the owner of it must be lying on -his belly at the water's edge, and for the moment she was not equal to -deducing that he must have heard, and possibly even seen, all that had -passed. She saw merely a face projected over her, that grinned with a -fixity that was not without an imbecile suggestion. It was old with a -moldy and decayed quality, bunched into pouches between deep wrinkles, -and yet weak and appealing. A wicked captive ape might show that -mixture of gleeful sin and slavishness. - -"Don't think I 'm not shocked, because I am," it uttered distinctly. -"Kissing! _I_ saw you. An' if anybody had told me that a lady of your -looks would take on a Kafir, I wouldn't ha' believed it." - -The face heaved and rose and lifted to corroborate it the cast-off -clothes of Christian du Preez, enveloping the person of Boy Bailey. He -shuffled to a sitting position on the edge of the wall, and it was a -climax to his appearance that his big and knobly feet were bare and wet. -He had been taking his ease with his feet in the water while they talked -below, a hidden audience to their confidences. He shook his head at -them. - -"Dam walls have got dam ears," he observed. "You naughty things, you." - -Margaret turned helplessly to Kamis for light. - -"What is it?" she asked. - -He had jumped to his feet and away from her at the first sound, and now -turned a slow eye upon her. The negro countenance is the home of crude -emotions; the untempered extremes have been its sculptors through the -ages. Its mirth is a guffaw, its sorrow is a howl, its wrath is the -naked spirit of murder. He looked at her now with a face alight and -transfigured with slaughterous intention. - -"Go away," he said, in a whisper. "Go away now. He must have heard. I -'ll deal with him." - -"Don't," said Margaret. She rose and put a hand on his arm. "Will you -speak to him, or shall I?" - -"Not you," he answered quickly. "But--" he was breathless and his face -shone as with a light sweat. "He 'll _tell_," he urged, still -whispering. "You don't know--it would be frightful. Go quickly away -and leave me with him." - -"They 're at it still," sounded the voice above them. "Damme, they can't -stop." - -Kamis was desperate and urgent. He cast a wild eye towards the man on -the top of the wall, and went on with agitated earnestness. - -"I tell you, you don't know. It 's enough that you were here with a -Kafir and he kissed your hand." He slapped his forehead in an agony. -"Oh, I ought to be hanged for that. They 'll never believe--nobody -will. In this country that sort of thing has only one meaning--a -frightful one. I can't bear it. If you don't go"--he gulped and spoke -aloud--"I 'll go up and kill him before your eyes." - -"Now, now!" The voice remonstrated in startled tones. - -Margaret still had her hand on his arm, and could feel that he was -trembling. She had recovered from the shock of the surprise and was -anxious to purge the situation of the melodramatic character which it -seemed to have assumed. Kamis' whispered fears failed to convince her. - -"You 'll do nothing of the kind," she said. "I don't care what people -think. Speak to the man or I will." - -Kamis lifted his head obediently. - -"Come down," he said. "Come down and say what you want." - -Mr. Bailey recovered his smile as he shook his head. - -"I can say it here," he replied. "Don't you worry, Snowball; it won't -strain my voice." - -Kamis gulped. "What do you want?" he repeated. - -"Ah! What?" inquired Boy Bailey rhetorically. "I come here of an -afternoon to collect my thoughts an' sweeten the dam by soaking my -Trilbies in it an' what happens? I 'm half-deafened by the noise of -kissing. I look round, an' what do I see? I ask you--what?" - -He brought an explanatory forefinger into play, thick and cylindrical -like a damaged candle. - -"First, thinks I, here 's a story that's good for drinks in any bar -between Dopfontein and Fereira--with perhaps a tar-and-feathering for -the young lady thrown in." He nodded meaningly at Margaret. "And it -wouldn't be the first time that's happened either." - -"Ye-es," said Kamis, who seemed to speak with difficulty. "But you -won't get away alive to tell that story." - -"Hear me out." Boy Bailey shook his finger. "That 's what I thought -_first_. My second thought was: what 's the sense of making trouble -when perhaps there 's a bit to be got by holdin' my tongue? How does -that strike you?" - -Margaret had been leaning on her stick while he spoke, prodding the -earth and looking down. Now she raised her eyes. - -"The first thought was the best," she said. "You won't get anything -here." - -"Eh?" Mr. Bailey was astonished. "You don't understand, Miss," he -said. "Ask Snowball, there--he 'll tell you. In this country we don't -stand women monkeying with niggers. Hell--no. It 's worth, well--" - -"Not a penny," said Margaret. "I don't care in the least whom you tell. -But--not one penny." - -Kamis was listening in silence. Margaret smiled at him and he shook his -head. On the top of the wall Mr. Bailey leaned forward persuasively. -He had something the air, in so far as his limitations permitted, of -benevolence wrestling with obstinacy, the air which in auctioneers is an -asset. - -"You don't mean that, I know," he said indulgently. "I can see you 're -going to be sensible. You would n't let a trifle of ready money stand -between you an' keepin' your good name--a nice, ladylike girl like you. -Why, for less than what you 've done, women have been stoned in the -streets before now. Come now; I 'm not going to be hard on you. Make -an offer." - -He sat above them against the sky, beaming painfully, always with a wary -apprehension at the back of his regard. - -"You won't go away?" demanded Kamis suddenly. "You won't? You know I -can't do it if you 're here. Then I 'm going to pay." - -"You shan't," retorted Margaret. "I won't have it, I tell you. I don't -care what he does." - -"I 'm going to pay," repeated Kamis. "It 's that or--you won't go -away?" - -"No," said the girl angrily. - -"Then I 'm going to pay." He turned from her. "I 'll give you twenty -pounds," he called to Bailey. - -"Double it," replied Boy Bailey promptly; "add ten; take away the number -you thought of; and the answer is fifty pounds, cash down, and dirt -cheap at that. Put that in my hand and I 'll clear out of here within -the hour and you 'll never hear of me again." - -Kamis nodded slowly. "If I do hear of you again," he said, "I 'll come -to you. Paul will bring you the money to-morrow morning, and then you -'ll go." - -"Right-O." Mr. Bailey rose awkwardly to his feet and made search for -his boots. With them in his hands, he looked down on the pair again. - -"It's your risk," he warned them. "If that cash don't come to hand, you -look out; there 'll be a slump in Kafirs." - -He went off along the wall, disappearing in sections as he descended its -shoulder. His gray head in its abominable hat was the last to -disappear; it sailed loftily, as became the heir to fifty pounds. - -Margaret frowned and then laughed. - -"What an absurd business," she cried. "Supposing he had told and there -had been a row--it would have been better than this everlasting -stagnation. It would have been more like life." - -The Kafir sighed. "Not life," he answered gently. "Not your life. It -meant a death in life--like mine." - -His embarrassed and mournful look passed beyond her to the Karoo, -spreading its desolation to the skies as a blind man might lift his eyes -in prayer. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - -The deplorable hat which shielded Mr. Bailey from the eye of Heaven -traveled at a thoughtful pace along the path to the farmhouse, cocked at -a confident angle upon a head in which faith in the world was -re-established. Boy Bailey had no doubt that the money would be -forthcoming. What he had heard of the conversation between Margaret and -Kamis had assured him of the Kafir's resources and he felt himself -already as solvent as if the minted money were heavy in his pockets. A -pleasant sense of security possessed his versatile spirit, the sense -that to-morrow may be counted upon. For such as Mr. Bailey, every day -has its price. - -He gazed before him as he walked, at the house, with its kraals -clustered before it and its humble appanage of out-buildings, with a -gentle indulgence for all its primitive and domestic quality. Meals and -a bed were what they stood for, merely the raw framework of intelligent -life, needing to be supplemented and filled in with more stimulating -accessories. They satisfied only the immediate needs of a man adrift -and hungry; they offered nothing to compensate a lively mind for its -exile from the fervor of the world. Fifty pounds, the fine round sum, -not alone made him independent of its table and its roof, but opened -afresh the way to streets and lamplight, to the native heath of the -wandering Bailey, who knew his fellow men from above and below--Kafirs, -for instance, he saw from an altitude--but had few such opportunities as -this of meeting them on a level of economic equality. There came to -him, as he dwelt in thought upon his good fortune, a clamorous appetite -for what fifty pounds would buy. Capetown was within his reach, and he -recalled small hotels on steep streets, whose back windows looked forth -on flat roofs of Malay houses, where smells of cooking and people loaded -the sophisticated air and there was generally a woman weeping and always -a man drunk. A little bedroom with an untidy bed and beer bottles -cooling in the wash-hand basin by day; saloons where the afternoon sun -came slanting upon furtive men initiating the day's activities over -glasses; the electric-lit night of Adderley Street under the big -plate-glass windows, where business was finished for the shops and -offices and newly begun for the traders in weakness and innocence--he -knew himself in such surroundings as these. He could slip into them as -noiselessly as a snake into a pool, with no disturbance to those -inscrutable devotees of daylight and industry who carry on their plain -affairs and downright transactions without suspecting the existence of -the world beneath them, where Boy Bailey and his fellows stir and dodge -and hide and have no illusions, save that hunger is ever fed or thirst -quenched. - -He paused at the open door of the farmhouse, recalled to the present by -the sound of voices from the kitchen at the end of the passage, where -Christian du Preez and his wife were engaged in bitter talk. Boy Bailey -stepped delicately over the doorstep on to the mat within and stood -there to listen, if there should be anything worth listening to. A -smile played over his large complacent features, and he waited with his -head cocked to one side. Something in which the word "tramp" occurred -as he came through the door flattered him with the knowledge that the -dispute was about himself. - -Mrs. du Preez spoke, and her shrill tones were plainly audible. - -"I don't make no fuss when your dirty old Doppers outspan here an' come -sneakin' in for coffee, an' some of them would make a dog sick. Bailey -'s got his troubles, but he don't do like Oom Piet Coetzee did when--" - -An infuriate rumble from Christian broke in upon her. Boy Bailey smiled -and shook his head. - -"Now, now," he murmured. "Language, please." - -"He 's worse than a Kafir in the house," Christian went on. "Woman, it -makes me sick when he looks at you, like an old silly devil." - -"So long as he don't look like an old silly Dutchman, I don't mind," -retorted his wife. "I 'm fairly sick of it all--you an' your Doppers -and all. And just because you can't tell when a gentleman 's having his -bit of fun, you come and howl at me." - -"Howl." The word seemed to sting. "Howl. Yes, instead of howling I -should take my gun and let him have one minute to run before I shoot at -him. You like that better, eh? You like that better?" - -"Christian." There was alarm in Mrs. du Preez's voice. Behind the shut -door of the kitchen, Bailey could picture Christian reaching down the -big Martini that hung overhead with oiled rags wrapped about its breech. - -"Time for me to cut in at this," reflected Mr. Bailey. "I never was much -of a runner." - -He walked along the passage with loud steps, acting a man returned from -a constitutional, restored by the air and at peace with the whole human -race. - -Mrs. du Preez and Christian were facing one another over the length of -the table; they turned impatient and angry faces towards the door as he -opened it and thrust his personality into the scene. He fronted them -with his terrible smile and his manner of jaunty amity. - -"Hot, ain't it?" he inquired. "I 've been down by the dam and the water -'s nearly on the boil." - -Neither answered; each seemed watchful of the other's first step. -Christian gave him only a dark wrathful look and Mrs. du Preez colored -and looked away. Boy Bailey, retaining his smile under difficulties, -tossed his hat to a chair and entered. - -"Not interrupting anything, am I?" he inquired. - -"You 're not interrupting _me_," replied Mrs. du Preez. "I 've said all -I 'd got to say." - -"But I haven't said all I 've got to say," retorted Christian from his -end of the table. "We was talking about you." - -"About me?" said Bailey, with mild surprise. "Oh." - -"Yes." The Boer, leaning forward with his hands gripping the thick end -of the table, had a dangerous look which warned Bailey that impudence -now might have disastrous consequences. - -"Yes--about you. My wife says you are a gentleman and got gentleman's -manners and you are her old friend. She says you don't mean harm and -you don't look bad and dirty. She says I don't know how gentlemen speak -and look and I am wrong to say you are a beast with the mark of the -beast." - -Bailey shifted uncomfortably under his gaze of fury held precariously in -leash, and edged a little towards Mrs. du Preez. He was afraid the big, -bearded man might spring forward and help out his words with his fist. - -"Very kind of Mrs. du Preez," he murmured warily. - -"She says all that. But _I_ say"--the words rasped from Christian's -lips--"_I_ say you are a man rotten like an old egg and the breath in -your mouth is a stink of wickedness. And I tell her that sometimes I -get up from my food and go out because if I don't I shall stamp you to -death. _Gott verdam_! Your dirty eyes and your old yellow teeth -grinning--I stand them no longer. You have had rest and _skoff_--now -you go." - -Bailey's face showed some discomposure. His disadvantage lay in the -danger that the Boer was plainly willing to be violent. He had returned -to the house with the intention of announcing that on the morrow he -would take his departure, but it was not the prospect of spending a -night in the open that disconcerted him. It was simply that he disliked -to be treated thus loftily by a man he despised. He stole a glance at -Mrs. du Preez. - -She was staring at her husband with shrewdness and doubt expressed in -her face, as though she were checking her valuation of him by the fierce -figure at the other end of the table, with big, leathery hands clutched -on the edge of the board and thin, sun-tanned face intent and wrathful -above the uneven beard. She was revisiting with an unsympathetic eye -each feature of that irreconcilable factor in her life, her husband. - -"D'you hear me?" thundered the Boer. "You go." - -He pointed with sudden forefinger to the door, and his gesture was -unspeakably daunting and wounding. - -"Ye-es," hesitated Boy Bailey, and sighed. The pointing finger -compelled him like a hand on his collar, and he moved with shuffling and -unwilling feet to the chair where his hat lay. He fumbled with it as he -picked it up and it fell to the floor. The finger did not for a moment -pretermit its menacing command. He sighed again and drew the door open. - -"Bailey." Mrs. du Preez spoke sharply, with a trembling catch in her -voice. "Bailey, you stop here." - -"Eh?" He turned in the doorway with alacrity. Another moment and it -might have been too late. - -"Go on," cried the Boer. "Out you go, or I 'll--" - -"Stop where you are, Bailey," cried Mrs. du Preez. - -She came across the room with a run and put herself in front of Bailey, -facing her husband. - -"Now," she said, "_now_ what d'you think you'll do?" - -The Boer heaved himself upright, and they fronted one another stripped -of all considerations save to be victor in the struggle for the fate of -Boy Bailey. It was the iron-hard cockney against the Boer. - -"I told him to go," said Christian. "If he doesn't go--I'll shoot." - -He cast an eye up to the gun in its place upon the wall. - -"You will, will you?" The bitter voice was mocking. "Now, Christian, you -just listen to me." - -"He 'll go," said the Boer. - -"Oh, he 'll go," answered Mrs. du Preez. "He 'll go all right, if you -say so. But mark my words. You go turning my friends out of the house -like this, and so help me, I 'll go too. Get that straight in your -head, old chap--it's right. Bailey 's not fretting to stay with you, -you know. You 're not such good company that you need worry about it. -It 's me he came to see, not you. And you pitch him out; that 's all. -Bailey goes to-night, does he? Then I go in the morning." - -She nodded at him, the serious, graphic nod that promises more earnestly -than a shaken fist. - -"What!" The Boer was taken by surprise. "If he goes--" - -"I 'll go--yes." - -She was entirely in earnest; her serious purpose was plain to him in -every word she spoke. She threatened that which no Boer could live -down, the flight of a wife. He stared at her almost aghast. In the -slow processes of his amazed mind, he realized that this, too, had had -to come--the threat if not the deed; it was the due and logical climax -of such a marriage as his. Her thin face, still pretty after its -fashion, and her slight figure that years had not dignified with -matronly curves, were stiffened to her monstrous purpose. Whether she -went or not, the intention dwelt in her. It was another vileness in Boy -Bailey that he should have given it the means of existence. - -Both of them, his wife and Mr. Bailey, screened by her body, thought -that he was vanquished. He stood so long without answering that they -expected no answer. Bailey was framing a scene for the morrow in which -he should renounce the reluctant hospitality of the Boer: "I can starve, -but I can't stand meanness." He had got as far as this when the Boer -recovered himself. - -With an inarticulate cry he was suddenly in motion, irresistibly swift -and forceful. A sweep of his arm cleared Mrs. du Preez from his path -and sent her reeling aside, leaving Boy Bailey exposed. Christian -seemed to halt at the threshold of the room and thrust a long arm out, -of which the forked hand took Boy Bailey by the thick throat and dragged -him in. He held the shifty, ruined face, now contorted and writhen from -his grip like the face of a hanged man, at the level of his waist and -beat upon it with the back of his unclenched right hand again and again. -Boy Bailey's legs trailed upon the floor lifelessly; only at each dull -blow, thudding like a mallet on his blind face, his weak arms fluttered -convulsively. Mrs. du Preez, who had fallen against the table, leaned -forward with hands clasped against her breast and watched with a -fascinated and terror-stricken stare. - -Boy Bailey uttered a windy moan and Christian dropped him with a gesture -of letting fall something that defiled his hand. The beaten creature -fell like a wet towel and was motionless and limp about his feet. Across -his body, Christian looked at his wife. He seemed to her to tower above -that meek and impotent carcass, to impend hatefully and dreadfully. - -"Throw water on him," he said. "In an hour, I will come back and if I -see him then, I will shoot." - -She did not answer, but continued to stare. - -"You hear?" he demanded. - -She gulped. "Yes." - -"Good," he said. He stepped over the body of Boy Bailey and mounted on -a chair, where he reached down the rifle. He gave his wife another -look; she had not moved. He shrugged and went out with the gun under -his arm. - -It was not till the noise of his steps ceased at the house-door that -Mrs. du Preez moved from her attitude of defeat and fear. She came -forward on tiptoe, edged past Boy Bailey's feet and crouched to peer -round the doorpost. She had to assure herself that Christian was gone. -She went furtively along the passage and peeped out over the kraals to -be finally certain of it and saw him, still with the gun, walking down -to the further fold where Paul was knee-deep in sheep. She came back to -the room and closed the door carefully, going about it with knitted -brows and a face steeped in preoccupation. Not till then did she turn -to attend to Boy Bailey. - -"Oh, God," she cried in a startled whisper as she bent above him, for -his eyes were open in his bloody face and the battered features were -feeling their way to the smile. - -She fell on her knees beside him. - -"Bailey," she said breathlessly. "I thought you--I thought he 'd killed -you." - -Boy Bailey rose on one elbow and felt at his face. - -"Him!" he exclaimed, with all the scorn that could be conveyed in a -whisper. "Him! He couldn't kill me in a year. Why, he never even shut -his fist." - -He wiped the blood from his fingers by rubbing them on the smooth earth -of the floor and sat up. - -"Why," he said, "take his gun away and I wouldn't say but what I 'd -hammer him myself. Him kill me--why, down in Capetown once I had a -feller go for me with a bottle an' leave me for dead, an' I was havin' a -drink ten minutes after he 'd gone. He isn't coming back yet, is he?" - -"No--not for an hour." - -She had hardly heard him, so desperately was she concentrated on the one -idea that occupied her mind. - -"Well, I won't wait for him," said Mr. Bailey. "I 'll get some of this -muck off my face an'--an' have a drink, if you 'll be so kind, and then -I 'll fade. But if ever I see him again--" - -"Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, "where 'll you go?" - -"Where? Well, to-night I reckon to sleep in plain air, as the French -say--or is it the Germans?--somewhere about here till I can get word -with a certain nigger who owes me money. And then, off to the station -on my tootsies and take train back to the land of ticky (threepenny) -beer and Y.M.C.A.'s." - -"England?" asked Mrs. du Preez. - -"England be--" Boy Bailey hesitated--"mucked," he substituted. -"Capetown, me dear; the metropolis of our foster motherland. It 's -Capetown for me, where the Christian Kafirs come from." - -"Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez. "Bailey, take me." - -"What?" demanded Boy Bailey. "Take you where?" - -"Take me with you." She was still kneeling beside him and she put a -hand on his arm urgently, looking into his blood-stained and smashed -face. "I won't stay with him now. I said I wouldn't and I won't. I 'd -die first. And you and me was always good pals, Bailey. Only for that -breakdown at Fereira, we 'd have--we might have hitched up together. -You were always hinting--you know you were, Bailey. Don't you know?" - -"Hinting?" He was surprised at last, but still wary. "But I wasn't -hinting at--supporting you?" - -"I didn't say you were," she answered eagerly. "Bailey, I 'm not a fool; -I 've got temperament too. You said yourself I had, only the other day. -And--and I can't stop with him now." - -Mr. Bailey looked at his fingers thoughtfully and felt his face again. - -"Fact is," he said deliberately, "you 're off your balance. You 'll -live to thank me for not taking advantage of it. You 'll say, 'Bailey -had me and let me go, as a gentleman would. He remembered I was a -mother. Bless him.' That 's what you 'll say when you 're an old woman -with your grandchildren at your knee. And anyhow, what d'you think you -'d do in Capetown? You ain't far off forty, are you?" - -She shook him by the arm she held to fix his attention. - -"Bailey," she said. "That don't matter for a time. I 've got a bit of -money, you know. I 'm not leaving that behind." - -"Money, have you?" - -The wonderful thing in women such as Mrs. du Preez is that they see so -clearly and yet act so blindly. They know they are sacrificed for men's -gain and do not conceal their knowledge. They count upon baseness, -cruelty and falsity as characteristics of men in general and play upon -these qualities for their purposes. But furnish them with a reason for -depending upon a man, and they will trust him, uphold him, obey him, -lean upon him and compensate the flimsiest rascal for the world's -contempt and hardness by yielding him a willing victim. - -They looked at each other. Bailey still sitting on the floor, she on -her knees, and each read in the other's eyes an appraisement and a -stratagem. The coffee-pot that stood all day beside the fire to be -ready for Boer visitors, sibilated mildly at their backs. - -"It would n't last for ever, the bit you 've got," said Bailey. "There -'s that to think of." - -"It 's a good bit," she replied. - -"Is it--is it as much as fifty pounds?" he asked. - -"It 's more," she answered. "Never you mind how much it is, Bailey. -It's a good bit and it 's mine, not his." - -He thought upon it with his under-lip caught up between his teeth, -almost visibly reviewing the possibilities of profit in the company of a -woman who had money about her. Mrs. du Preez continued to urge him in -hard whispers. - -"I 'd never manage it by myself, Bailey, or I wouldn't be begging you -like this. I 've tried to bring myself to it again and again, but I was -n't game enough. And it isn't as if I was goin' to be a burden to you. -It won't be long before I 'll get a job--you 'll see. A barmaid, -p'r'aps, or I might even get in again with a show. I haven't lost my -figure, anyhow. And as for staying here now, with him, after -this--Bailey, I 'll take poison if you leave me." - -Boy Bailey frowned and looked up at the clock which swung a pendulum to -and fro against the wall, as though to invite human affairs to conduct -themselves in measure. - -"Well, we haven't got too much time to talk about it," he said. "He -said an hour. Now supposin' I take you, you know it's a case of footin' -it down the line to the next siding? It wouldn't suit me to be nabbed -with you on my hands. He 'd shoot as soon as think about it, and then -where would I be?" - -"I can walk," Mrs. du Preez assured him eagerly. "You 'll take me with -you, then, Bailey?" - -Boy Bailey sighed. "Oh, I'll take you," he said. "I 'll take you, since -your mind 's made up. My good nature has been the ruin of me--that and -my temperament. But don't forget later on that I warned you." - -Mrs. du Preez jumped up. "I won't forget," she promised. "This is my -funeral. Get up from there, Bailey, and we 'll have a drink on it." - -They made their last arrangements over the glasses. Christian's absence -was to be counted upon for the greater part of the next day; their road -would be clear. - -The first word above a whisper which had been spoken since Christian -left them was by Mrs. du Preez. She sat down her glass at the last with -a jolt. - -"But, Bailey," she cried, on a note of hysterical gaiety, "Bailey--we -got to be careful, I know, and all that--but what a lark it 'll be." - -He stared at her, not quick enough to keep up with her mounting mood. -She was flushed and feverish with excitement and the reaction of strong -feeling and her eyes danced like a child's on the brink of mischief. - -"The woman 's a fool," thought Boy Bailey. - -His own attitude towards the affair, as he reviewed it that night in the -forage-shed, where he reposed full dressed in the scent of dry grasses -and stared reflectively through a gap in the roof at the immortal -patience of the stars, was strictly businesslike. Not even a desire to -be revenged upon Christian du Preez, who had called him names and beaten -him, impaired the consistency of that attitude. Boy Bailey allowed for -a certain proportion of thrashings in his experiences; they ranked in -the balance-sheet of his transactions as a sort of office expenses. -They had to be kept down to the lowest figure compatible with -convenience and good business, but they were not to be weighed against a -lucky deal. The one thing that engaged his fancy was the fact that the -woman, though close on forty, would come with money about her--more than -fifty pounds. It would make up his equipment to a handsome, an imposing, -figure. Never before had he possessed a round hundred pounds in one -sum. The mere possibilities that it opened out were exciting; it seemed -as large and as inexhaustible as any other large sum. He did not dwell -on the fact that it belonged to Mrs. du Preez and not to him; he did not -even give his mind to a scheme for securing it. All that was detail, a -thing to be settled at any advantageous moment. A dodge, a minute of -drowsiness on her part--or perhaps, at most, a blow on the -breasts--would secure the conveyance of the money to him. In the -visions of Capetown that hovered on the outskirts of his thought, a -ghostly seraglio attending his nod, there moved many figures, but Mrs. -du Preez was not among them. His imagination made a circuit about her -and her fate, or at most it glanced with brevity and distaste on the -spectacle of a penniless woman weeping on a bench at a wayside station, -seeing the tail-lights of a vanishing train blurred through tears. - -"I knew I 'd strike it lucky one of these days," was Mr. Bailey's -reflection, as he composed himself to slumber. "With two or three more -like her--I 'll be a millionaire yet." - -The stars watched his upturned face as he slept with a still scrutiny -that must have detected aught in its unconscious frankness that could -redeem it or suggest that once it had possessed the image of God. He -slept as peacefully, as devotedly, as a baby, confiding his -defenselessness to the night with no tremors or uncertainty. He left -unguarded the revelations of his loose and feeble face that the mild -stars searched, always with their stare of stagnant surprise. - -In the farmhouse, there was yet a light in the windows when dawn paled -the eastward heaven. Christian du Preez slept in his bed unquietly, -with clenched hands outstretched over the empty place beside him, and in -another room Paul had transferred himself from waking dreams to a -dream-world. Tiptoeing here and there in the house, Mrs. du Preez had -gathered together the meager handful of gear that was to go with her; -she had shaken out a skirt that she treasured and made ready a hat that -smelt of camphor. Her money, in sovereigns, made a hard and heavy knob -in a knotted napkin. All was gathered and ready for the journey and yet -the light shone in the window of the parlor where she sat through the -hours. Her hands were in her lap and there were no tears in her -eyes--it was beyond tears. She was taking leave of her furniture. - -She saw her husband at breakfast, facing him across the table with a -preoccupied expression that he took for sullenness. She did not see the -grimness of his countenance nor mark his eye upon her; she was thinking -in soreness of heart of six rosewood chairs, upholstered in velvet, a -rosewood table, a sofa, and the rest of it--the profit of her marriage, -her sheet-anchor and her prop. She felt as though she had given her -life for them. - -Christian rode away with his back to the sun, with no word spoken -between them, and as his pony broke into a lope--the Boer half-trot, -half-canter,--he caught and subdued an impulse to look back at the -house. Even if he had looked, he would hardly have seen the cautious -reconnoiter of Boy Bailey's head around the corner of it, as that -camp-follower of fortune made sure of his departure. Thrashings Mr. -Bailey could make light of, but the Boer's threat of shooting had stuck -in his mind. He rested on his hands and knees and stuck his chin close -to the ground in prudent care as he peered about the corner of the house -to see the owner of the rifle make a safe offing. - -Even when the Boer had dwindled from sight, swallowed up by the -invisible inequalities of the ground that seemed as flat as a table, he -avoided to show himself in the open. He lurked under the walls of -kraals, frightening farm Kafirs who came upon him suddenly and finally -made a sudden appearance before Paul at the back of the house. - -"I won't waste words on you," he said to the boy. "I 've got something -better to do, thank God. But I 'm told you have a message for me." - -"Two messages," said Paul. - -"One 'll do," replied Boy Bailey. "I don't want to hear you talking. I -'ve been insulted here and I 'm not done with you yet. Mind that. So -hand over what you 've got for me and be done with it--d'you hear?" - -"Here it is." Paul put his hand into the loose bosom of his shirt and -drew out a small paper packet. He held it out to Boy Bailey. - -"That!" Boy Bailey trembled as he seized it, with a frightful sense of -disappointment. He had seen the money as gold, a brimming double -handful of minted gold, with gold's comforting substance and weight. The -packet he took into his hand was no fatter than a fat letter and held no -coin. - -He rent the covering apart and stared doubtfully at the little wad of -notes it contained, sober-colored paper money of the Bank of Africa. It -had never occurred to him that the Kafir, Kamis, would have his riches -in so uninspiring a shape. Two notes of twenty pounds each and one of -ten and all three of them creased and dirty. No chink, no weight to drag -at his pocket and keep him in mind of it, none of the pomp and panoply -of riches. - -"Why--why," he stammered. "I told him--cash down. Damn the dirty Kafir -swindler, what does he call this?" - -"Blackmail, I think he said," replied Paul. "That was the other -message. If you don't do what you said you 'd do, you 'll go to _tronk_ -(jail) for it, and I am to be a witness. That 's if he does n't kill -you himself--like I told him he 'd better do." - -Boy Bailey arrived by degrees at sufficient composure to pocket the -notes, thrusting them deep for greater security and patting them through -the cloth. - -"Oh, you told him that, did you?" he said. "And you call yourself a -white man, do you? Murder, is it? You look out, young feller. You -don't know the risks you 're running. I 'm not a man that forgets." - -But Paul was not daunted. He watched the battered face that threatened -him with an expression which the other did not understand. There was a -curious warm interest in it that might have flattered a man less bare of -illusions as to his appearance. - -"I suppose you 've never seen a black eye before, you gaping moon-calf," -he cried irritably. "What are you staring like that for?" - -Paul smiled. "I would give you a shilling again to let me make a model -of you," he answered. "I 'd give you two shillings." - -Boy Bailey swore viciously and swung on his heel. He was stung at last -and he had no answer. He made haste to get around the corner and away -from eyes that would keep the memory of him as he appeared to Paul. - -It was more than an hour later that Mrs. du Preez discovered him, -squatting under the spikes of a dusty aloe, humped like a brooding -vulture and grieving over that last affront. He lifted mournful eyes to -her as she stood before him. - -"Bailey," she said breathlessly. "I hunted everywhere for you. I -thought you 'd gone without me." - -She was ready for the long flight on foot. All that she had in the way -of best clothes was on her body, everything she could not bring herself -to leave. The seemliness of Sunday was embodied in her cloth coat and -skirt, her cream silk bosom and its brooches, the architectural -elaborateness of her hat. She stood in the merciless sun in all her -finery, with sweat on her forehead and a small bundle in each hand. - -"You 're coming, then?" he asked stupidly. - -She stamped her foot impatiently. "Of course I 'm coming," she said. -"Don't go into all that again, Bailey. D' you think I 'd stop with him -now, after--after everything?" - -She was holding desperately to her resolution, eager to be off before -the six rosewood chairs, the table and the sofa should overcome her and -make good their claim to her. - -"What 's those?" Bailey nodded at the bundles torpidly. - -"Oh," she was burning to be moving, to be committed, to see her boats -flaming and smoking behind her. "This is grub, Bailey. We 'll want -grub, won't we? And this is my things." - -"The--er--money, I suppose, an' all that?" - -"Yes, yes. Oh, do come on, Bailey. The money 's all here. Everything -'s here. You carry the grub an' let 's be going." - -"The grub, eh?" Mr. Bailey rose grunting to his feet. "You 'd -rather--well, all right." - -None viewed that elopement to mark how Mrs. du Preez slipped her free -hand under Bailey's arm and went forth at his side in the bravery she -had donned as though to bring grace to the occasion. Paul was down at -the dam with sheep, and before he returned the brown distances of the -Karoo had enveloped them and its levels had risen behind them to blot -out the dishonored roof of the house. - -At the hour of the midday meal, Paul ate alone, contentedly and -unperturbed by his mother's absence. For all he knew she had one of her -weeping fits upstairs in her bedroom, and he was careful to make no -noise. - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - -Margaret entered the drawing-room rather late for tea and Mrs. Jakes -accordingly acknowledged her arrival with an extra stoniness of regard. -In his place by the window, Ford turned from his abstracted -contemplation of the hot monotony without and sent her a discreet and -private smile across the tea-table. Mrs. Jakes, noting it and the -girl's response, tightened her mouth unpleasantly as the suspicion -recurred to her that there was "something between" Mr. Ford and Miss -Harding. More than once of late she had noticed that their intercourse -had warmed to the stage when the common forms of expression need to be -helped out by a code of sympathetic looks and gestures. She addressed -the girl in her thinnest tones of extreme formality. - -"I thought perhaps you were n't coming in," she said. "I 'm afraid the -tea 's not very hot now." - -"I 'll ring," said Mr. Samson, diligently handing a chair. - -"Please don't," said Margaret, taking it. "I don't mind at all. Don't -bother, anybody." - -"I forget if you take sugar, Miss Harding," said Mrs. Jakes, pouring -negligently from the pot. Ford grinned and turned quickly to the window -again. - -"No sugar, thanks," answered Margaret agreeably; "and no milk and no -tea." - -"No tea?" Mrs. Jakes raised her eyebrows in severe surprise and looked -up. The movement sufficed to divert the stream from the tea-pot so that -it flowed abundantly on the hand which held the cup and splashed thence -into the sugar basin. She sat the pot down sharply and reached for her -handkerchief with a smothered ejaculation of annoyance. - -"Oh, I 'm sorry," said Margaret. "But how lucky you didn't keep it hot -for me. You might have been scalded, might n't you?" - -"Thank you," replied Mrs. Jakes, with all the dignity she could summon -while she mopped at her sleeve. "Thank you; I am not hurt." - -That was the second time Margaret had turned her own guns, her own -little improvised pop-guns of ineffectual enmity, back upon her; and she -did not quite understand how it was done. The first time had been when -she had pretended not to hear a remark Margaret had addressed to her. -The girl had crossed the room and joined Dr. Jakes in his hearth-rug -exile, and Mr. Samson had stared while Ford laughed silently but -visibly. Mrs. Jakes had not understood the implication of it; she was -only aware, reddening and resentful, that Margaret had scored in some -subtle fashion. - -The hatred of Mrs. Jakes was a cue to consistency of action no less -plain than her love. "I like people to know their own minds," was one -of her self-revelations, and she believed that worthy people, decent -people, good people were those who saw their way clear under all -circumstances of friendship and hostility and were prepared to strike -and maintain a due attitude upon any encounter. Her friends were those -who indulged her the forms of courtesy and consideration; her enemies -those who opposed her or were rude to her. To her friends she returned -their indulgence in kind; her enemies she pursued at each meeting and -behind their backs with an implacable tenacity of hate. One conceives -that in the case of such lives as hers, only those survive whose -feebleness is supplemented by claws. Take away their genuine capacity -for making themselves disagreeable at will, and they would be trodden -under and extinguished. Mrs. Jakes' girlhood was illuminated by the -example of an aunt, who lived for fourteen years with only a thin wall -between her and a person with whom she was not on speaking terms. The -aunt had known her own mind with such a blinding clearness that she was -able to sit with folded hands, listening through the wall to the sounds -of a raving husband murdering her enemy, and no impulse to cry for help -had arisen to dim the crystal of that knowledge. "She was a bad one at -forgiving, was your Aunt Mercy," Mrs. Jakes had been told, always with a -suggestion in the speaker's voice that there was something admirable in -such inflexibility. Primitive passions, the lusts of skin-clad -ancestors, fortified the anemia of the life from which she was sprung. -Marriage by capture would have shocked her deeply, but she would not -have been the worse squaw. - -She dropped into a desultory conversation with Mr. Samson, with -occasional side-references to Dr. Jakes, and managed at the same time to -keep an eye on the other two. Margaret had walked across to Ford, and -was sitting at his side on the window-ledge; he had a three-days-old -copy of the _Dopfontein Courant_, in which the scanty news of the -district was printed in English and Dutch and they were looking it over -together. Ford held the paper and Margaret leaned against his arm to -share it; the intimacy of their attitude was disagreeable to Mrs. Jakes. -An alliance between the two of them would be altogether too strong for -her, and besides, it was warfare as she understood it to destroy the -foe's supports whenever possible. - -"Nothing in the rag, I suppose, Ford?" asked Mr. Samson, in his high, -intolerant voice. - -"Not a thing," answered Ford, "unless you 're interested in the price of -wools." - -"Grease wool per pound," suggested Margaret. "Guess how much that is, -Mr. Samson." - -"It ought to be cheap," said Mr. Samson. "It sounds beastly." - -"Well, then, how 's this?" Margaret craned across Ford's shoulder and -read: "'Mr. Ben Bongers of Tomtown, the well-known billiard-marker, -underwent last week the sad experience of being kicked at the hands of -Mr. Jacobus Van Dam's _quaai_ cock. Legal proceedings are pending.' -There now. But does anybody know what kicked him?" - -"Cock ostrich," rumbled Dr. Jakes from the back of the room. -"_Quaai_--that means bad-tempered." - -"You see," said Ford, "ostriches are common hereabouts. They say cock -and ostrich is understood. What would they call a barn-door cock, -though?" - -"A poultry," said Mr. Samson. "But we must watch for those legal -proceedings; they ought to be good." - -Mrs. Jakes had listened in silence, but now an idea occurred to her. - -"There 's nothing about that woman in Capetown this week?" she asked, -and smiled meaningly as she caught Margaret's eye. - -"No," said Ford. "I was looking for that, but there 's nothing." - -"What woman was that?" inquired Margaret. - -"Oh, a rotten business. A woman married a Kafir parson--a white woman. -There 's been a bit of a row about it." - -"Oh," said Margaret, understanding Mrs. Jakes' smile. "I didn't see the -paper last week." - -She looked at Mrs. Jakes with interest. Evidently the little woman saw -the matter of Kamis, and Margaret's familiar acquaintance with him, as a -secret with which she could be cowed, a piece of dark knowledge that -would be held against her as a weapon of final resort. The fact did more -than all Kamis' warnings and Boy Bailey's threats to enlighten her as to -the African view of a white woman who had relations, any relations but -those of employer and servant, with a black man. Not only would a woman -in such a case expose herself to the brutal scandal that flourishes in -the atmosphere of bars where Boy Baileys frame the conventions that -society endorses, but she would be damned in the eyes of all the Mrs. -Jakes in the country. They would tar and feather her with their -contumely and bury her beneath their disgust. - -She returned Mrs. Jakes' smile till that lady looked away with a -long-drawn sniff of defiance. - -"But why a row?" asked Margaret. "If she was satisfied, what was there -to make a row about?" - -She really wanted to hear what two sane and average men would adduce in -support of Mrs. Jakes' views. - -Old Mr. Samson shook his head rebukingly. - -"Men and women ain't on their own in this world," he said seriously. -"They 've got to think of the rest of the crowd. We 're all in the same -boat out here--white people holdin' up the credit of the race. Can't -afford to have deserters goin' over to the other camp, don't y' know. -Even supposin'--I say, _supposin'_--there was nothing else to prevent a -white girl from taking on a nigger, it's lowerin' the flag--what?" - -"A woman like that deserves to be horsewhipped," cried Mrs. Jakes, with -sudden vigor. "To go and marry a _Kafir_--the vile creature." - -"This is very interesting," said Margaret. "Do you mean the Kafir is -vile, Mrs. Jakes, or the woman?" - -"I mean both," retorted Mrs. Jakes. "In this country we know what such -creatures are. A respectable woman does n't let a Kafir come near her -if she can help it. She never speaks to them except to give them their -orders. And as to--to marrying them, or being friendly with them--why, -she 'd sooner die." - -Margaret had started a subject which no South African can exhaust. They -discuss it with heat, with philosophic impartiality, with ethnological -and eugenic inexactitudes, and sometimes with bloodshed; but they never -wear it out. - -"You see, Miss Harding, there are other reasons against it," Mr. Samson -struck in again. "There 's the general feelin' on the subject and you -can't ignore that. One woman mustn't do what a million other women feel -to be vile. It 's makin' an attack on decency--that 's what it comes -to. A woman might feel a call in the spirit to marry a monkey. It -might suit her all right--might be the best thing she could do, so far -as a woman of that sort was concerned; but it would n't be playin' the -game. It wouldn't be cricket." - -He shook his spirited white head with a frown. - -"I see," said Margaret. "But there 's one other point. I only want to -know, you know." - -"Naturally," agreed Mr. Samson. "What's the point?" - -"Well, there are about ten times as many black people as white in this -country. What about their sense of decency? Doesn't that suffer a -little by this--this trades-union of the whites? That woman in Capetown -has all the whites against her and all the blacks for her--I suppose. -There 's a majority in her favor, at any rate." - -"Hold on," cried Mr. Samson. "You can't count the Kafirs like that, you -know. They 're not in it. We 're talking about white people. The whole -point is that Kafirs _are n't_ whites. A white woman belongs to her own -people and must stand by their way of lookin' at things. If we take -Kafir opinion, we 'll be chuckin' clothes next and goin' in for -polygamy." - -"Would we?" said Margaret. "I wonder. D'you think it will come to that -when the Kafirs are all as civilized as we are and the color line is -gone?" - -"The color line will never go," replied Mr. Samson, solemnly. "You -might as well talk of breakin' down the line between men and beasts." - -"Well, evolution did break it down," said Margaret. "Think, Mr. Samson. -There will come a day when we shall travel on flying machines, and all -have lungs like drums. We shall live in cities of glazed brick beside -running streams of disinfectant. There will be no poverty and no crime -and no dirt, and only one language. Where will the Kafirs be then? -Still in huts on the Karoo being kept in their place?" - -"I 'm not a prophet," said Mr. Samson. "I don't know where they 'll be. -It won't bother me when that time comes. I 'll be learning the harp." - -"There 'll be a statue in one of those glazed-brick cities to the woman -in Capetown," Margaret went on. - -"It 'll be inscribed in letters of gold--'To ---- (whatever her name -was): She felt the future in her bones.'" - -Mr. Samson blew noisily. "Evolution 's not in my line," he said. "It -'s all very well to drag in Darwin and all that but black and white -don't mix and you can't get away from that." - -"I should think not, indeed." Mrs. Jakes corroborated him with a shrug. -She had found herself intrigued by the glazed-brick cities, and shook -them from her as she remembered that she was not "friends" with their -inventor. - -But Margaret was keen on her theory and would not abandon it for a -fly-blown aphorism. - -"You 'd never have been satisfied with that woman," she said. -"Supposing she had n't married the Kafir? Supposing that being fond of -him and believing in him, she had bowed down to your terrible decency -and not married? You 'd still have been down on her for liking him, and -she 'd have been persecuted if she spoke to him or let him be friendly -with her. Is n't that so?" - -Mr. Samson pursed his lips and bristled his white mustache up under his -nose. - -"Yes," he said. "That is so. I won't pretend I 've got any use for -women who go in for Kafirs." - -"Nobody has." Mrs. Jakes came in again at the tail of his reply with -all the confidence of a faithful interpreter. - -Margaret, marking her righteous severity, had an impulse to stun them -both with a full confession. She found in herself an increasing -capacity for being irritated by Mrs. Jakes, and had a vision of her, -flattened beyond recovery, by the revelation. She repressed the impulse -because the vision went on to give her a glimpse of the tragedy that -would close the matter. - -Ford had not yet spoken. He sat beside her, listening. Across the room, -Dr. Jakes was listening also. She put the question to him. - -"What do you think, Dr. Jakes?" she asked. - -"Eh?" He started at the sound of his name and put up an uncertain hand -to straighten his spectacles. - -"About all this--about the general principle of it?" she particularized. - -"Oh, well." He hesitated and cleared his throat. There was a fine -clear-cut idea floating somewhere in his mind, but he could not bring it -into focus with his thoughts. - -"It's simply that--Kafirs are Kafirs," he said dully. Mrs. Jakes -interposed a warm, "Certainly," and further disordered him. He gave her -a long and gloomy look and tried to go on. "When they are--further -advanced, that will be the time to--to think about inter-marriage, and -all that. Now--well, you can see what they are." - -He wiped his forehead nervously with his handkerchief, and Ford entered -the conversation. - -"Jakes has got it," he said. "Intermarriage may come--perhaps; but at -present every marriage of a white person with a Kafir means a loss. -It's a sacrifice of a civilized unit. D' you see, Miss Harding? You -'ve got to reckon not only what that woman in Capetown does but what she -doesn't do as well. She might have been the mother of men and women. -Well, now she 'll bear children to be outcasts. She ought to have -waited a couple of hundred years." - -"Perhaps she was in a hurry," answered Margaret. "But there 's the other -question--what if she hadn't married?" - -"Oh," said Ford. "In point of reason and all that, she 'd have been -right enough. But people are n't reasonable. Look at Samson--and look -at me." - -"You mean--you 've 'no use' for her?" - -"It's prejudice," he answered. "It's anything you like. But the plain -fact is, I 'd probably admire such a woman if I met her in a book; but -as flesh and blood, I decline the introduction. Does that shock you?" - -Margaret smiled rather wryly. "Yes," she said. "It does, rather." - -He turned towards her, humorous and whimsical, but at that moment Dr. -Jakes made a movement doorward and Mrs. Jakes began her usual brisk fire -of small-talk to cover his retreat. - -"I only wish there was some way we could get the papers regularly--such -a lot of things seem to be happening just now," she prattled. "Some of -the papers have cables from England and they are most interesting. That -_Cape Times_ you lent me, Mr. Samson--it had the names of the people at -the Drawing-Room. Do you know, I 've often been to see the carriages -drive up, and it 's just like reading about old friends. There was one -old lady, rather fat, with a mole on her chin, who always went, and once -we saw her drinking out of a flask in the carriage. My cousin -William--William Penfold--nicknamed her the Duchess de Grundy, and when -we asked a policeman about her, it turned out she really was a Duchess. -Was n't that strange?" - -Mr. Samson heard this recital with unusual attention. - -"A flask?" he asked. "Leather-covered thing, big as a quart bottle? -Fat old girl with an iron-gray mustache?" - -"Why," cried Mrs. Jakes. "You 've seen her too." - -Mr. Samson glared around him. "Seen her," he exclaimed. "Why, ma 'am, -once--she would walk with the guns, confound her--once I put a charge of -shot into her. And why I didn't give her the other barrel while I was -about it, I 've never been able to imagine. Seen her, indeed. I 've -seen her bounce like a bally india-rubber ball with a gunful of lead to -help her along. Used to write to me, she did, whenever a pellet came to -the surface and dropped out. I should just think I had seen her." - -"Fancy," said Mrs. Jakes. - -Mr. Samson did not go off forthwith, as his wont was. He showed a -certain dexterity in contriving to keep Margaret in the room with -himself till the others had gone. Then he closed the door and stood -against it, smiling paternally but still with gallantry. - -"I wanted just a word with you, if you 'll allow me," he said, with a -hand to the point of his trim mustache. He was a beautifully complete -thing as he stood with his back to the door, groomed to a hair, -civilized to the eyebrows. He presented a perfected type of the utterly -conventionalized, kindly and uncharitable gentleman of England. - -"Oh, Mr. Samson, this is so sudden," said Margaret. - -"What's that? Oh, you be--ashamed of yourself," he answered. "Tryin' -to fascinate an old buffer like me. But, I say, Miss Harding, I wish you -'d just let me say something I 've got on my mind--and forgive -beforehand anything that sounds like preaching. We old crocks--we 've -got nothing to do but worry the youngsters, and we have to be -indulged--what?" - -"Go ahead," agreed Margaret. "But if you preach at me, after shooting a -duchess,--I'll scream for help. What is it?" - -"It's a small matter," said Mr. Samson. "I want you just to let us go -on likin' and admirin' you, without afterthought or anything to spoil -the effect. You're new out here, and of course you don't know and could -n't know; you 're too fresh and too full of sweetness and innocence; -but--well, it kind of jars to hear you standin' up for a woman like that -woman in Capetown. You mean a lot to us, Miss Harding. We have n't got -much here, you know; we had to leave what we had and run out here for -our lives--run like bally rabbits when a terrier comes along. It 'ud be -a kindness if you wouldn't--you know." - -There was no mistaking the kindliness with which he smiled at her as he -spoke. It was another warning, but conveyed differently from the others -she had received. Mr. Samson managed to make his air of pleading for a -matter of sentiment convincing. - -"You--you 're awfully kind," she said. - -"Not kind," he replied. "Oh no; it is n't that. It 's what I said. It -'s us I 'm thinking of. You 've no idea of what you stand for. You 're -home, and afternoons when one meets pretty girls who are all goin' to -marry some bally cub, and restaurants full of nice women with jolly -shoulders, and fields with tailor-made girls runnin' away from cows. -You 're the whole show. But if you start educatin' us, though we 're an -ignorant lot, we lose all that." - -He looked at her with a trace of anxiety. - -"It 's cheek, I know, puttin' it to you like this," he added. "But I 'm -relyin' on your being a sportsman, Miss Harding." - -"It is n't cheek," Margaret answered. "It's awfully good of you. I--I -see what you mean, and I should be sorry if I--well, failed you." - -He stood aside from the door at once, throwing it open as he did so. - -"Sportsman to the bone," he said. "Bless your heart, did n't I know it. -Though I could n't have blamed you if you 'd kicked at all this pow-wow -from a venerable ruin old enough to be your grandfather." - -Hand to mustache, crooked elbow cocked well up, brows down over bold -eyes, the venerable ruin challenged the title he gave himself. Margaret -found his simple and comely tricks of posture and expression touching; -he played his little game of pose so harmlessly and faithfully. She -stopped in front of him as she walked to the door. - -"If you 'll shut your eyes and keep quite still, I 'll give you -something," she offered. - -"Ha!" snorted Mr. Samson zestfully. - -He closed his eyes and stood to attention, smiling. The lids of his eyes -were flattened and seamed with blue veins, and they gave him, as he -waited unmoving, some of the unreality and remoteness of a corpse. He -looked like a man who had died suddenly while proposing a loyal toast or -paying a compliment, who carries his genial purpose with him into the -dark and leaves only the shell of it behind. - -Margaret put a light hand on his trim gray shoulder and rising on tiptoe -touched him with her lips between the eyes. Then she turned and went -out, unhurrying, and Mr. Samson still stood to attention with closed -eyes till the sound of her feet was clear of the stone-flagged hall and -had passed out to the stoep. - -She did not go at once to the spot where a square stone pillar screened -Ford's easel, as her custom was. She came to rest at the side of the -steps and stood thoughtfully looking out to the veld, where the brown -showed hints of gold as the sun went westward. It hung now, very great -and blinding, above the brim of the earth, and bathed her with steep -rays that riddled the recesses of the stoep with their radiant -artillery. To one hand, a road came from the horizon and passed to the -opposite horizon on the other hand, linking unseen and unheard-of -stopping-places across the gulf of that emptiness. - -"What has all this got to do with me?" was her thought, as her eyes -traveled over the flat and unprofitable breast of land, whose -featurelessness seemed to defy her even to fasten it in her memory. She -recollected Ford's saying that she was a bird of passage, with all this -but a stage in her flight from sickness to health. Her starting and -halting points were far from Karoo; she touched it only as the dust that -moves upon it when a chance wind raises fantastic spirals and drives -them swaying and zigzagging till they break and are gone. Nothing that -she did could be permanent here; her pains would be spent in vain. Even -the martyrdom that had been held up to her for a warning--even that, if -she accepted it, would be ineffectual, the "sacrifice of a civilized -unit." - -Along the stoep, Ford's leg protruded from behind the pillar as he sat -widely asprawl on his camp-stool; the heel of the white canvas shoe was -on the flags and the toe cocked up energetically. He found things -simple enough, reflected Margaret; as simple as Mrs. Jakes found them. -Where knowledge and reason failed him, he availed himself frankly of -prejudices and dealt honestly with his instincts. He permitted himself -the indulgence of plain dislikings and was not concerned to justify or -excuse them. It was possible to conceive him wrong, irrational, -perverse, but never inconsistent or embarrassed. In the drawing-room he -had spoken lightly, but Margaret knew the steadfastness of mind that was -behind the trivial manner of speech. Well, he would have to be told, -sooner or later, of the secret she shared with the veld. That -confession was pressing itself upon her. With Mrs. Jakes and Boy Bailey -already privy to it, it could not be withheld much longer. She stood, -gazing at the outstretched leg, and tried to foresee his reception of -the news. - -"Well," said Ford, looking up absently when presently she walked down to -him. "Did Samson crush you or did you crush him?" - -"It was a draw," answered Margaret. "He 's a dear old thing, though. -And what a guarantee of good faith to be able to cap a duchess story -like that. Wasn't it good?" - -"Rotten shooting, though," said Ford. "He wouldn't have admitted he 'd -peppered a commoner." - -"You're jealous," retorted Margaret. "Mr. Samson 's quite all right, -and I won't have him sneered at after he 's been paying me compliments." - -"Once I hit an Honorable with a tennis racket. It slipped out of my -hand just as I was taking a fearful smack at a high one and hit him like -a boomerang. So I 'm not as jealous as you might think." - -"One can't throw a tennis racket without hitting an Honorable nowadays. -That 's nothing," said Margaret. "And you 're just an ordinary person, -anyhow. Mr. Samson, now--he 's not only a gentleman, but he looks like -it and sounds like it, and you could tell him with a telescope twenty -miles off for the real thing." - -"Ye-es." Ford drew a leisurely thumb across the foreground of his -picture and surveyed the result with his head on one side. "You know," -he went on, kneading reflectively at the sticky masses of paint, "some -of that 's true. He does sound exactly like it. If you wanted to know -the broad general view of the class that he represents, and all the -other classes that take a pattern from it, you 'd be fairly safe in -asking Samson. Those dashing men of the world, you know--they 're all -for the domestic virtues and loyalty and fair play. If you find fault -with gambling and drinking and cursing, they say you 've got the -Nonconformist Conscience. But when they stand for a principle, they 've -got the consciences of Sunday School pupil-teachers. Samson's ideal of -England is a nation of virtuous women and honest men, large families, -Sunday observance, and no damned French kickshaws. For that, he 'd go -to the stake smiling." - -"Well," said Margaret, "why not?" - -"Oh, I 'm not saying anything against him," answered Ford. "I 'm -telling you what he stands for and how far he counts when he turns on -the oracle." - -"You mean that Kafir business, of course?" - -"Yes," said Ford. "That 's what I mean." - -"I gathered," said Margaret slowly, "that you agreed with him about -that." - -He was still at work with his colors and did not raise his head as he -answered. - -"Not a bit of it. I don't agree with him at all. He talks absolute -drivel as soon as he begins to argue." - -"But," began Margaret. - -"I say I don't agree with him," continued Ford; "but that 's not to say -I don't feel just the same. As a matter of fact I do." - -"Oh, you 're too subtle," said Margaret impatiently. - -"That 's not subtle," said Ford imperturbably. "You were sounding us -all inside there and you got eloquence from old Samson and a shot in the -dark from Jakes and thunder and lightning from Mrs. Jakes. Now, if you -listen, you 'll get the real thing from me. As you said, I 'm just an -ordinary person. Well, the ordinary person knows all right that a -matter of tar-brush in the complexion doesn't make such a mighty -difference in two human beings. He sees they 're both bustling along to -be dead and done with it as soon as possible, and that they 'll turn -into just the same kind of earth and take their chance of the same -immortality or annihilation--as the case may be. He sees all right; he -even sees a sort of romance and beauty in it, and makes it welcome when -it doesn't suggest the real thing too clearly. But all that doesn't -prevent him from barring niggers utterly in his own concerns. It -doesn't stop his flesh from creeping when he reads of the woman in -Capetown, and imagines her sitting on the Kafir's knee. And it does n't -hinder him from looking the other way when he meets her in the street. -It isn't reason, I know. It isn't sense. It is n't human charity. But -it is a thing that's rooted in him like his natural cowardice and his -bodily appetites. Is that at all clear?" - -Margaret did not answer at once. She seemed to be looking at the -canvas. - -"Yes," she said finally. "It 's clear enough. But tell me--is that -you? I mean, were you describing your own feelings about it?" - -"Yes," he said. - -"You and I are going to quarrel before long," Margaret answered. "We -'ll have to. You won't be able to help yourself." - -"Oh," said Ford. "Why 's that?" - -"Because you 're such an ordinary person," retorted Margaret. - -He lifted his head at the tone of her voice, but further talk was -arrested by the sight of a man on horseback coming across from the road -towards them. Both recognized Christian du Preez. They saw him at the -moment that he switched his cantering pony round towards the house, and -came swiftly over the grass. He had his rifle slung upon his back by a -sling across the chest, and he reined up short immediately below them, -so that he remained with his face just above, the rail of the stoep. - -"_Daag,_" he said awkwardly. - -"Afternoon," replied Ford. "Are you painted for war, or what, with that -gun of yours?" - -The Boer, checking his fretting pony with heel and hand, gave him a -bewildered look. The dust was thick in his beard, as from long -traveling, and lay in damp streaks in each furrow of his thin face. The -faint, acrid smell of sweating man and horse lingered about him. He -moistened his lips before he could speak further. - -"My wife is gone out," he said, speaking as though he restrained many -eager words. "I must speak to her at once. She is not here--not?" - -"I don't think so," said Ford. - -Margaret was more certain. "Mrs. du Preez has n't been here this -afternoon," she assured the Boer. "There 's nothing wrong, I hope." - -Christian looked from one to the other as they answered with quick -nervous eyes. - -"No," he said. "But it is something--I must speak to her. She is not -here, then?" - -They answered him again, wondering somewhat at his strangeness. He -tried to smile at them but bit his lip instead. - -"Well--" he hesitated. - -"I will fetch Mrs. Jakes if you like," said Margaret. "But I 'm quite -sure Mrs. du Preez hasn't been here." - -"No," he said forlornly. "Thank you. Good-by, Miss Harding." - -The pony leaped under the spur, and they saw him gallop back to the road -and across it towards the farm. - -"Queer," said Ford. "Did you notice how humble he was while his eyes -looked like murder?" - -But Margaret had been struck by something else. - -"I thought he looked like Mrs. Jakes," she said, "when I answer her -back." - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - -It was Kamis, the Kafir, ranging upon one of his solitary quests, who -came upon them in the late afternoon, arriving unseen out of the -heat-haze and appearing before them as incomprehensibly as though he had -risen out of the ground. - -Mrs. du Preez had groaned and sat down for the fourth or fifth time in -three miles and Mr. Bailey's patience was running dry. For himself, the -trudge through the oppression of the sun was not a new experience; he -was inured to its discomforts and pains by many years of use while he -had been a pilgrim from door to distant door of the charitable and -credulous, and he had gathered a certain adeptness in the arts of the -trek. He had set a good lively pace for this journey, partly because a -single vigorous stage would see them at the railway line, but also -because he sincerely believed in Christian du Preez's willingness to -shoot him, and was concerned to be beyond the range of that vengeance. -Therefore, at this halt, he turned and swore. - -Mrs. du Preez fanned herself feebly with one hand while the other still -held the little bundle that contained her money. - -"I can't help it, Bailey," she said painfully. "I mus' have a rest. I -'m done." - -"Done." He spat. "Bet I could make you walk if I started. Are you -goin' to come on?" - -She shook her head slowly, with closed eyes. - -"I can't," she said. "I mus' jus'--have a sit down, Bailey." - -Her elaborate hat nodded drunkenly on her head, and all the dust of the -long road could not make her clothes at home in the center of the wide -circle of dumb and forsaken land in which she sat, surrendered to her -weariness, but never relaxing her hold on her money. Not once since -their setting out had she loosed her grip on that, save when she changed -the burden of it from one hand to the other. Her faith was in the worth -and power of that double handful of sovereigns, and she would have felt -poorer on a desert island by the loss of a single one of them. - -"I 've been patient with you," Boy Bailey said, looking at her fixedly. -"I 've been very patient with you. But it 's about time there was an end -of this two-steps-and-a-squat business. There 's no knowing what minute -that husband of yours might come ridin' up with his gun." - -"I 'll be--all right--soon," she said. "Give me a half hour, Bailey." - -"Take your own time," he replied. "Take all the time there is. Only--I -'m goin' on." - -She opened her eyes at that and blinked at him in an effort to see him -through the hot mist that stood before them. - -"Goin'--to leave me?" - -"Yes," he said. "What d' you think?" - -Her look, her parted lips and all her accusing helplessness were before -his eyes; he looked past them and shuffled. To the weak man, weakness -is horrible. - -"I warned you about comin'," he said, seeking the support of reasonable -words as such men do. "You 've got yourself to blame, and I don't see -why I should stop here to be shot by a man that grudged me a bite and a -bed. It isn't as if I 'd asked you to come." - -"I 'll be better soon," was all she could say, still holding him with -that look of a wounded animal, the reproach that neither threatens nor -defies and is beyond all answer. - -"Better soon," he grumbled scornfully, and fidgeted. Her hand never left -the little bundle. Would she struggle much, he was thinking. He could -take it from her, of course, but he did n't want her to scream, even in -that earless solitude. The thought of her screams made him uneasy. She -might go on crying out even when he had torn the bundle from her and the -cries would follow at his back as he carried it off, and he would know -that she was still crying when he had passed out of hearing. - -Still--a kick, perhaps. Boy Bailey looked at her bowed body and at the -toe of his shoe. He began to breathe short and to tremble. It was -necessary to wait a moment and let energy accumulate for the deed. - -"Don't--go off," gasped Mrs. du Preez, with her face bent over her -knees, and Bailey relaxed. The words had snapped the tension of his -resolve, and it would have to be keyed up again. - -"Give me that bundle," he said hoarsely. "Give it to me, or else--" - -She sat up with an effort and he stopped in the middle of his threat. -He was pale now and trembling strongly. She drew the bundle closer to -her defensively. - -"No," she answered. "I won't." - -"Give it here," he croaked, from a dry throat. "Come on--God! I'll--" - -The moment of resolution had come to him, and for the instant he was fit -and strong enough to do murder. He plunged forward with his lower lip -sucked in and his ragged teeth showing in a line above his chin, and all -his loose and fearful face contorted into a maniac rage. The woman fell -over sideways with a strident cry, her bundle hugged to her breast. Boy -Bailey gasped and flung back his foot for the swinging kick that would -save him from the noise of her complainings. - -He kicked, blind to all but the woman on the ground, alone with her in a -narrow theater of bestial purpose and sweating terrors. He neither -heard nor saw the quick spring of the waiting Kafir, who charged him -with a shoulder, football fashion, while the kick still traveled in the -air and pitched him aside to fall brutally on his ear and elbow. He -tumbled and slid upon the dust with the unresisting lifelessness of a -sack of flour and lay, making noises in his throat and moving his head -feebly, till the world grew visible again and he could see. - -The Kafir stood above Mrs. du Preez, who lay where she had thrown -herself, and stared up at him with eyes in which the understanding was -stagnant. - -"Don't be frightened," he said. "I know who you are. I 'll take you -safely where you want to go." - -He spoke in tones as matter-of-fact as he could make them, for his -professional eye told him that the woman was at the limit of her -endurance and could support no further surprises. But he took in the -pretentious style of her dress with the dust upon it and the fact that -she was in company with the tramp upon a path that led to the railway -and wondered darkly. It was almost inconceivable, in spite of the -situation in which he found her, that she could be running away from her -husband in favor of the creature who now lay in the road, moving his -limbs tentatively and watching with furtive eyes to see if it was safe -to sit up. - -Mrs. du Preez moistened her lips. "I got nowhere to go, now," she said. - -"Then you 'd better go home," said Kamis. "Rest a little first--there -'s plenty of time, and it 'll be cooler presently. Then I 'll take you -back." - -He turned to look over his shabby tweed shoulder at Boy Bailey and -addressed him curtly. - -"You can go now," he said. - -Boy Bailey sat up awkwardly, with an expression of pain, as though it -hurt him to move. He had not yet mastered the change in the state of -affairs and attempted to temporize till matters should define -themselves. - -"I 've got to see first if I can stand," he said. "It's all very well, -but you can't slam a man down on his funny-bone and then order him to do -the goose-step." - -"Hurry," said the Kafir. - -Mr. Bailey passed an exploring hand about his shoulder. "Ouch!" He -winced. "Broken bone," he explained. "You say you 're a doctor--see -for yourself. And anyhow, I want a word in private with the lady." - -Kamis took two deliberate steps in his direction and-- - -"Hey!" yelled Boy Bailey, and scrambled to his feet. "What d'you kick -me like that for, you black swine?" - -He backed before the Kafir, with spread hands in agitated protestation. - -"Kickin' a man when he 's down," he cried. "Is that a game to play? -All right, all right; I 'm goin', aren't I? You keep where you are and -let me turn round. No, you stop first. I 'm not goin' to be kicked -again like that if I can help it." - -Kamis came to a halt. - -"Next time I see you, I 'll murder you," he promised. "Murder you." He -paused at Mr. Bailey's endeavor to save his dignity with a sneer. -"Don't you believe that?" he asked. "Say--don't you believe I 'll do -it?" - -Mr. Bailey's sneer failed as he looked into the black face that -confronted him. By degrees the sheer sinister power that inhabited it, -lighting it up and making it imminently terrible with its patent -willingness to kill, burned its way to his slow intelligence. His -pendulous underlip quivered. - -"Don't you?" repeated the Kafir, with a motion of his shoulders like a -shrug. "Don't you believe I 'll slaughter you like a pig next time I -see you? Answer--don't you believe it?" - -"Ye-es," stammered Boy Bailey. - -The Kafir's deliberate nod was indescribably menacing. - -"That's right," he said. "It's very true indeed. And you remember what -I paid you fifty pounds for, too. A word about that, Bailey, and I 'll -have you. Now go." - -A hundred paces off, Boy Bailey halted, to get breath and ideas, and -stood looking back. - -He waited, watching the Kafir bring Mrs. du Preez to a condition in -which she could stand again and bear the view of the backward road -coiling forth to the featureless skyline, and thence to further and -still featureless skylines, traversing intolerably far vistas that gave -no sign of a destination. With his returning wits, he found himself -wondering what arguments the man had to induce her to brave her husband. - -As it happened, there was need of none. The woman was broken and beyond -thought. She was reduced to instincts. The homing sense that sets a -wounded rock-rabbit of the kranzes crawling in agony to die in its -burrow moved in her dimly; she could not even summon force to wonder at -the apparition of the English-speaking, helpful Kafir. Under the -practised deftness of his suggestion and persuasion she rose and put her -limp arm in his, and they moved away together, following their long -shadows that went before them, gliding upon the dust. - -"There they go," said Mr. Bailey bitterly. "There they go. And what -about _me_?" - -He saw that the Kafir propped the exhausted woman with his arm and -helped her. He was protecting and assured, a strength and a shield. -Almost unconsciously Boy Bailey followed after them. He could not have -given a reason for doing so; he only knew that he was very unwilling to -be left alone with his bruises and his sense of failure and defeat. In -less than a quarter of an hour, the veld that had been comfortingly -empty had become lonely. He went on tiptoe, with long ungainly strides -and much precaution to be unheard. - -He followed perhaps for half a mile and then the Kafir looked back and -saw him. Mr. Bailey stopped within speaking distance. - -"I was coming to apologize," he called. "That 's all. I lost my temper -and I want to apologize." - -The Kafir let Mrs. du Preez sit down and came walking back slowly. When -half the distance to Mr. Bailey was covered he broke suddenly into a -run. For some seconds Mr. Bailey abode, his mind racing, and then he -too turned and ran as he had never run before. With fists clenched and -head back, he faced the west and fled in leaps, and as he went he -emitted small squeals and fragments of speech. - -"My mistake," he would utter, through failing breath. "As long as I -live, I 'll never--I swear it--I swear it. O-o-oh. You 're -very--hard--on me." - -The Kafir had ceased to run when Mr. Bailey turned to flee. He stood -and watched him go, unpursued and terrified, with the dust spirting -under his feet like the smoke of a powder-train. Then he went back and -aided Mrs. du Preez to rise and together they set out again. - -The last of Boy Bailey was a black blot against the sky; he was too far -off for Kamis to see whether he still ran or stood. It merely testified -that a degenerate human frame will stand blows and much emotion and -effort under a hot sun and yet hold safe for further evil the life -within it. Man of all animals is the most tenacious of his existence; -he lives not for food but for appetite. What was assured was that the -far blot that represented Boy Bailey was still avid and still -unsatisfied. He had not even gratified his last desire to apologize. - -The sun dawdled over the final splendid ceremony of his setting, drawing -out the pomp of departure while night waited in the east for his going -with pale premature stars. The small wind that clears the earth of the -sun's leavings of heat sighed about them, and produced from each side of -their path a faint rustle as though it stirred trees at a little -distance. Above them the sky began to light up with a luminous powder -of stars, that strained into radiant clearness before the west was empty -of its last pink stain. They went slowly, Mrs. du Preez leaning heavily -on Kamis' arm, and still faithfully carrying her bundle. She had not -spoken since they started. She went with her eyes on the ground, and -unequal steps, till the evening breeze touched her and she lifted her -face to its gentle refreshment. - -She had to sit down every little while, but she was stronger after the -setting of the sun, and it was not till the night had surrounded them -that she spoke. - -"When I saw you first," she said suddenly, "the sun was in my eyes. And -I thought you was--_black_?" - -"Yes?" said Kamis. "That wasn't the sun," he said slowly. "I am -black." - -"But--" she hesitated. "I don't mean just black," she said vaguely. "I -meant--a black man, a nigger." - -She was peering up at him anxiously, while her weight rested in his arm. - -"Well, wouldn't you have let a nigger help you?" asked Kamis quietly. -"Isn't it a nigger's business, when he sees a white woman in trouble, to -do what he can for her? One of your farm niggers, now--wouldn't you -have called to him if he 'd been there?" - -"Yes," fretfully. "But I thought _you_ was a nigger." - -"I 'm a doctor," said Kamis. "I was at schools and colleges in England. -The English Government gives me hundreds of pounds a year. You 're -quite safe with me." - -"It was the sun in my eyes," she murmured uncertainly. "I said it was -the sun." - -"No, it wasn't the sun," he said. "You saw quite well. I am a nigger." - -"How can a doctor be a nigger?" she asked. "Niggers--why, I know all -about niggers. You can't fool me." - -"I won't try," answered Kamis. "But--one thing; you 've got to get -home, haven't you? And you can't do it alone. You wouldn't refuse to -let a nigger help you to walk, would you?" - -"No," she said wonderingly. "I _got_ to get home. I got to." - -"All right," said Kamis. "Then look here. Take a good look and satisfy -yourself. There 's no sun now to get in your eyes." - -He had halted and drawn his arm from hers. A match crackled and its -flame showed him to her, illuminating his negro features, and her drawn -face, frowning in an effort to comprehend. He held it till it burned to -his fingers and then dropped it, and the darkness fell between them -again like a curtain. - -"Now do you see?" he asked. "A Kafir like any other, flat nose, big -lips, woolly hair, everything--just plain Kafir; but a doctor none the -less. The Kafir will help you to walk and the doctor will see to you if -you find by and by that you can't walk any further. Will that satisfy -you?" - -She did not answer immediately; she stood as though she were still -trying to scan the face which the match flame had revealed. She was -searching for a formula, he told himself with a momentary bitterness, -which would save her white-skinned dignity and yet permit her to avail -herself of his services. - -Then her moving hand touched him on the arm, gently and unexpectedly, -and she answered. - -"You poor devil," she said. "You poor devil." - -Kamis stood quite still, her timid touch upon him, the ready pity of her -voice in his ears. Mingled with his surprise he felt a sense of -abasement in the presence of this other outcast, so much weaker than he, -and he could have begged for her pardon for the wrong which his thoughts -had done her. - -"Thank you," he said abruptly. "Thank you, Mrs. du Preez. It's--it's -kind of you. You shall be very safe with me." - -It was a strange companionship in which they went forward through the -night, he matching his slow steps to her weariness, with her thin arm, -bony and rigid through the cloth sleeve, weighing within his. She was -too far spent for talk; they moved in a silence of effort and desperate -persistence, with only her harsh and painful breathing sounding in reply -to the noises which the darkness evoked upon the veld. Every little -while she had to sit down on the ground, and at each such occasion she -would make her small excuse. - -"I 'll have to take a spell, now," she would say apologetically. "You -see, I was walking since before noon." - -Then her arm would slide from his and she would sink to earth at his -feet, panting painfully, with her head bowed on her bosom and her big -hat roofing her over. Thus she would remain motionless for a space till -her breath came more easily, and then the hat would tilt up again. - -"I could move on a bit, now, if you 'd give me a hand up." - -Her courage was a thing he wondered at. Again and again, as the hours -spun themselves out, she rose to her feet, groped for his sustaining -arm, with her face a pallid disk against the shadow of her hat, and -faced the cruel miles. Her feet, in her smart town boots, tormented her -without ceasing; her strength was drained from her like blood from an -opened vein; and the slowness of their progress protracted the dreary -horror of the road that remained to be covered. At times she seemed to -talk to herself in whispers between sobbing breaths, and his ear caught -hints of words shaped laboriously, but nothing that had meaning. But -she uttered no complaint. - -At one point where she rested rather longer than usual, he tried to find -out what she expected at the journey's end. - -"Have you thought what you 'll say," he asked, "when you get home?" - -She raised her head slowly. - -"I don't know," she answered. "I--I got to take my gruel, I suppose. -Whatever it is, I got to take it. It 's up to me." - -It was the sum of her wisdom; those free-lances of their sex add it -early into the conclusion that saves them the futile effort of evading -payment for the fruit they snatch when the world is not looking. After -the fun, the adventure, the thrill, comes the gruel, and they have to -take it. It is up to them. By the short cut of experience, they reach -thus the end and destination of a severe morality. - -"He can't shut you out, at any rate," said Kamis, half-aloud. - -"Can't he?" she said. "Can't he, though! Can't stand there feelin' -noble and righteous and point to the veld and shut the door with a big -slam? You don't know him." - -She rose again presently, clicking her tongue between her teeth at the -anguish of her swollen and abraded feet. - -"The Boers got sense," she said. "A person 's a fool to go on foot." - -It was the only reference she made to her pain and weariness. - -It was long past midnight when they came at last past the sheds behind -the farmhouse and saw that there was yet a light in the kitchen. The -window shone broad and yellow in the vague bulk of the house, and as -they lifted their faces towards it, a shadow moved across it, grotesque -and abrupt after the manner of shadows, which seem to have learned from -men how to mock their makers. - -"That 's Christian," said Mrs. du Preez, whispering harshly. - -"Are you afraid?" asked Kamis. "Will you sit here while I go and speak -to him first?" - -"No," she replied. "No use. This is where I get what's comin' to me. -I wish I wasn't so done up, though. If he knew, I believe p'r'aps he 'd -let me off till the morning. But he doesn't know, and it wouldn't be -him if he did." - -"Better let me speak to him first," urged Kamis. "I could tell him--" - -"No," she said again. "No use dodging it. We 'll go to the back door; -I 'd rather have him shut that on me than the front." - -Near the door she drew her arm away from the Kafir's and left him -standing to one side, while she approached and knocked upon it with the -back of her hand. She meant to eat the dreaded gruel alone. - -Silence succeeded upon her knocking, and then deliberate footsteps -within that came towards the door. A pair of bolts were thrust back, -crashing in their sockets. Mrs. du Preez gathered her sparse energies -and stood upright as the door opened and the figure of her husband -appeared, tall and black against the light inside which leaked past him -and spilt itself about her feet. For some moments they stood facing -each other, and neither spoke. - -There was drama in the atmosphere. The Kafir standing without its -scope, watched absorbedly. - -"Christian," said Mrs. du Preez, at length; "it's me." - -"Yes." The Boer's deep voice was grave. "Where have you been?" - -She lifted her shoulders in a faint hopeless shrug. - -"I ran away," she said. "Like I said I would. But I wasn't up to it." - -"You ran away," he repeated slowly. "With that Bailey?" - -"Yes, Christian. But--" - -Christian caught sight of the dark figure of the Kafir and started -sharply. - -"Is that him there?" he cried. "Is that Bailey?" - -"No, no," she answered eagerly. "That 's--that 's a Kafir, Christian; -he helped me to get back. He came up when I was too tired to go any -further, and Bailey was starting to kick me to get my money away from -me--I 've got it here, Christian, all safe--an' he knocked Bailey over -and chased him off. If it hadn't ha' been for him--" - -"What?" Christian interrupted strongly. "What did you say? Bailey was -going to--kick you? You was too tired to walk and he was going to kick -you?" - -"Yes, Christian. And if it hadn't ha' been for this Kafir, he would ha' -done. I was sitting down, you see, and he got mad with me and wanted me -to hand him over the money. So when I screamed--what did you say, -Christian?" - -"I swore," answered the Boer. - -"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. du Preez, as though she apologized for -interrupting. "And then the Kafir came up. If it was n't for him, -Christian, I 'd--I 'd ha' had to die out of doors. I could never have -managed to get back by myself." - -The effort merely to stand upright taxed her sorely, but she went on -doggedly to praise the Kafir and to try in her confused and inadequate -tongue to convey to the Boer that this Kafir was not as other Kafirs. -Her small voice, toneless and desperate, beat on pertinaciously. - -"He 's a doctor, Christian," she concluded. "He 's been educated an' -all that, an' he speaks English like a gentleman. And he 's been a -white man to me." - -"Yes," said the Boer. His mind was stuck fast upon one point of her -story. "Yes. But--you said Bailey was going to _kick_ you--out there -all alone by yourselves in the veld?" - -It daunted him; his intelligence shrank from the picture of that -brutality unleashed under the staring skies. - -"Yes, Christian," answered Mrs. du Preez submissively. - -"Here--come in," he bade abruptly, and stood aside to make room for her -to pass. "Come in. Come in." - -It was a couple of seconds before she fully comprehended. She made a -small moaning sound and began to totter. The Boer took her by the arm. - -"Wait," he said curtly, over her head, to the Kafir, and led her within. - -Kamis waited, leaning against the wall of the house. He had brought his -task to an end and the finish had arranged itself fortunately; it had -been worthy of his pains. The Boer had been startled from his balance; -he had seen that nothing he could do would bear an equality with Boy -Bailey's natural impulses; pardon and generosity were the only course -left open to him. The work was complete and pleasing; and now he had -leisure to feel how weary he was. He shut his eyes with an exhausted -man's content at the relaxation of effort, and opened them again to find -the Boer had returned and was standing in the doorway. He started -upright, amazed to find that sleep had trapped him while he leaned and -was aware that the Boer made a sudden and indistinct movement. -Something heavy struck the ground at his feet. - -He looked down at it where it lay, white and rounded, and recognized -Mrs. du Preez's bundle, for which Boy Bailey had been ready to kick her -into dumbness. Without addressing a word to him, the Boer had tossed -him that double handful of money. - -It took him a moment to realize what had taken place. - -"What's this for?" he demanded then, possessed by a sudden anger that -forgot he spoke from the mouth of a negro to ears of a white man. - -"It is true you speak English, then?" said the Boer. "That is -money--about a hundred pounds. It is for you. Pick it up." - -"Pick it up yourself," retorted the Kafir. "I don't want your money." - -"Eh?" The Boer did not understand in the least. "It is for you," he -repeated. "A hundred sovereigns, because you have been good, very good, -to the Vrouw du Preez. It is in that bundle." - -The Kafir turned on his heel. "Take care of your wife," he said -shortly. "If you worry her now, she 'll be ill. Good night." - -"Here," cried the Boer, as Kamis walked away. "Here, boy, wait. Come -back." - -Kamis halted. "I 've plenty of money," he answered. "I 'm not Boy -Bailey, you know." - -"Come here," called the Boer. - -Kamis did not move, so he stepped down and went forward himself. The -Kafir's last word stuck in his thought. - -"No," he agreed. "But who are you? Man, why don't you take the money?" - -"If I were a Boer, I should take it," answered Kamis. "I 'd pick it up -from a dunghill, wouldn't I? But, then, you see, I 'm not a Boer. I 'm -a Kafir." - -"What do you want, then?" demanded Christian. - -"Oh, nothing that you can give," was the retort. - -"Well--but you must have something," urged Christian. "You--you have -saved my wife." - -"And you haven't even said 'thank you,'" replied the Kafir. - -"I threw you the money," protested Christian. "It is a hundred pounds. -But--well--you have been good and I thank you." - -The Kafir laughed. He knew the mere words created an epoch, for Boers -do not thank Kafirs. They pay them, but no more. Strange how a matter -of darkness abrogates a difference of color. It would never have -happened in the daytime. - -"You 're satisfied, then?" he inquired. - -"Me?" The Boer was puzzled. "You will take the money now?" - -"No, thanks. I 'm too--oh, much too tired and hungry to carry it. You -see, I brought your wife a long way." - -"Yes," said Christian. "She said so--a very long way. I will wake the -boys [the Kafirs of the household]. They will find you a place to sleep -and I will make them bring you some food." - -"No, thanks," said the Kafir again. "I don't speak their language. -You--you haven't a man who speaks English, I suppose?" - -"No," said Christian. "You want--yes, I see. But--you 'd better take -the money." - -"I don't want it." - -"But take it," urged the Boer. "A hundred pounds--it is much. Perhaps -it is more; I have not counted it. If it is less, I will give the rest, -to make a hundred pounds. You will take it--not?" - -"No." The answer was definite. "No--I won't take it, I tell you." - -"Then--" Christian half-turned towards the house, with a heaviness in -his movements which had not been noticeable before. "Come in and eat," -he bade gloomily. "_Gott verdam_--come and eat." - -The Kafir checked another laugh. "With pleasure," he said, and followed -at the Boer's back. - -The Boer stooped to pick up the bundle of money where it lay on the -earth and led the way without looking round to the kitchen where he had -left his wife. The Kafir paused in the kitchen door, looking in, -acutely alive to the delicacy of a situation in which he figured, under -the Boer's eye, as part of the company which included the Boer's wife. -He waited to see how Christian would adjust matters. - -The table was spread with the materials of supper. Mrs. du Preez had a -chair by it, and now leaned over it, with her head resting on her arms, -to make room for which plates and cups were disordered. Her flowery hat -was still on her head; she had not commanded the energy necessary to -withdraw the long pins that held it and take it off. In her dust-caked -best clothes, she sprawled among the food and slept, and the paraffin -lamp on the wall shed its uncharitable glare on her unconscious back. - -Christian dumped the heavy little bundle on the table beside her and she -moved and muttered. He called her by name. With a sigh she dragged her -heavy head up and her black-rimmed tragic eyes opened to them in an -agony of weariness. They rested on the waiting Kafir on the doorway. - -"You 've brought him in?" she said. "Christian, I hoped you would." - -"He is going to eat with me," said Christian, with eyes that evaded -hers. - -"Yes," she said dully. - -"And you go to bed," he urged, with an effort to seem natural. -"You--you're too sleepy; you go to bed now. I 'll be up soon." - -"But, Christian," she protested, while she wrestled with the need for -slumber that possessed her; "I got to speak to you. There--there 's -something I want to say to you first about--about--" - -"No." His hand rested on her shoulder. "It's all right. There 's -nothing to say; I don't want to hear anything. It 's all right now; you -go on up to bed." - -She rose obediently, but with an effort, and her hands moved blindly in -front of her as she made for the door, as though she feared to fall. - -"Good night, Christian," she quavered. "You 're awful good. An' good -night, you"--to the Kafir. "You been a white man to me." - -"Good night," replied Kamis, and made way for her carefully. - -The queer little scene was sufficiently clear to him. He understood it -entirely. The Boer, face to face with an emergency for which his -experience and his training prescribed no treatment, could stoop to sit -at meat with a Kafir, but he could not suffer his wife to share that -descent. The white woman must be preserved at any cost in her -aloofness, her sanctity, none the less strong for being artificial, from -contact and communion with a black man. Better anything than that. - -"Sit down," bade Christian. "Take one of those cups, and I will bring -you coffee." - -"Thank you," replied the Kafir, and obeyed. - -The paraffin lamp shed its unwinking light on a scene that challenged -irresponsible fancy with the reality of crazy fact. The Boer's -consciousness of the portentous character of the event governed him -strongly; there was majesty in his bearing as he brought the coffee pot -from the fire and stood at the side of the seated Kafir and poured him a -cupful. It was done with the high sense of ceremony, the magnificent -humility, of a Pope washing the immaculate feet of highly sanitary and -disinfected beggars. - -"There is mutton," he said, pointing; "or I have sardines. Shall I -fetch a tin?" - -"I will have mutton, thanks," replied Kamis, with an equal formality, -and drew the dish towards him. - -The Boer seated himself at the opposite side of the table. The compact, -as he understood it, required that he should eat also. He cut himself -meat and bread very precisely, doubtfully aware that he was rather -hungry. This, he felt vaguely, stained a situation where all should -have been formal and symbolic. He ate slowly, with a dim, religious -appetite. - -Kamis might have found the meal more amusing if he had been less weary. -An idea that he would insist upon conversation visited him, but he -dismissed it; he was really too tired to assault the heavy solemnity -which faced him across the table. It would yield to no casual advances; -he would have to exert himself, to be specious and dexterous, to waylay -the man's interest. - -He pushed his unfinished food from him. - -"I will go home, now," he said. - -"You have had enough?" questioned the Boer. - -"Thank you," said Kamis, and rose. - -The Boer rose, too, very tall and aloof. His hand touched the money -which still lay on the table. - -"You will take this with you?" he questioned. "No?" as the Kafir shook -his head. "You are sure? You will not have it? Nor anything else?" - -"I have had all I want," replied Kamis, taking up his battered hat. -"You 've done everything, and more than I thought you would." - -The Boer was insistent. - -"I want you to be--satisfied," he said, still standing in the same -place. Kamis found his lofty, still face rather impressive. It had a -certain high austerity. - -"You must say if you want anything more," he went on, with a grave -persistence. "All you want you shall have--till you are satisfied." - -("Can't rest under an obligation to me," thought Kamis). - -"I 'm quite satisfied," he replied. "You don't owe me anything, if -that's what 's worrying you. I 'm paid in full." - -"In full," repeated the Boer. "You are paid in full?" - -"Yes." - -"Very well, then. And now you shall go." - -He went before and stood at the side of the door while Kamis went forth, -ready to bolt it at his back. - -"Tell me," he said, as the Kafir stepped over the threshold. "Who are -you?" - -The other turned. "My name is Kamis," he replied. - -"Kamis?" The Boer leaned forward, trying to peer at him. "You -said--Kamis? You are the little Kafir that the General Lascelles took -when--" - -"Yes," said the Kafir. - -The Boer did not answer at once. He hung in the doorway, staring. - -"I saw them hang your father," he said at last, very slowly. - -"Did you?" said Kamis. "Good night." - -"Good night," replied the Boer when he was some paces distant and closed -the door carefully. - -The noise of its bolts being shot home was the last sound the Kafir -heard from the house. The wind that comes before the dawn touched him -and he shivered. He turned up the collar of his coat and set off walking -as briskly as his fatigue would allow. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - -The drawing-room of the Sanatorium was available until tea-time for the -practice of correspondence. It offered for this purpose a small table -with the complexion of mahogany and a leather top, upon which reposed an -inkstand containing three pots, marked respectively in plain letters, -"black," "red," and "copying," and a number of ancient pens. When a new -arrival had overcome his wonder and consternation at the various -features of the establishment, he usually signalized his acceptance of -what lay before him by writing to Capetown for a fountain-pen. As old -inhabitants of the Cape reveal themselves to the expert eye by carrying -their tobacco loose in a side pocket of their coats, so the patient who -had conceded Dr. Jakes' claims to indulgence was to be distinguished by -the possession of a pen that made him independent of the establishment's -supply and frequently by stains of ink upon his waistcoat in the region -of the left-hand upper pocket, where custom has decided a man shall -carry his fountain-pen. - -Margaret had brought her unanswered letters to this privacy and her -fountain-pen was busy in the undisturbed interval following the -celebration of lunch. Hers was the common task of the exile in South -Africa, to improvize laboriously letters to people at home who had -plenty to see and do and no need of the post to inject spice into their -varied lives. There was nothing to write about, nothing to relate; the -heat of the sun, the emptiness of the veld, the grin of Fat Mary--each -of her letters played over these worn themes. Yet unless they were -written and sent, the indifferent folk to whom they were addressed would -not write to her, and the weekly mail, with its excitements and its -reminders, would fail her. No dweller in lands where the double knock -of the postman comes many times in the day can know the thrill of the -weekly mail, discharged from the steamship in Capetown and heralded in -its progress up the line by telegrams that announce to the little dorps -along the railway the hour of its coming. They have not waited with a -patient, preoccupied throng in the lobby of the post-office where the -numbered boxes are, and heard beyond the wooden partition the slam of -the bags and the shuffle of the sorters, talking at their work about -things remote from the mail. The Kafir mail-runners, with their skinny -naked legs and their handfuls of smooth sticks know how those letters -are awaited in the hamlets and farms far remote from the line, by -sun-dried, tobacco-flavored men who are up before the dawn to receive -them, by others whose letters are addressed to names they are not called -by, and by Mrs. Jakes, full-dressed and already a little tired two hours -before breakfast. All those letters are paid for by screeds that suck -dry the brains of their writers, desperately searching over the chewed -ends of penholders for suggestions on barren ground. - -There was one letter which Margaret had set herself to compose that had -a different purpose. There were not lacking signs that her position in -Dr. Jakes' household would sooner or later become impossible, and it was -desirable to clear the road for a retreat when no other road would be -open to her. It was not only that Mrs. Jakes burned to be rid of her -and had taken of late to dim hints of her desire in this respect, for -Margaret was prepared, if she were forced to it, to find Mrs. Jakes' -enmity amusing and treat it in that light. Such a course, she judged -would paralyze Mrs. Jakes; in the face of laughter, the little woman was -impotent. But there was also the prospect, daily growing nearer and -more threatening, of an exposure which would show her ruthlessly forth -as the friend and confidante of the Kafir, Kamis, the woman for whom -Ford and Mr. Samson, had, in their own phrase, "no use." The hour when -that exposure should be made loomed darkly ahead; nothing could avert -its sinister advance upon her, nor lighten it of its quality of doom. -She no longer invited her secret to make itself known. By degrees the -warnings of Kamis, the threats of Boy Bailey, the malice of Mrs. Jakes, -had struck their roots in her consciousness, and she was becoming -acclimatized to the South-African spirit which threatens with vague -penalties, not the less real for being vague, such transgressors as she -of its one iron rule of life and conduct. When it should come upon her, -she decided, she would summon her strength to accept it, and confront it -serenely, in the manner of good breeding. But when that was done, she -would have to go. - -She was writing therefore to the legal uncle of Lincoln's Inn Fields, -who controlled her affairs and manifested himself with sprightly letters -and punctual cheques. He was an opinionative uncle, like most men who -jest along the established lines of humor, but amenable to a reasonable -submissiveness on the part of his ward and niece. He liked to be -inflexible--good-naturedly inflexible, like an Olympian who condescends -to earth, but he could be counted upon to repay an opportunity for a -display of his inflexibility by liberal indulgence upon other points. -Therefore Margaret, after consideration, commenced the serious part of -her epistle to the heathen with a suggestion in regard to investments -which she knew would rouse him. Then, in a following paragraph: - - -I am better than I was when I came out, but not better than I was a -month ago, and I don't think I am improving as rapidly as Dr. David -hoped. It may be that I am a little too far to the East of the Karoo. -Was it you or somebody else who advised me to keep to the West? - - -"That 'll help to fetch him," murmured Margaret, as she wrote the last -words. - - -Perhaps, later on, if Dr. Jakes thinks well of it, I might move to a -place I hear of over in the West. I 'm letting you know now in plenty -of time; but I don't want you to think there is anything seriously -wrong. Please don't be at all anxious. - - -"Now something fluffy," pondered Margaret. "If I get it right, he 'll -order me to go." - - -What makes me hesitate, she wrote, is the trouble it will cost me to -move from here. Would you please show this letter to Dr. David and ask -his opinion? - - -"That 'll do the trick," she decided unscrupulously. "Dr. David will see -there 's something in it and he 'll back me up. And then, when the row -comes, they shall each have a cut at me,--Mrs. Jakes and Fat Mary and -all--they shall each have their chance to draw blood, and then I 'll -go." - -While she wrote, there had been the sound of footsteps on the stone -floor of the hall outside the room, but she had been too busy to note -them. Otherwise, she would quickly have marked an unfamiliar foot among -them. They were reduced to that at the Sanatorium; they knew every foot -that sounded on its floors and a strange one fetched them running to -look from doors. But Margaret's occupation had robbed her of that mild -exhilaration, and she looked up all unsuspiciously as Mrs. Jakes pushed -open the door of the drawing-room, entered and closed it carefully -behind her. - -She came a couple of paces into the room and halted, looking at the girl -in a manner that recalled to Margaret that fantastic night when she had -come with a candle to seek aid for Dr. Jakes. Though she had not now -her little worried smile, she wore the same bewildered and embarrassed -aspect, as of a purpose crossed and complicated by considerations and -doubts. - -"Are you looking for me, Mrs. Jakes?" asked Margaret, when she had -waited in vain for her to speak. - -"Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes, in a hushed voice, and remained where she -stood. - -Again Margaret waited in vain for her to speak. - -"I 'm rather busy just now," she said. "What is it you want with me, -please?" - -Mrs. Jakes looked to see that the door was closed before she answered. - -"It isn't me," she said then. "We--we don't get on very well, Miss -Harding; but this isn't my doing. I 've never whispered a word to a -soul. I haven't, indeed, if I never speak another word." - -Margaret stared at her, perceiving suddenly that the small bleak woman -was all a-thrill with some nervous tension. Her own nerves quivered in -response to it. - -"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?" - -"It 's the police," breathed Mrs. Jakes. She gave the word the accent -in which she felt it. "The police," she said, with a stricken sense of -all that police stand for, of which unbearable and public shame is -chief. She was trembling, and her small hands, with their rough red -knuckles like raw scars upon them, were picking feverishly at her loose -black skirt. - -Margaret's heart beat the more quickly at the mere tone of her whisper, -fraught with dim fears; but the words conveyed nothing to her. If -anything, they relieved her. In the hinterland of her consciousness the -forward-cast shadow of that impending hour was perpetually dark; but the -police could have no concern in that. - -"Oh, do please talk plainly," she said irritably. "What exactly do you -want to tell me? And what have I got to do with the police?" - -The stimulus of her impatient tones was what was needed to restore Mrs. -Jakes to coherence. She stared at the girl with a sort of stupefaction. - -"What have you got to do with it," she repeated. "Why--it 's all about -you. Somebody 's told about you and that Kafir--about you knowing him -and all about him, and now Mr. Van Zyl is in the doctor's study. He 's -come to inquire about it." - -"Oh," said Margaret slowly. - -It had struck then, the bitter hour of revelation; it had crept upon her -out of an ambush of circumstance when she least expected it, and the -reckoning was due. There was to be no time allowed her in which to build -up her courage; even her retreat must be over strange roads. Before the -gong went to gather the occupants of the house for tea, the stroke would -have fallen, and her place in the minds of her fellows would be with Dr. -Jakes on the hearth-rug, an outcast from their circle. Unless, indeed, -Dr. Jakes should also decline her company, as seemed likely. - -It was the image in her mind of a scornful and superior Jakes that -excited the smile with which she looked up at Jakes' frightened wife. - -"So long as he does n't bother me, he can inquire as much as he likes," -she said. - -Mrs. Jakes did not understand. "It 's you he 's going to inquire of," -she said. "I suppose, of course--I suppose you 'll tell him -about--about that night?" - -"I shan't tell him anything," replied Margaret. "Oh, you needn't be -afraid, Mrs. Jakes. I 'm not going to take this opportunity of -punishing you for all your unpleasantness. I shall simply refuse to -answer any questions at all." - -"You can't do that." Mrs. Jakes showed her relief plainly in her face -and in the relaxation of her attitude. She had forgotten one of the -first rules of her manner of warfare, which is to doubt the enemy's -word. But in spite of a reluctant gratitude for the contemptuous mercy -accorded to her, she felt dully resentful at this high attitude of -Margaret's towards the terrors of the police. - -"You can't do that," she said. "He 's got a right to know--and he 's a -sub-inspector. He 'll insist--he 'll make you tell--" - -"I think not," said Margaret quietly. - -"But he 's--" - -Mrs. Jakes broke off sharply as a hand without turned the handle of the -door and pushed it open. Ford appeared, and paused at the sight of them -in conversation. - -"Hallo," he said. "Am I interrupting?" - -Mrs. Jakes hesitated, but Margaret answered with decision. - -"Not at all," she said. "Come in, please." - -It occurred to her that the blow would be swifter if Ford himself were -present when it fell and there were no muddle of explanations to drag it -out. - -Ford entered reluctantly, scenting a quarrel between the two and -suspicious of Margaret's intentions in desiring his presence. - -"There 's a horse and orderly by the steps," he said. "Is Van Zyl -somewhere about? That's why I came in, to see if he was here." - -"He--he is in the study," answered Mrs. Jakes, in extreme discomfort. -She turned to Margaret. "If you will come now, I will take you to him." - -Ford turned, surprised. - -"What for?" asked Margaret. - -"He--sent for you." Mrs. Jakes did not understand the question; she -only perceived dimly that some quality in the situation was changed and -that she no longer counted in it. - -"But what the dickens did he do that for?" asked Ford. - -"We 'll see," said Margaret, forestalling Mrs. Jakes' bewildered reply. -"Please tell him, Mrs. Jakes, that I am here and can spare him a few -minutes at once." - -"Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and departed. - -Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret. - -"What's up?" he inquired. "You haven't been murdering somebody and not -letting me help?" - -Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard over her composure and -could not afford to jest. - -"Sit down over there," she bade him, motioning him towards the couch at -the other side of the wide room. "And don't go away, even if he asks you -to. Then you 'll hear all about it." - -He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against the end of the couch -with one long leg lying up on the cushions. - -"If he talks in the tone of his message to you," he said meditatively, -"I shall be for punching his head." - -Sub-Inspector Van Zyl had had the use of a clothes-brush before -expressing his desire to see Margaret; it was a tribute he paid to his -high official mission. He had cleared himself and his accoutrement of -dust and the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced -impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he presented himself -in the drawing-room, pausing in the doorway with his spurred heels -together to lift his hand in a precise and machine-like salute. At his -back, Mrs. Jakes' unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid -correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation of her -countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one side of him, heightened -his military stolidity. His stone-blue eyes rested on Ford's recumbence -with a shadow of surprise. - -"Afternoon, Ford," he said curtly. "You 'll excuse me, but I 've a word -or two to say to Miss Harding." - -"Afternoon, Van Zyl," replied Ford, not moving. "Miss Harding asked me -to stay, so don't mind me." - -Van Zyl looked at him inexpressively. "I 'm on duty," he said. "Sorry, -but I wish you 'd go. My business is with Miss Harding." - -"Fire away," replied Ford. "I shan't say a word unless Miss Harding -wishes it." - -Margaret moved in her chair. - -"You will say what you please," she said. "Don't regard me at all, Mr. -Ford. Now--what can I do for you, Mr. Van Zyl?" - -Van Zyl finished his scrutiny of Ford and turned to her. - -"I sent to ask you to see me in the other room, Miss Harding, because I -thought you would prefer me to speak to you in private," he said, with -his wooden preciseness of manner. "That was why. Sorry if it offended -you. However--" - -He stood aside and held the door while Mrs. Jakes entered, and closed it -behind her. Stalking imperturbably, he placed a chair for her and drew -one out for himself, depositing his badged "smasher" hat on the ground -beside it. Seated, he drew from his smoothly immaculate tunic a large -note-book and snapped its elastic band open and laid it on his knee. -Ford, from his place on the couch, watched these preparations with -gentle interest. - -Van Zyl looked up at Margaret with a pencil in his fingers. His pale, -uncommunicative eyes fastened on her with an unemotional assurance in -their gaze. - -"First," he said; "where were you, Miss Harding, on the afternoon of the ---th?" - -He mentioned a date to which Margaret's mind ran back nimbly. It was -the day on which Boy Bailey had made terms from the top of the dam wall, -the day on which the Kafir had kissed her hand, nearly two weeks before. - -She had herself sufficiently in hand, and returned his gaze with a faint -smiling tranquillity that told him nothing. - -"I have no information to give you, Mr. Van Zyl," she replied evenly. -"It is quite useless to ask me any questions; I shan't answer them." - -He was not disturbed. "Sorry," he said, "but I 'm afraid you must. I -hope you 'll remember that I have my duty to do, Miss Harding." - -"Must, eh?" - -That was Ford, thoughtfully, from the couch. Van Zyl looked in his -direction sharply with a brief frown, but let it pass. - -"It's no use, Mr. Van Zyl," said Margaret. "I simply am not going to -answer any questions, and your duty has nothing to do with me. So if -there is nothing else that you wish to say to me, your business is -finished." - -"No," he said; "it isn't finished yet, Miss Harding. You refuse to say -where you were on that afternoon?" - -Margaret smiled slowly and he made a quick note in his book. - -"I ought to say, perhaps," he went on, looking up when he had finished -writing, "that the information I am asking for relates to a--a person, -who is wanted by the police on a charge of sedition and incitement to -commit a breach of the peace. You were seen on the afternoon in -question in the company of that--person, Miss Harding; and I believe--I -_believe_ you can help us to lay hands on him." - -"Is it Samson?" inquired Ford, raising his head. "I 've always had my -suspicions of Samson." - -"Oh, Mr. Ford," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, pained. - -"It 's not Mr. Samson," said the sub-inspector calmly; "and it is not -any business of yours, Ford." - -"Oh, yes; it is," answered Ford. "Because if it isn't Samson it must be -me--unless it 's Jakes. You seem to think we see a good deal of company -here, Van Zyl." - -"I don't think anything at all," retorted the sub-inspector stiffly; -"and I 've nothing to say to you. My business is with Miss Harding, and -you won't help her by making a nuisance of yourself." - -"Eh?" Ford sat up suddenly. "What's that--won't help her? Are you -trying to frighten Miss Harding by suggesting that you can use any sort -of compulsion to her? Because, if that 's your idea, you 'd better look -out what you 're doing." - -"I 'm not responsible to you, Ford," replied Van Zyl shortly. "You can -hold your tongue now. Miss Harding understands well enough what I -mean." - -"Oh, yes," said Margaret, as Ford looked towards her. "I understand, -but I don't care." - -It was taking its own strange course, but she was not concerned to -deflect it or make it run more directly. She conserved her powers for -the moment when the thing would be told, and Ford's indignant -championship arrested brusquely by the mere name of her offense. -Presently Van Zyl would cease to speak of "a person" and come out with -the plain word, "Kafir." How he had gained his information she did not -attempt to guess; but that he had the means to break her there was no -doubting. She would answer no questions; she was determined upon that; -but now that the hour of revelation was come, she would do nothing to -fog it. It should pass and be done with and leave her with its -consequences clear to weigh and abide. - -She made a motion of the hand that hung over the back of her chair to -Ford, as though she would hush him. He was puzzled and looked it, but -subsided provisionally against the end of the couch again. - -Van Zyl eased his shoulders in their bondage of slings and straps with a -practised shrug, crossed one booted leg over the other and faced her -afresh. - -"Now, Miss Harding, you see that I am not speaking by guess; and it 's -for you to say whether you will have the rest of this here or in -private. I 'm anxious to give you every possible consideration." - -"I shan't answer any questions," said Margaret, "and I decline any -privacy, Mr. Van Zyl." - -"No? Very well. I must do my duty as best I can," replied the -sub-inspector, with official resignation. He referred to a back page of -his note-book perfunctorily. - -"On the --th of this month, man discovered weeping and disorderly on the -platform at Zeekoe Siding, stated to Corporal Simms that he had been -robbed of five hundred pounds by confidence trick on down train. Under -examination, varied the sum, and finally adhered to figure of -forty-three pounds odd, which he alleged was part of fifty pounds he had -received from the--person in whose company he had seen you." - -"Ah!" Margaret found herself smiling absently at the memory of Boy -Bailey making his bargain on the top of the dam wall, with his bare -unbeautiful feet fidgeting in the grass. - -Sub-inspector Van Zyl surveyed her with his impersonal stare and -continued: - -"He gave the name of Claude Richmond, but was afterwards identified as -one Noah Bailey, alias Boy Bailey, alias Spotted Dog, etc., wanted by -the police in connection with--a certain affair. On being charged, -feigned to fall in a fit but came to under treatment, and made a certain -communication, which was transmitted to me as bearing upon my search for -this--person. The communication was detailed, Miss Harding, and he -stood to it under a searching examination, and satisfied us that we were -getting the truth out of him. Acting upon the information thus -received, I next called upon you." - -He looked up. "You see what I have to go upon?" he said. "Since you -know yourself what took place on the afternoon about which I asked you, -you can understand that the police require your assistance. Do you -still refuse to answer me, Miss Harding?" - -"Of course," replied Margaret. - -Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would spare her no longer. She -watched his smooth, tanned face with nervous trepidation. - -He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned forward with the note-book -in his hand, his forefinger between the pages to keep the place. - -"You do?" he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp note. Ford sat up -again, watchful and angry. "You refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss -Harding, we 'll have to make an end of this." - -Ford struck in crisply. "Good idea," he said. "I suggest Miss Harding -might quit the room for that purpose, and leave you to explain to me -what the devil you mean by this." - -Van Zyl turned on him quickly. "You look out," he said. "If I 've got -to arrest you to shut your mouth, I 'll do it--and quick too." - -"Why not?" demanded Ford. "That 'll be as good a way for you to get the -lesson you need as any other." - -"_You'll_ get a lesson," began Van Zyl, making as though to rise and put -his threat into action. - -"Oh, please," cried Margaret; "none of this is necessary. Sit down, Mr. -Ford; please sit down and listen. Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak -out and you will be free from further trouble, I 'm sure." - -"I 've taken too much trouble as it is," retorted the sub-inspector. "I -'ll have no more of it." - -He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not at any moment doffed -his formality of demeanor, the small scene had lit a spark in him and he -was newly formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the narrow -smile with which a man of his type masks a rising temper, but so far -yielded to Margaret's urgency as to lean back upon one elbow. - -"You 'll be sorry for all this presently," Margaret said to him -warningly. - -"Very soon, in fact," added the sub-inspector, "if he repeats the -offense." - -He settled himself again on his chair, confronting Margaret. - -"Now, Miss Harding," lie resumed briskly. "Out with it? You admit you -were there, eh?" - -"Oh, no," said Margaret. "You 're asking questions again, Mr. Van Zyl." - -"And I 'm going to have an answer, too," he replied zestfully. "You 've -got a wrong idea entirely of what 's before you. You can still have -this in private, if you like; but here or elsewhere, you 'll speak or -out comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be--sharp?" - -"I 've nothing to tell you," she maintained. - -His blond, neat face hardened. - -"Haven't you, though. We'll see? You know a Kafir calling himself--" -he made a lightning reference to his book--"calling himself Kamis?" - -She made no answer. - -"You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent the afternoon of the ---th, was n't it? Under the wall of the dam down yonder--yes? You 've -met him more than once, and always alone?" - -She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her faintly-smiling -indifference of countenance, but her face felt stiff and cold, and her -smile as though it sagged to a blatant grin. She did not glance across -to see how Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become -impossible. - -"You see?" There was a restrained triumph in Van Zyl's voice. "We know -more than you think, young lady--and more still. You won't answer -questions, won't you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and then -put up this kind of bluff." - -There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his feet, with the -hectic brilliant on each cheek. - -"You liar," he cried. "You filthy Dutch liar." - -Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile parted his -squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. At his word, she had made a -small involuntary movement as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had -let it fall again. - -"You may decide to answer that, perhaps," suggested the sub-inspector. -"Do you deny that he kissed you?" - -There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the sound of his -breathing filled the interval. The fingers of Margaret's left hand bent -and unbent the flap of the envelope destined for the legal uncle, but -her mind was far from it and its contents. "You liar," Ford had cried, -and it had had a fine sound; even now she had but to rise as though -insulted and walk from the room, and his loyalty would endure, -unspotted, unquestioning, touchy and quick. She might have done well to -choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, and she felt -herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, that it must find itself -betrayed. The vehemence of the cry was testimony to the faith that gave -it utterance. - -And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt upon the figure -that stood at the back of all this disordered trouble--that of Kamis, -remote from their agitated circle, companioning in his solitude with -griefs of his own. He came into her mind by way of comparison with the -directness and vivid anger of Ford, standing tense and agonized for her -reply, with all his honest soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk -clothes made apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went to and -fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, and his face denied -an index to the strong spirit that drove him. He suffered behind -blubber lips and a comical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two -had nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to which she -must now do the peculiar justice that the situation required. - -"Let 's have it," urged the sub-inspector. "He kissed you, this nigger -did, and you let him? Speak up." - -Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: "She held out both her arms to -him--wide; and he took hold of her an' hugged her, kissin' her till I -couldn't stand the sight any longer. 'You shameless woman!' I -shouted"--at that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, -and had screamed. "I wish I may die if he did n't kiss her," was the -form that kicking finally reduced it to, but they could not kick that -out of him. He stood for one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him. - -"Well, did he kiss you or didn't he?" - -Margaret sighed. "I will tell you that," she said wearily. "Yes, he -did--he kissed my hand." - -Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. "I thought we 'd get something -before we were done," he said, and smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. -"You 'd like to apologize, I expect?" - -Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere amazement at Margaret's -immovable profile. - -"Is that true?" he demanded. - -Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the wonder of his face. - -"Oh, quite," she answered. "Quite true." - -His eyes wavered before hers as though he were ashamed and abashed. He -put an uncertain hand to his lips. - -"I see," he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again upon the couch. - -"Well, after that, what 's the sense of keeping anything back?" Van Zyl -went on confidently. "You see what comes of standing out against the -police? Now, what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? Where -do you send to let him know he 's to come and see you?" - -"No," said Margaret. "It 's no use; I won't tell you any more." - -"Oh, yes, you will." Van Zyl felt quite sure of it. He eyed her acutely -and decided to venture a shot in the dark. "You 'll tell me all I -ask,--d'you hear? I have n't done with you yet. You 've seen him at -night, too, when you were supposed to be in bed. You can't deceive me. -I 've seen your kind before, plenty of them, and I know the way to deal -with them." - -His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of that night when Dr. -Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. Jakes must have told him, and her -protests had been uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at -her; in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself. - -Van Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike the thickish -staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial moments. That voice she -would never hear again; impossible for her ever to regain the status of -a person in whom the police have no concern. - -"You 'll save yourself trouble by speaking up and wasting no time about -it," he urged, with the kind of harsh good nature a policeman may use to -the offender who provides him with employment. "You 've got to do it, -you know. How do you get hold of your nigger-friend when you want him?" - -She shook her head without speaking. - -"Answer!" he roared suddenly, so that she started in her chair. "What -'s the arrangement you 've got with him? None of your airs with me, my -girl. Out with it, now--what 's the trick?" - -She looked at him affrightedly; he seemed about to spring upon her from -his chair and dash at her to wring an answer out of her by force. But -from the sofa, where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no sign. -Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered a vague moan. - -"Wha--what 's this?" - -The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his face of a fallen -cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes mildly questioning. Margaret -saw him with quick relief; the intolerable situation must change in some -manner by his arrival. - -"I heard--I heard--was it _you_ shouting, Van Zyl?" he inquired, -stammeringly, as he came in. - -"Yes," replied the sub-inspector, shortly. - -"Oh!" Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling mustache. "Whom were -you shouting at?" he inquired, after a moment of hesitation. - -"I was speaking to her," replied the other impatiently. - -The doctor followed the movement of his hand and the light of his -spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly. - -"Well." He seemed baffled. "Miss Harding, you mean, eh?" - -The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes." - -"Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?" - -"Yes. You 'll excuse us, but--" - -"No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly -not. You--you mustn't shout here." - -"Look here," began Van Zyl. - -The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading -lumberingly across the worn carpet. - -"Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means--temperature. I--I think you -'d better--yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss -Harding." - -He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence. - -As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness, -Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair. - -"You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said. - -Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too. - -"Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any--" - -"I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You -'re--you 're endangering life--way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs. -Jakes, Miss Harding." - -"_You 'll_ report me," exclaimed Van Zyl. - -"Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I--I call Mr. Ford to witness--" - -He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly. - -"What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward -the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I--I hold you responsible. -You 've done this--with your shouting." - -Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head -and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards -them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor -stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of -red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and -painful mouth. - -"Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin--and the things. In -the study; you know." - -"I know." And Mrs. Jakes--so her name was Hester--ran pattering off. - -They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of -the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between -breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously--the -doctor had had a fine peremptory moment--and allowing a certain -perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features, -stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed -mind. - -"Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't -think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?" - -Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I -shan't complain." - -"It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him. - -"I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about -anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't -talk any more till we know what 's happened in there." - -Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up -his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly -exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the -attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that -filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with -no faculty to spare for surprise. - -"Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right--thank God. But if -it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with -the stretcher to carry him up to his room." - -"I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away. - -"So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor -did. I ought to have known--and I did know, really--that he would have -taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to -him." - -She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him, -looking down serenely upon him. - -"Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked. - -Margaret nodded. - -"As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and -choke you." - -She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall, -baffled and outraged. - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - -Not the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than -increasing years and the _memento mori_ in his chest, could withhold Mr. -Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed, -razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early -constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a -little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of -appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the -closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it. -Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty -which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was -done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place. - -He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did -not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well -up, chest open--what there was of it--and neck swelling over the purity -of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to -the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he -relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as -though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He -halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant -handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a -narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that -stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate -distance. - -A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the -low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it -with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, -moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the -distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at -large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode -that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something -conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his -tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it, -who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged -youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like--more -like--ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the -saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police. - -A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the -trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter -of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep, -and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been -made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding -Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the -stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van -Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent -and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt -vanished at the bend of the stairs. - -"I say; what 's up?" he asked then. - -Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered. -She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement -of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather -breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her -answer. - -"I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her -time to collect her thoughts. - -"Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford -laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the -row?" - -Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and -then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut. - -"I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential -intercourse--"I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding." - -"Eh? What 's that?" - -Old Mr. Samson _would_ speak as though he were addressing a numerous -company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation. -She made hushing noises. - -"Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's -been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes." - -"No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though -urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about -it,--I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon -and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to -him." - -"Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl -to send for people like this?" - -"It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for -the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So--" - -Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a -movement of lively impatience. - -"Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with -restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it--way you 're telling it. -Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?" - -It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation -and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who -perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was -galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had -to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the -incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke -volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a -little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with -eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved -jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to -approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again -interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift -words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His -immobility and silence were agonizing to her. - -"So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she -concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr. -Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, -isn't it?" - -Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three -coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again. - -"You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'? -There 's no doubt about that?" - -"If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If -I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot--those were -her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack--he was -so horrified." - -"Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his -funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?" - -"The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally -disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before." - -Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair. - -"It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't -know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad -turn after a month or so and--and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have -remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have -this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor -little bally fool." - -"I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out -her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm--I 'm disgusted as well. -Any woman would be." - -"Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she -'ll be sure to get lots of that, now." - -It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next -day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of -straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects -have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into -revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful, -he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its -freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their -companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He -experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity -of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its -edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered -his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, -civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him -with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to -soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed -him. But--and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear--the -Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs. -Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had -said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference -where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the -administration and reception of kisses, had seen none. - -The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of -nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow, -after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate -outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not -so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals -and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no -evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness -with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he -thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted. - -This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences -at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at -the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he -stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across -the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank -whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from -his staring to obey it. - -Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he -entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not -varied for years. - -"A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said. - -"Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her. -"I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?" - -"To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting--did -he say--?" - -Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he -told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the -stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the -veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?" - -"Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again. -I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, -generally so gentlemanly--when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was -really sorry for her." - -Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see -what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply -a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs. -Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't -y' know." - -"But they 've got a _right_ to search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes. -"And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a -cousin once--at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin--but he took a -policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to -him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most -dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly. -And my cousin--I always used to call him a cousin--was next door to a -teetotaller." - -"Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson, -seriously. "Still--what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything -to you about goin' back home, has she?" - -"No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being -as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about -that, Mr. Samson." - -"Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people -at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a -month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure -in." - -"Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs. -Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds--the -doctor's and mine. My view is--she ought to go before the story gets -about." - -"Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson. - -"But Eustace--he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her -feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her -out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs; -he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten." - -Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of -story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even." - -"Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my -telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to -what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be -better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to -discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention, -as an argument, you know--" - -"Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views; -anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means." - -"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know -that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility." - -Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a -close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided -attention. - -Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did -not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high -serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to -meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her -opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could -not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs. -Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she -could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need -of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her -disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with -condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her -narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's -manner--she cowered. - -"Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention. - -"Good morning, Miss--ah--Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could -do. - -"Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping -to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss -Harding. Jolly day, what?" - -"Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes, -coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes." - -"Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of -none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and -minister she was. - -"How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next. - -"Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply; -"how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all -that--eh?" - -Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's -direction exclusively. - -"He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very -well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he -said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a -shock." - -"Er--yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch, -if I may." - -"Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously. - -"Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I." - -Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for -support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating -devotedly and would not meet her eye. - -She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such -meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter -and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad -virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to -breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all -her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are -ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the -possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed -to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt -she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor. - -"Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at once. He said so in -the plainest words," she would report, and Jakes would be obliged to -take account of it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her -supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, at times, of -producing from his humble and misty mildness a formidable obstinacy -which brooked no opposition. With bent head, he would look up at her -out of the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility to -volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had done, for he always -heard her ominously to an end, he would shake his head slightly and emit -a negative. It was rather impressive; there was so little show of force -about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it betokened a barrier of -refusal that it was useless to hope to surmount. If he were pressed -further, he would rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of -a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical student days, the -doctor had been counted a capable hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient -work. - -The last time she had pressed him to decree Margaret's departure was in -the study, where he sat with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned -up, as though he contemplated an evening of strenuousness; the bottles -and glasses were grouped on the desk at his elbow. Mrs. Jakes had -represented vivaciously her sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding -and contain the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in the -patient's chair, and carefully guided her eyes away from the drinking -apparatus. The doctor had uttered his "No" as usual, and she tried, -against her better sense, to reason with him. - -"There 's me to think of, too," she urged anxiously. "The way she walks -past me, Eustace, you 'd think I 'd never had a silk lining in my life." - -"No," said the doctor again, with a little genteel cough behind three -fingers. "No, we can't. 'T would n't do, Hester. Bringing her out o' -bed in her night-gown that night--it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know -all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me she 'd got him handy. -I might have been there yet for all you did. And as for silk linings, -don't you get your shirt out, Hester. She 's all right." - -He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at her impatiently with -red-rimmed eyes, and she had risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for -her to go. She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling. - -"Well, I suppose I 've got to suffer in silence, if you say so, -Eustace," she observed resignedly. "But it 's as bad as if we kept a -shop." - -But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be better equipped. It -could be made to appear to Jakes that remonstrances were in the air and -that there was a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would have to -give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the prospects of her enterprise -now. She would have been alarmed and astonished if any responsible -person had called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she was -neither of these things. She was merely creeping under obstacles that -she could not climb over, going to work with such means as came to her -hand to secure an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in short, -and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would have known it no longer. - -Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent itself upon her, -ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. Samson ample time to escape to the -stoep alone and establish himself there. She didn't at all mind being -left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady's stiffness and the facial -expressions which she tried on, one after the other, in an endeavor to -make her countenance match her mind, could be made ineffective by the -simple process of ignoring them and her together. By dint of preserving -a seeming of contented tranquillity and speaking not one word, it was -possible to abash poor Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in -impotence behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that -commended itself to Margaret and which she employed successfully. -Everybody should have a cut at her, she had decided; she would not baulk -one of them of the privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could -not be permitted to cut and come again. - -There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might have made with effect, -but none of them occurred to her till Margaret had left the room, -departing with an infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved -in her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look of -calculation overspread her sour little face. - -"I didn't notice the silk in _that_ one," she murmured thoughtfully. - -Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly edition of the _Cape -Times_ to occupy him did not notice her rubber-soled approach till her -shadow fell on the page he was reading. He looked up sharply. - -"Ah, Miss Harding," he said weakly. - -She leaned with her back against the rail, looking down at him in his -basket chair, half-smiling. - -"You want to speak to me, don't you?" she asked. - -Mr. Samson did not understand. "Do I?" he said. "Did I say so? I -wonder what it was." - -"You didn't say so," Margaret answered, "But I know you do. You -wouldn't send me finally to Coventry without saying anything at all, -would you?" - -"Ah!" He made a weary gesture with one hand, as though he would put the -subject from him. "But--but I 'm not sending you to Coventry, my--Miss -Harding, I mean. Don't think it, for a moment." - -He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, looking up at her -slender, civilized figure as she stood before him with a gaze that -granted in advance every claim she could make on his consideration and -forbearance. - -"You know what I mean," said Margaret steadily. - -"Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do," he said. "No use fumbling -with it, is there? And you're not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows -what the other means all right, so what's the use of talking about it?" - -Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire that he should spare -her and could see no reason for sparing him. - -"I want to talk about it, this once," she answered. "You won't have many -more chances to tell me what you think of me. I know, of course; but I -was n't going to shirk it. I 've disappointed you, have n't I?" - -"I don't say so," he replied, with careful gentleness. "I don't say -anything of the kind, Miss Harding. You took your own line as you 'd -every right to do. If I had--sort of--imagined you were different, you -'re not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don't set up for an -example to young ladies. Not my line at all, that sort of thing." - -"Nothing to say, then?" queried Margaret. He shook his head again. -"You know," she added, "I 'm not a bit ashamed--not of anything." - -"Of course you 're not," he agreed readily. "You did what you thought -was right." - -"But you don't think so?" she persisted. - -"Miss Harding," replied Mr. Samson; "so far as I can manage it, I don't -think about the matter at all." - -Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by bursting into tears or -laughter, whichever should offer itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes -came out, and restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the pair -of them in conversation. Circumstances were forever lying in ambush -against Mrs. Jakes and deepening the mystery of life by their unexpected -poppings up. - -She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored Margaret. - -"Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go up," she announced. - -"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Samson, with alacrity. - -Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes' irreconcilable side-face. - -"Oh, would you mind if I went first?" she asked. "I rather want to see -him." - -"By all means," agreed Mr. Samson, with the same alacrity. "I 'm not -perishin' to inspect him, you know. Tell him I 'll look him up -afterwards." - -Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed two or three times. -She had matured a plan for declaring that Ford must not be disturbed -again after Mr. Samson's visit, and she was fairly sure that Margaret -had suspected it. She watched the girl's departure with angry and -baffled eyes. - -"She 's doing it on purpose," was her thought. "She swings them like -that so as to make me hear the frow-frow." - -Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with most of the books in -the house piled alongside of him on chairs and a bedside table. He was -expecting Mr. Samson and sang out a hearty, "Come in; don't stand -drumming there," at Margaret's rap on the door. - -"It's me," announced Margaret, pushing it open; "not Mr. Samson. He 'll -look you up afterwards. Do you mind?" - -He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected appearance. - -"Of course I don't mind," he said. "It 's awfully good of you. If you -'d shove these books off on the floor, I could offer you a chair." - -Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once and set the door -wide open. - -"The proprieties," she remarked, as she returned to her seat. "Also -Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might tempt her beyond her strength." - -The room was a large one, with a window to the south full of sunshine -and commanding nothing but the eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo -and the hard sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued with -unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exemplifying Ford's art and -challenging the view through the window. She liked vaguely the -spareness of the chamber's equipment and its suggestions of -uncompromising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with trees -distributed among the chief of them, the leather trunks against the -wall, the photographs about the dressing table, and the iron bath -propped on end under the window,--these trifles seemed all to -corroborate the impression she had of their owner. They were so -consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sum of him. - -"Well," she said, looking at him frankly; "are we going to talk or just -exchange civilities?" - -"We won't do that," he answered, meeting her look. "Civilities be -blowed, anyhow." - -"But I 'd like to ask you how you feel, first of all," said Margaret. - -"Oh, first-rate. I 'd get up if it wasn't for Jakes," he assured her -eagerly. "And I say," he added, with a quick touch of awkwardness, "I -hope, really, you haven't been bothering about me, and thinking it was -that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. Because it -wasn't, you know. I 'd felt something of the kind coming on before -lunch. Jakes says that running up stairs may have done it--thing I 'm -always forgetting I mustn't do. A chap can't always be thinking of his -in'ards, can he?" - -"No," agreed Margaret. - -She recognized a certain tone of politeness, of civil constraint, in his -manner of speaking. He was doing his best to be trivial and ordinary, -but she could not be deceived. - -"It was rotten, though," he went on quickly. "That brute Van Zyl--look -here! I 'm most fearfully sorry I wasn't able to put a stop to his -talk, Miss Harding. It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by -that fellow." - -"It didn't hurt me," said Margaret thoughtfully. "All that is nothing. -But are n't we being rather civil, after all?" - -He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail against the pillows, -with his nervous, sun-tanned hands fidgeting on the coverlet. One -button of his pyjamas was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be -seen, with the tan stopping short where the collar came and giving place -to white skin below. - -"Oh, well," he said, in feeble protest. "Why bother?" - -"I thought you 'd want to," replied Margaret. "I don't expect you -to--to approve, but I did rely on your bothering about it all a little. -But if you 'd rather not, that ends the matter." - -"I didn't mean it like that," he said. - -"Tell me," demanded Margaret; "don't you think I owe you an -explanation?" - -He considered her gravely for some seconds. - -"Yes," he answered finally. "I think you ought to tell me about it." - -"I 'm willing to," she said earnestly. "Oh, I wanted to often and often -before. But I had to be careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by -Mr. Van Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before a court, -you know what it means for a native to be arrested by him. He 'takes -the kick out of them.' So I was n't really free to speak." - -"Perhaps you weren't," granted Ford. "But you were free to keep away -from him, and from niggers in general--were n't you?" - -"Quite," agreed Margaret. "It is n't niggers in general, though--it 's -just this one." - -She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge of the bed and her -fingers intertwined. She felt that the color had mounted in her face, -but she was sedulous to keep her eyes on his. - -"He 's a nigger--yes," she said; "black as your hat, and all that. But -there 's a difference. This--nigger--I hate that word--was taken away -when he was six years old and brought up in England. He was properly -educated and he 's a doctor, a real doctor with diplomas and degrees, -and he 's come out here to try and help his own people. As yet, he -can't even speak Kafir, and he 's had a fearful time ever since he -landed. Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. He 's read -books and knows a bit about art, and all that; and he 's ever so humble -and grateful for just a few words of talk. He 's out there in the veld, -all day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I spoke to him and -was as friendly as I could be. Don't you see, Mr. Ford? Don't you -see?" - -He nodded impartially. - -"Yes, I see," he answered. "Well?" - -"Well, that's all," said Margaret. "Oh, yes--you mean the--the kiss? -That was absolutely nothing. I used to make him talk and he 'd been -telling me about how hard it was to make a start with his work, and how -grateful he was to me for listening to him, and I said there was no need -to be so grateful, and that it was a noble thing he had undertaken and -that--yes--that I 'd always be proud I 'd been a friend of his. I held -out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of shaking it, he kissed -it." - -"That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?" asked Ford. Margaret -nodded. "By the way, who paid him?" - -"_He_ did," Margaret answered. "I wouldn't have paid a penny. He -insisted on paying." - -She was watching him anxiously. He was frowning in deep thought. She -felt her heart beat more rapidly as he remained for a time without -answering. - -"It was worth paying for, if the fellow had kept faith," he said at -last. "The whole thing 's in that--you don't know what such a secret is -worth. It 's the one thing that binds people together out here, Dutch -and English, colonials and Transvaalers and all the rest--the color -line. But you didn't know." - -"Oh, yes," Margaret made haste to correct him. "I did know. But I -didn't care and I don't care now. I 'm not going to take that kind of -thing into account at all. I won't be bullied by any amount of -prejudices." - -"It isn't prejudice," said Ford wearily. "Still--we can't go into all -that. I 'm glad you explained to me, though." - -"You 're wondering still about something," Margaret said. She could -read the doubt and hesitation that he strove to hide from her. "Do let -'s have the whole thing out. What is it?" - -He had half-closed his eyes but now he opened them and surveyed her -keenly. - -"You 've told me how reasonable the whole thing was," he said, in -deliberate tones. "It was reasonable. That part of it 's as right as it -can be. I understand the picturesqueness of it all and the sadness; it -is a sad business. I could understand your connection with it, too, in -spite of the man's hiding from the police, if only he wasn't a nigger. -Beg pardon--a negro." - -Margaret was following his words intently. - -"What has that got to do with it?" she asked. - -"You don't see it?" inquired Ford. "Didn't you find it rather awful, -being alone with him? Didn't it make you creepy when he touched your -hand?" - -He was curious about it, apart from her share in the matter. He was -interested in the impersonal aspect of the question as well. - -"I didn't like his face, at first," admitted Margaret. - -"And afterwards?" - -"Afterwards I didn't mind it," she replied. "I 'd got used to it, you -see." - -He nodded. Upon her answer he had dropped his eyes and was no longer -looking at her. - -"Well, that 's all," he said. "Don't trouble about it any more. You -'ve explained and--if you care to know--I 'm quite satisfied." - -Margaret sat slowly upright. - -"No, you 're not," she answered. "That isn't true; you 're not -satisfied. You 're disappointed that I did n't shrink from him and feel -nervous of him. You are--you are! I 'm not as good as you thought I -was, and you're disappointed. Why don't you say so? What's the use of -pretending like this?" - -Ford wriggled between the sheets irritably. - -"You 're making a row," he said. "They 'll hear you downstairs." - -Margaret had risen and was standing by her chair. - -"I don't care," she said, lowering her voice at the same time. "But why -are n't you honest with me? You say you 're satisfied and all the time -you 're thinking: 'A nigger is as good as a white man to her.'" - -"I 'm not," protested Ford vigorously. - -"I _did n't_ shrink," said Margaret. "My flesh didn't crawl once. When -I shake his hand, it feels just the same as yours. That disgusts you--I -know. There 's something wanting in me that you thought was there. Mrs. -Jakes has got it; her flesh can crawl like a caterpillar; but I have -n't. You did n't know that when you asked me not to go away, did you?" - -"Sit down," begged Ford. "Sit down and let me ask you again." - -"No," said Margaret. "You shan't overlook things like that. I 'm -going--going away from here as soon as I can. I 'm not ashamed and I -won't be indulged." - -She walked towards the door. There was a need to get away before the -tears that made her eyes smart should overflow and expose themselves. - -"Come back," cried Ford. "I say--give a fellow a chance. Come back. I -want to say something." - -She would not answer him without facing him, even though it revealed the -tears. - -"I 'm not coming," she replied, and went out. - -She had fulfilled her purpose; they had all had their cut at her, save -Dr. Jakes, who would not take his turn, and Mrs. Jakes, to whom that -privilege was not due. Only one of them had swung the whip effectually -and left a wheal whose smart endured. - -Mrs. Jakes did not count on being left out of the festival. Her rod was -in pickle. She was on hand when the girl came out of her room, serene -again and ready to meet any number of Mrs. Jakeses. - -"Oh, Miss Harding." - -Mrs. Jakes arrested her, glancing about to see that the corridor was -empty. - -"The doctor wishes me to tell you," said Mrs. Jakes, aiming her words at -the girl's high tranquillity, "that he considers you had better make -arrangements to remove to some other establishment. You understand, of -course?" - -"Of course," agreed Margaret. - -"A month's notice, then," said Mrs. Jakes smoothly. "That is usual. But -if it should be convenient for you to go before, the doctor will be -happy to meet you." - -"Very good of the doctor," smiled Margaret, and walked on, her skirts -rustling. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - -Voices below the window of her room that alternated briskly and yet -guardedly, drew Margaret to look out. On the stoep beneath her, Fat -Mary was exchanging badinage of the most elementary character with a -dusty trooper of the Mounted Police, who stood on the ground under the -railing with his bridle looped over his arm and his horse awaiting his -pleasure at his elbow. Seen from above, the main feature of Fat Mary -was her red-and-yellow headkerchief tied tightly over her large and -globular skull, presenting the appearance of a strikingly-colored bubble -at the summit of her person. - -"You savvy tickle?" the trooper was saying. "By'-mby I come up there -and tickle you. You like that plenty." - -Fat Mary giggled richly. "You lie," she returned, with immense -enjoyment. - -"Tickle do you good," rejoined the trooper. - -He was a tall lathy man, with the face of a tired Punchinello, all nose -and chin with a thin fastidious mouth hidden between. His eyes wandered -restlessly while he talked as though in search of better matter for his -interest; and he chaffed the stout Kafir woman with a mechanical ease -suggesting that this was a trick he had practised till it performed -itself. The tight-fitting blue uniform, in spite of the dust that was -thick upon it, and all his accoutrement of a horseman, lent a dandified -touch to his negligent attitude; and he looked like--what he probably -was--one of those gentlemen of sporting proclivities in whom the process -of decay is arrested by the preservative discipline and toil of service -in a Colonial force. - -Margaret, examining him unseen from above, with hatpins in her hands, -found his miserable and well-bred face at once repellent and distantly -terrible; he seemed to typify so completely what she had learned to fear -in the police, a humanity at once weak and implacable. His spurs, his -revolver, his authority were means of inflicting pain given into feeble -hands to supply the place of power. Within a few days she had come to -know the dread which the street-hawker in the gutter feels for the -policeman on the pavement who can destroy him when he chooses. It did -not call for much imagination to see how dreadful the bored perfunctory -man below might become when once he had fastened on his quarry and had -it to himself to exercise upon it the arts of which the revolver and the -rest were the appliances. - -His presence under her window was a sign that the search for Kamis' -hiding-place was still going forward. At any hour of the day now the -inmates of the Sanatorium might lift up their eyes to see the unusual -phenomenon of a human being sharing with them the solitude and the -silence. Van Zyl had high hopes of laying his hands on the mysterious -Kafir who had committed the crime of being incomprehensible to nervous -kraals, whose occupants had a way of shaking off wonder and alarm by -taking exercise with their weapons among the cattle of their neighbors. -The Sanatorium, under his orders, was being watched for any indications -of messages passing between Margaret and the Kafir, and the dusty, armed -men came and went continually, a succession of drilled shoulders, -tanned, unconcerned faces, and expressionless eyes puckered against the -sun's stare. - -Their chief effect was to keep Margaret in a state of anxious fear lest -their search should be successful, and she should be a witness of their -return, riding past at the walk with a handcuffed figure trudging -helplessly before them. She saw in painful dreams the dust that rose -about them cloudily and the prisoner's bowed back as he labored to -maintain the pace. The worst of the dreams followed their progress to a -moment when the man on foot flagged, or perhaps fell, and one of the -riders pressed forward with a foot disengaged from its stirrup and the -spur lifted to rowel him to livelier efforts. Such was the fruit of Van -Zyl's pregnant word when he spoke of prisoners who had had "the kick -taken out of them." - -She had had no opportunity of seeing Paul, to send through him a warning -message to Kamis, since her interview with Van Zyl; but on this day she -had glimpsed him from the stoep, as he moved about among the farm -buildings, and she lost no time in preparing to go to him. She was -putting on her hat as she watched the trooper and Fat Mary. - -The couple of them were still at work upon their flirtation when she -came out of the Sanatorium and descended the steps. The man's wandering -eyes settled on her at once with grateful interest, and followed her as -she went across to the path at a pace suited to the ardor of the sun. -His Punchinello features brightened almost hopefully. - -Fat Mary, observing the direction of his gaze, giggled afresh and gave -information in a whisper. - -"What--her? That lady there?" - -Fat Mary nodded corroboratively. The trooper swore softly in mere -amazement. - -"You're sure that's her?" he demanded. "Well, I 'm--" - -He stared at Margaret's receding back with a frown of perplexity, then -drew the reins over his horse's head and prepared to mount. - -"You go now?" asked Fat Mary, disappointed at the effect of her news. - -"You bet," was the answer, as he swung up into the saddle and moved his -horse on. - -Margaret turned as the sound of hoofs padding on the dust approached -from behind and was met by a salute and bold avaricious eyes above the -drooping beak. He reined up beside her, looking down from the height of -his saddle at her. - -"Miss Harding, isn't it?" he said. "May I ask where you 're goin'?" - -There was jocular invitation in his manner of saying it, the gallantry -of a man who despises women. - -"I 'm going to the farm, there," Margaret answered. The unexpected -encounter had made her nervous, and she found herself ill at ease under -his regard. "Why?" - -"Because I 'll ask you for the pleasure of accompanyin' you so far, if -you don't mind," he returned. "I want a look at the happy man you 're -goin' to see. Hope you don't object?" - -"I can't stop you," replied Margaret. "You will do as you please, of -course." - -She turned and walked on, careful not to hurry her steps. The trooper -rode at her side, and though she did not look up, she felt his eyes -resting on her profile as they went. - -"Bit slow, livin' out here, Miss Harding," he remarked, after they had -gone for a minute or so in silence. "Not what you 've been use to, I -imagine. Found yourself rather short of men, didn't you?" - -"No," replied Margaret thoughtfully; "no." - -"Oh, come now." The mounted man laughed thinly, failing utterly to get -his tolerant and good-natured effect. "If you 'd had a supply of decent -chaps to do the right thing by a girl as pretty as you--admire you, an' -flirt, and all that, I mean--you wouldn't have fallen back on this -nigger we 're lookin' for, would you, now?" - -This was what it meant, then, to have one's name linked with that of a -Kafir. She was anybody's game; not the lowest need look upon her as -inaccessible. She had to put a restraint upon herself to keep from -quickening her pace, from breaking into a run and fleeing desperately -from the man whose gaze never left her. Its persistence, though she was -aware of it without seeing it, was an oppression; she imagined she could -detect the taint of his breath blowing hot upon her as she walked. - -He saw the flush that rose in her cheek, and laughed again. - -"You needn't answer," he said. "I can see for myself I 'm right. Lord, -whenever was I wrong when it came to spottin' a girl's feelings? Say, -Miss Harding--did n't I hit it first shot? Of course I did. Of course I -did," he repeated two or three times, congratulating himself. "Trust -me. - -"I say," he began again presently. "This little meetin'--I hope it 's -not goin' to be the last. I expect you 've learnt by now that niggers -have their drawbacks, and it is n't a safe game for you to play. People -simply won't stand it, you know. Now, what you want is a friend who 'll -stand by you and show you how to make the row blow over. With savvy and -a touch of tact, it can be done. Now, Miss Harding--I don't know your -Christian name, but I fancy we could understand each other if you 'd -only look up and smile." - -The farm was not far now. Paul had seen them coming and was standing at -gaze to watch them approach, with that appearance of absorbed interest -which almost anything could bring out. Soon he must see, he could not -fail to see, that she was in distress and needing aid, and then he would -come forward to meet them. - -"No?" the trooper inquired, cajolingly. "Come now--one smile. No? -No?" - -He waited for an answer. - -"I wouldn't try the haughty style," he said then. "Lord, no. You -wouldn't find it pay. After the nigger business, haughtiness is off. -What I 'm offering you is more than most chaps would offer; it isn't -everybody 'll put on a nigger's boots, not by a long sight. Now, we -don't want to be nasty about it, do we? One smile, or just a word to -say we understand each other, and it 'll be all right." - -It was insupportable, but now Paul was coming towards them, shyly and -not very fast. - -"Who 's this kid?" demanded the trooper. "Quick, now, before he 's -here. Look up, or he 'll smell a rat." - -Margaret raised her eyes to his slowly, cold fear and disgust mingling -in her mind. He met her with a smile in which relief was the salient -character. - -"When Mr. Van Zyl hears how you have insulted me," she began trembling. - -"Eh?" He stared at her suspiciously. "Van Zyl?" He seemed suddenly -enlightened. "I say, I could n't tell you 'd--you 'd made your -arrangements. Could I, now? I would n't have dreamed--look here, Miss -Harding; I 'm awfully sorry. Couldn't we agree to forget all this? You -can't blame a chap for trying his luck." - -She did not entirely understand; she merely knew that what he said must -be monstrous. No clean thing could issue from that hungry, fastidious -mouth. She walked on, leaving him halted and staring after her, -perturbed and apprehensive. His patient horse stood motionless with -stretched neck; he sat in the saddle erect as to the body, with the easy -secure seat which drill had made natural to him, but with the -Punchinello face drooped forward, watching her as she went. He saw her -meet Paul, saw the pair of them glance towards him and then turn their -backs and walk down to the farm together. Pain, defeat and patience -expressed themselves in his countenance, as in that of an ignoble -Prometheus. Presently he pulled up the docile horse's head with a jerk -of the bridoon. - -"My luck," he said aloud, and swung his horse about. - -Paul had not time to question Margaret as to her trouble, for she spoke -before he could frame his slow words. - -"Paul," she cried, "I want to speak to you. But--oh, can I sit down -somewhere? I feel--I feel--I must sit down." - -She looked over her shoulder nervously, and Paul's glance followed. - -"Is it him?" he inquired. "Sit here. I 'll go to him." - -"No," she said vehemently. "Don't. You mustn't. Let 's go to your -house. I want to sit down indoors." - -Her senses were jangled; she felt a need of relief from the empty -immensity of sun and earth that surrounded her. - -"Come on," said Paul. "We 'll go in." - -He did not offer her his arm; it was a trick he had yet to learn. He -walked at her side between the kraals, and brought her to the little -parlor which housed and was glorified by Mrs. du Preez's six rosewood -chairs, upholstered in velvet, sofa to match, rosewood center-table and -the other furniture of the shrine. He looked at her helplessly as she -sank to a seat on the "sofa to match." - -"You want some water," he said, with an inspiration, and vanished. - -Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before he returned with -his mother and the water. - -Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations. - -"Now you 'll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss Harding," she said, -after a single, narrow-eyed look at the girl. "Hand that water here, -Paul; you didn't bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you -let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, I 'll bet a pound. -They don't build for this sun in Bond Street. Now jus' let me wet this -handkerchief and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain't that better?" - -She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at Paul. - -"Get out o' this. Come in by an' by." - -"Thanks awfully." Margaret shivered as the dripping handkerchief -pressed upon her brow let loose drops that gravitated to her neck and -zigzagged under the collar of her blouse. "I 'm feeling much better -now. I 'd rather sit up, really." - -"So long as you haven't got that tight feeling," conceded Mrs. du Preez. - -She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that expressed something -striving within her mind. - -"All right now?" she asked, when Margaret had got rid of the wet -handkerchief. - -"Quite," Margaret assured her. "Thanks ever so much." - -Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon the iron tray on -which they had made their appearance. - -"Miss Harding," she said suddenly. "I know." - -"Oh? What do you know?" inquired Margaret. - -Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had obeyed her. - -"I know all about it," she answered, with reassuring frowns and nods. -"Your Fat Mary told my Christian Kafir and she told me. About--about -Kamis; _you_ know." - -"I see." - -The story had the spreading quality of the plague; it was an infection -that tainted every ear, it seemed. - -"You mean--you 'd like me to go?" suggested Margaret. - -"No! _No_! NO!" - -Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her face in making the -negatives emphatic. "Go? Why, if it was n't for the mercy of God I 'd -be in the same box myself. I would--Me! I 've got nothing to come the -heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So now you know." - -"I don't understand," said Margaret. "Do you mean that you--?" - -"I mean," interrupted Mrs. du Preez, "that if it wasn't for that Kafir I -'d ha' been hopping in hell before now; and if people only knew -it--gosh! I 'd have to hide. I wanted to tell you so 's you should -know there was some one that could n't throw any stones at you. You 're -beginnin' to find things rather warm up there, aren't you?" - -Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du Preez's intention moved -her; charity in this quarter was the last thing she had expected to -find. - -"A little warm," she agreed. "Everybody 's rather shocked just now, and -Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to leave." - -"_Has_ she?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "Well, I suppose it was to be -expected. I 've known that woman now for more years than I could count -on my fingers, and I 've always had my doubts of her. She 's no more -got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That 's where it is, Miss -Harding. She can't understand that a lady 's got to be trusted. For -two pins I 'd tell her so, the old cross-eyed _skellpot_. So you 're -going? Well, you won't be sorry." - -"But--how did you come across Kamis?" asked Margaret. - -"Oh, it 's a long story. I was clearin' out of here--doing a bolt, you -know, an' I got into trouble with a feller that was with me. It was a -feller named Bailey that was stoppin' here," explained Mrs. du Preez, -who had not heard the whole history of Margaret's exposure. "He was -after a bit of money I 'd got with me, and he was startin' in to kick me -when up jumps that nigger and down goes Bailey. See?" - -Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded. - -"That 's Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her attention to the Boy's -photograph. "Christian warned me against smashing it when I wanted to. -He 's got notions, Christian has. 'Leave it alone,' he says; 'we 're -not afraid of it.' So of course I had to; but I 'd be more 'n a bit -thankful if it was gone. I can't take any pleasure in the room with it -there." - -"I could help you in that, perhaps," suggested Margaret. "You 've helped -me. It was sweet of you to tell me what you did, the friendliest thing -I ever knew." - -"I 'd rather you did n't speak about it to Christian," objected Mrs. du -Preez. - -"I did n't mean to," Margaret assured her, rising. - -She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look more particularly at -Boy Bailey's features. She lifted the plush frame from its place. - -"There are people who would call this face handsome," she remarked. - -"Heaps," agreed Mrs. du Preez. "In his best days, he 'd got a -style--Lord! Miss Harding." - -Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards on the edge of the -fender and the crash of its glass cut Mrs. du Preez short. She stared -at Margaret in astonishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and -broke it. - -"Wasn't that clumsy of me?" she asked, smiling. - -"Well, of all the cheek," declared Mrs. du Preez, slowly. "I never -guessed what you were after. But I don't know what Christian will say." - -"He can't mend it, anyhow," replied Margaret. "You did want it gone, did -n't you?" - -"You bet," said Mrs. du Preez. "But--but that was a dodge. Here, let's -make sure of it while we 're at it; those two pieces could be easily -stuck together. I 'll stamp some of that smashed glass into it. -Still--I should think, after this, you 'd be able to hold your own with -Mrs. Jakes." - -She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photograph into a little -heap. - -"I 'll leave it like that for Christian to see," she said. "But, look -here. Didn't you want to speak to Paul? You 'll be wondering when I 'm -goin' to give you a chance. I 'll just tap the drum for him." - -Paul's whistle from behind the house answered the first strokes and Mrs. -du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did not return to the parlor with -him. - -"You 're all right now?" he asked, as he entered. - -"Oh, yes. That was nothing," said Margaret. - -Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a shoulder against it, -looking abstractedly at her face, and waiting to hear her speak. - -"Paul," asked Margaret, "do you know where Kamis is now?" - -"Yes," he said. - -"Do you see him? Can you speak to him for me?" - -"I don't see him much now," answered Paul. "That is because the -policemen are riding about looking for him. But I can speak to him -to-night." - -"He must take care not to be caught," said Margaret. "They 're very -anxious to find him just now. You 've heard, Paul, that they 've found -out about me and him?" - -"Ye-es," answered Paul. "I heard something." - -"It's true," said Margaret. "So I 've got to go away from here. They -won't have me at the Sanatorium any longer and the police are watching -to see if Kamis comes anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You -must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He mustn't send any messages, -even." - -"I will tell him," said Paul. "But--you are going away? To England?" - -"Perhaps," replied Margaret. "I expect I shall have to now. They tell -me that people won't let me live in South Africa any more. I 'm a sort -of leper, and I must keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan't -see each other again after a few more days. Are you sorry, Paul?" - -He reddened boyishly and fidgeted. - -"Oh, it is best for you to go," he answered, uncomfortably. - -"Paul! But why?" - -"It 's--it 's not your place," he said, facing the difficulty of putting -an elusive thought into words. "This country--people don't know what 's -good and what 's bad--and there isn't enough people. Not like London. -You should go to London again. Kamis was telling me--theaters and -streets and pictures to see, and people everywhere. He says one end of -London is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. That is -where you should go--London, not here. I will go to London soon, too." - -"I see," said Margaret. "I was afraid at first that you were sick of me -too, Paul. I needn't have been afraid of that, need I? Wouldn't it be -fine if we could meet in London?" - -"We can," said Paul seriously. "I have got a hundred and three pounds, -and I will go." - -"That's a good deal," said Margaret. - -"It's a lot," he agreed. "My father gave it to me the other day, all -tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, and there was my mother's -marriage lines in it too. He said he didn't mean me to have those but -the money was for me. It was on the table in the morning and he rolled -it over to me and said: 'Here, Paul. Take this and don't bring any more -of your tramps in the house.' That was because I brought that Bailey -here, you know. So now--soon--I will go to London and Paris and make -models there. Kamis says--" - -"What?" asked Margaret. - -"He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at first when I see London. -He says that coming to Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in -another world. But he says too--blessed are the pure in heart, for they -will see God even in Waterloo Station." - -"He ought to go back himself," said Margaret, with conviction. "He 's -wasted here." - -"Will you see him before you go?" asked Paul. - -"No," said Margaret. "No; I daren't. Tell him, Paul, please, that I 'd -like to see him ever so much, but that it 's too dangerous. Say I wish -him well with all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he won't -let himself be caught." - -"He won't," said Paul, with confidence. "But I 'll tell him." - -"And say," continued Margaret--"say he 's not to feel sorry about what -has happened to me. Tell him I 'm still proud that I was his friend, -and that all this row is worth it. Can you remember all that?" - -Paul nodded. "I can remember," he assured her. "It is--it is so fine to -hear, for me, too. I won't forget anything." - -"Please don't, if you can help it. I want him to have that message," -said Margaret. "And now, Paul, I 'll have to say good-by to you, -because I shan't come here again." - -Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was very friendly. - -"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are going to London, and soon I -shall see you there." - -"I wonder," she said, giving him her hand. "I 'll write you my address -and send it you before I leave, Paul." - -"I should find you anyhow," he assured her confidently. - -Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed a tear or so at -the last. In her, a strong emotion found a safety valve in ferocity. - -"As for that Jakes woman," she said, in conclusion, "you tell her from -me, Miss Harding--from _me_, mind,--that it wouldn't cost me any pain to -hand her a slap acrost the mug." - -Margaret went homeward through the late light dreamily. Far away, -blurred by the sun's horizontal rays, the figure of the trooper occupied -the empty distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. Peace -and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, a cue to lead her thoughts -towards sadness. It caused her to realize that she would not leave it -all without a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect -of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings under a heaven -without clouds, to make the most of one's own humanity. It would be a -thing she had known in part, but which henceforth she would never know -even as she herself was known. She could never now find the word that -expressed its wonder and its appeal. - -Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the steps to enter the -Sanatorium. He put down his paper and toddled forward to open the door -for her, anxiously punctilious. - -"Ford was down for tea," he said. "Askin' for you, he was." - -"Oh, was he?" replied Margaret inanely, and went in. - - -At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, Christian du Preez, -glancing up from the food which occupied him, observed by a certain -frowning deliberation on Paul's face, that his son was about to deliver -himself in speech. - -"Well, what is it, Paul?" he inquired encouragingly. - -Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his purpose thus -forecasted. - -"That money," he said doubtfully. - -"Oh." The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who laid down her knife -and fork and began to listen with startled interest. - -"That 's all right," said Christian. "Do what you like with it. Go to -the dorp and spend it; it 's yours. Now eat your supper." - -"I am going to London," said Paul then, seriously, and having got it off -his mind, said, heard and done with, he resumed his meal with an -appetite. - -"London," echoed the Boer. "London?" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez. - -"Yes," said Paul. "To make models. Here there is nobody to see them." - -"He is gone mad," said the Boer with conviction. "He has been queer for -a long time and now he is mad. Paul, you are mad." - -"Am I?" asked Paul respectfully, and continued to eat. - -His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, angrily, -persuasively, but people were always saying things to him that had no -real meaning. It was ridiculous, for instance, that the Boer should -call him a dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should ask for -more coffee. He wasn't dumb and didn't believe he was a fool. People -were n't fools because they went to London; on the contrary, they had to -be rather clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at the back -of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope to convey and did not -attempt to--a sense he had, which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a -goal after doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tenderness, -the confidence that to him and to the work which his hands should -perform, Canaan was reserved, virgin and welcoming. It was a strength -he had in secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after an hour -of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and obedient and -comprehensible, he looked up and said, very thoughtfully: - -"In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, father." - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - -Ford's return to normal existence coincided with the arrival of -mail-morning, when the breakfast menu was varied by home letters heaped -upon the plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning and was -very conscious of it, affecting to find her correspondent's caligraphy -hard to read. Old Mr. Samson had his usual pile and greeted him from -behind a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes. - -"Hullo, Ford," he cried, "up on your pins, again? Feelin' pretty -bobbish--what?" - -"Nice way you 've got of putting it," replied Ford, taking his seat -before the three letters on his plate. "I 'm all right, though. You -seem fairly well supplied with reading-matter this morning." - -"The usual, the usual," said Mr. Samson airily. "People gone to the -country; got time to write, don't you know. Here 's a feller tells me -that the foxes down his way are simply rotten with mange." - -"Awful," said Ford, glancing at the first of his own letters. "And here -'s a feller tells _me_ that he 's sent in the enclosed account nine -times and must press for a cheque without delay. What 's the country -coming to? Eh?" - -"You be blowed," retorted Mr. Samson, and fell again to his reading. - -From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indicative of lady-like -exasperation. - -"The way some people write, you 'd never believe they 'd been educated -and finished regardless of expense," she declared. "There 's a word -here--she 's telling me about a lady I used to know in Town--and whether -she suffers from her children (though I never knew she was married) or -from a chaplain, I can't make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford? -There, where I 'm pointing?" - -"Oh, yes," said Ford. "It 's worse than you think, Mrs. Jakes. It 's -chilblains." - -"O-oh." Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. "Why, of course. I remember now. -Even when she was a girl at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from -them. I thought she couldn't have been married, with such feet. But is -n't it a dreadful way to write?" - -She would have indulged them with further information regarding the lady -who suffered, but Margaret's entrance drove her back behind the -breastwork of the urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the -girl's eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Margaret had revealed -herself as anything but correct by every standard which Mrs. Jakes could -apply, failed to reassure her. - -"Good morning, Miss Harding," she said frostily. "You will take coffee?" - -"Good morning," replied Margaret, passing to her place at the table. -"Yes, it is lovely." - -"Er--the coffee?" asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and uncomprehending. - -"Oh, coffee. Yes, please," said Margaret. "I thought you said -something about the weather." - -Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and greeted her quietly. - -"Glad you 're better," she replied, not returning his smile, and turned -at once to the letters which awaited her. - -He was watching her while she sorted them, examining first the envelopes -for indications of what they held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she -took it up to decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and opened -the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped affair, containing a -couple of typewritten sheets as well as a short letter. She read it -perfunctorily and looked through the business-like typescripts -impatiently, folded them all up again and tucked them back into the -linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the one with the smudged -postmark last of all. She scrutinized the outside of this again before -she opened it; it was not an English letter, but one from some -unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last she opened it, -and drew out the dashing black scrawl which it harbored. A glance at -the end of the letter seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her -delicate brows knit as she began to read. - -He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere contemplation of her. He -was aware of a character in her presence at once familiar to him by long -study and intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch -destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and left its shape -discernible, and beneath it a certain breadth and frankness of brow upon -which the eyebrows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern -which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within it, and turns its -ardor into radiance. The Kafir and the shame and the imprudence of that -affair did not suffice to darken that light; at the most, they could but -cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a moment, like the candle -one carries, behind a guarding hand, through a windy corridor. It did -not cool the strong flame that was the heart of the combination. - -Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put it back on her plate -with an abrupt gesture and he noted that she had gone pale, and that her -mouth was wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew her -fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement of one who has by -accident set his hand on some unexpected piece of foulness. - -She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but she did not look at -her letters again. They were perhaps the first letters in years to come -to the Sanatorium and be dismissed with a single perusal. - -"Fog in London," said Mr. Samson, suddenly. "Feller writes as though it -was the plague. _He_ does n't know what it is to have too much bally -sun." - -The glare that shone through the window returned his glance unwinking. - -"Fog?" responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. "That is bad. Such dreadful -things happen in fogs. I remember a lady at Home, who was divorced -afterwards, who lost her way in a fog and didn't get home for two days, -and even then she had somebody else's umbrella and could no more -remember where she 'd got it than fly. And she was so confused and -upset that all she could say to her husband was: 'Ed,'--his name was -Edwin--'Ed, did you remember to have your hair cut?'" - -"Had he remembered?" demanded Mr. Samson. - -"I think not," replied Mrs. Jakes. "What with the worry, and the things -the servant said, I don't believe he 'd thought of it. He always did -wear it rather long." - -"Think of that," said Mr. Samson, with solemn surprise. - -Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then gathered up her -letters. Ford thought that as she picked up the sheet which had -distressed her, she glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed -nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful not to follow her -too soon. - -It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours after breakfast -was over, the only part of the Sanatorium which it was possible to -inhabit with comfort was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to -Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony known as "doing the -rooms," a festival involving excursions and alarms, skylarking, -breakages and fights. To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for -example, was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of surprised -and shocked black faces peering round the door and vanishing, to -scuffling noises on the mat and finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes -herself: "_Would_ you mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? They -'re rather behindhand this morning." - -Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the extreme end of the -stoep, beyond the radius of Ford's art and Mr. Samson's meditations. -Her letters were in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was -gazing straight before her at the emptiness which stretched out -endlessly, affording no perch for the eye to rest on, an everlasting -enigma to baffle sore minds. - -Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of approach. - -"I say," he said, and she looked up listlessly. "I say--I 'm sorry. -Can't we make it up?" - -"All right," she answered. - -He looked at her closely. - -"But is it all right?" he persisted. "You 're hurt about something; I -can see you are; so it 's not all right yet. Look here, Miss Harding: -you were wrong about what I was thinking." - -"Oh no." Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired impatience. "I -wasn't wrong," she answered. "I could see; and I think you should n't -go back on it now. The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You -won't find yourself alone. I had a letter from some one this morning -who would back you up to the last drop of his blood, I 'm sure." - -"Who 's that?" - -"I don't know," she answered. "It 's my first anonymous letter. -Somebody has heard about me and therefore writes. He thinks just as you -do. Would you like to see it?" - -She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back while he leaned on -the rail to read it. - -At the second sentence in the letter he looked up sharply and restrained -an ejaculation. She was not looking at him, but a tinge of pink had -risen in her quiet face. - -It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous kind. Something like -horror possessed him as he realized that her grave eyes had perused its -gleeful and elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness -fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. It had the -baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity that transcended commonplace -evil. - -"I say," he cried, before the end of the ingenious thing was reached. -"You have n't read this through?" - -"Not quite," she answered. - -"I--I should think not." - -With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which betrayed the hot anger he -felt, he tore the letter into strips and the strips again into smaller -fragments, and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs below. - -"It's getting about, you see," said Margaret, with a sigh. "I suppose, -before I manage to get away, I shall be accustomed to things of that -kind." - -"But this is awful," cried Ford. "I can't bear this. You, of all -people, to have to go through all that this means and threatens--it 's -awful. Miss Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do -anything that 'll give you the feeling that I 'm with you in this. You -can't face it alone--you simply can't. I'm sorry enough to--to kick -myself. Can't you let me stand in with you?" - -He stopped helplessly before Margaret's languid calm. She was not in -the least stirred by his appeal. She lay back in her chair listlessly, -and only withdrew her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to -speak. - -"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said indifferently. "It's a silly business. -Don't worry about it, please." - -"But--" began Ford, and stopped. "You mean--you won't have me with you, -anyhow?" he asked. "What you thought I thought, upstairs--you can't -forget that? Is that it?" - -She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. Nothing could have -expressed so clearly as that faint smile her immunity from the passion -that stirred in him. - -"Perhaps it 's that," she answered, always in the same indifferent, low -voice. "I 'm not thinking more about it than I can help." - -"I didn't think any harm of you," Ford protested earnestly, leaning -forward from his perch on the rail and striving to compel her to look at -him. "We 've been good friends, and you might have trusted me not to -think evil of you. I simply didn't understand--nothing else. You can't -seriously be offended because you imagined that I was thinking certain -thoughts. It isn't fair." - -"I 'm not offended," she answered. - -"Hurt, then," he substituted. "Anything you please." - -He stepped down from his seat and walked a few paces away, with his -hands deeply sunk in his pockets, and then walked back again. - -"I say," he said abruptly; "it 's a question of what I think of you, it -seems. Let me tell you what I do think." - -Margaret turned her face towards him. He was frowning heavily, with an -appearance of injury and annoyance. He spoke in curt jets. - -"It 's only since I 've known you that I 've really worried over being a -lunger," he said. "The Army--I could stand that. But seeing you and -talking to you, and knowing I 'd no right to say a word--no right to try -and lead things that way, even, for your sake as much as mine--it 's -been hard. Because--this is what I do think--it 's seemed to me that -you were worth more than everything else. I 'd have given the world to -tell you so, and ask you--well, you know what I mean." - -Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she could mark this evasion -of a plain statement with amusement. - -Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience. - -"Well, then," he said in the tone of one who is goaded to extreme -lengths; "well then, Miss--er--Margaret--" he paused, seemingly struck -by a pleasant flavor in the name as he spoke it--"Margaret," he -repeated, less urgently; "I 'm hanged if I know how to say it, but--I -love you." - -There was an appreciable interval while they remained gazing at each -other, he breathless and discomposed, she grave and unresponding. - -"Do you?" she said at last. "But--" - -"I do," he urged. "On my soul, I do. Margaret, it 's true. I 've -been--loving--you for a long time. I thought perhaps you might care a -little, too, sometimes, and I 'd have told you if it was n't for this -chest of mine. That 's what I meant when you said you were going away -and I asked you to stay. I thought you understood then." - -"I did understand," she replied, and sat thoughtful. - -She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered her and would not -suffer her to feel even a thrill. Some virtue had departed out of her -and drawn with it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that -what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in some subconscious and -uninspiring manner, that Ford was what he had always been, with passion -added to him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her to answer, -with his thin face eager and glowing. It should have moved her with -compassion and liking for the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew -him to be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the Punchinello -policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes' ill-restrained joy in bidding her leave -the place, had been so many blows upon her function of susceptibility. -The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and she was not yet -restored. - -Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his heart beat more -quickly. - -She looked up at him uncertainly and made a movement with her shoulders -like a shrug. - -"Oh, I can't," she said suddenly. "No, I can't. It 's no use; you must -leave me alone, please." - -His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilderment, returned to her -later. It was as though he had been struck in the face by some one he -counted on as a friend. He stood for an instant rooted. - -"Sorry," he said, then. "I might have seen I was worrying you. Sorry." - -His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of the stoep, and she -sank back in her chair, wondering wearily at the event and its -inconsequent conclusion, with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of -the veld. - -"Am I going to be ill?" was the thought that came to her relief. "Am I -going to be ill? I 'm not really like this." - -The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not eat, but still less -could she face the prospect of Mrs. Jakes with a tray. Afterwards, -there was the dreary labor of writing letters to go before her to -England and make ready the way for her return. There would have to be -explanations of some kind, and it was a sure thing that her explanations -would fail to satisfy a number of people who would consider themselves -entitled to comment on her movements. There would have to be some -mystery about it, at the best. For the present, she could not screw -herself up to the task of composing euphemisms. "Expect me home by the -boat after next. I will tell you why when I see you"; that had to -suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful wife, the philosophic aunt and -all the rest. - -Then came tea and afterwards dinner; the day dragged like a sick snake. -Dr. Jakes made mournful eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his -nervousness and compunction, and now and again he looked down the table -at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive malevolence. Afterwards, in the -drawing-room, Mrs. Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor, -played the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" five times, and Ford -and Samson spent the evening over a chessboard. Margaret, on the couch, -found herself coming to the surface of the present again and again from -depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the intermezzo still limping -along and Mr. Samson still apostrophizing his men in an undertone ("Take -his bally bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back--he 'll have -you with that knight"). It was interminable, a pocket eternity. - -Then the view of the stairs sloping up to the dimness above and the cool -air of the hall upon her neck and face, and the sourness of Mrs. Jakes -trying to give her "good night" the intonation of an insult--these -intruded abruptly upon her straying faculties, and she came a little -dazed into the light of the candles in her own room, where her eyes fell -first on the breadth of Fat Mary's back, as that handmaid stood at the -window with the blind in her hand and peered forth into the dark. As -she turned, Margaret gained an impression that the stout woman's -interest in something below was interrupted by her entrance. - -Fat Mary had been another of Margaret's disappointments since the -exposure. The Kafir woman's manner to her had undergone a notable -change. There was no longer the touch of reverence and gentleness with -which she had tended Margaret at first, which had made endearing all her -huge incompetence and playfulness. There had succeeded to it a manner -of familiarity which manifested itself chiefly in the roughness of her -handling. Margaret was being called upon to pay the penalty which the -African native exacts from the European who encroaches upon the -aloofness of the colored peoples. - -Fat Mary grinned as Margaret came through the door. - -"Mo' stink," she observed, cheerfully, and pointed to the -dressing-table. - -Margaret's eyes followed the big black finger to where a bunch of aloe -plumes lay between the candles on the white cloth, brilliantly red. The -sight of them startled the girl sharply. She went across and raised -them. - -"Where did they come from?" she asked quickly. - -"That Kafir," grinned Fat Mary. "Missis's Kafir, he bring 'im." - -"What did he say? Did he give any message?" - -"No," replied Fat Mary. "Jus' stink-flowers, an' give me Scotchman." - -"Scotchman" is Kafir slang for a florin; it has for an origin a myth -reflecting on the probity of a great race. But Margaret did not -inquire; she was pondering a possible significance in this gift of -bitter blooms. - -Fat Mary eyed her acutely while she stood in thought. - -"He say don't tell nobody," she remarked casually. "I say no fear--me! -I don't tell. Missis like that Kafir plenty?" - -"Mary," said Margaret. "You can go now. I shan't want you." - -"All a-right," replied Fat Mary willingly, and took herself off -forthwith. She had her own uses for a present of spare time at this -season. - -Margaret put the red flowers down as the door closed behind Fat Mary, -and set herself before the mirror. There was still that haze between -her thoughts and the realities about her, a drifting cloudiness that -sometimes obscured them all together, and sometimes broke and let -matters appear. - -She noted in the mirror the strange, familiar specter of her own face, -and saw that the hectic was strong and high on either cheek. Then the -aloe plumes plucked at her thoughts, and the haze closed about her -again, leaving her blind in a deep and aimless preoccupation in which -her thoughts were no more than a pulse, repeating itself to no end. -Ford's declaration and his manner of making it; the Punchinello -countenance of the trooper, bestially insinuating; Mrs. Jakes eating -soup at Mr. Samson;--these came and went in the dreadful arena of her -mind and made a changing spectacle that baffled the march of the -clock-hands. - -She did not know how long she had been sitting when a rattle at the -window surprised her into looking up. She stared absently at the blind -till it came again. It had the sound of some one throwing earth from -below. She rose and went across and looked out. - -It had not touched her nerves at all; it was not the kind of thing which -could frighten her. The window was raised at the bottom and she kneeled -on the floor and put her head, cloudily haloed with her loose hair, out -to the star-tempered dark. - -A whisper from below, where the whisperer stood invisible in the shadow -at the foot of the wall, hailed her at once. - -"Miss Harding," it said. "Miss Harding. I 'm here, directly below -you." - -She could see nothing. - -"Who is it?" she asked. - -"Hush." She had spoken in her ordinary tones. "Not so loud. It 's -dangerous." - -"Who is it?" she asked again, subduing her voice. - -"Why--Kamis, of course." The answer came in a tone of surprise. "You -expected me, did n't you? Your light was burning." - -"Expected you? No," said Margaret "I didn't expect you; you ought n't -to have come." - -"But--" the voice was protesting; "my message. It was on the paper -around the aloe plumes. I particularly told the fat Kafir woman to give -you that, and she promised. If your light was burning, I 'd throw -something up at your window, and if not, I 'd go away. That was it." - -The night breeze came in at the tail of his words with a dry rustling of -the dead vines. - -"There was no paper," said Margaret. - -The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which she did not catch. - -"If only you don't mind," he said, then. "I got Paul's message from you -and I had to try and see you." - -"Yes," said Margaret. She could not see him at all; under the lee of -the house the night was black, though at a hundred paces off she could -make out the lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering voice -was akin to the night. - -"Then you don't mind?" he urged. - -"I don't mind, of course," said Margaret. "But it 's too risky." - -Further along the stoep there was a dim warmish glow through the red -curtains of the study and a leak of faint light under the closed front -door. The house was loopholed for unfriendly eyes and ears. There was -no security under that masked battery for their privacy. At any moment -Mrs. Jakes might prick up her ears and stand intent and triumphant to -hear their strained whispers in cautious interchange. Margaret shrank -from the thought of it. - -"I only want a word," answered Kamis from the darkness. "I may not see -you again. You won't let me drop without a word--after everything?" - -Margaret hesitated. "Some one may pick up that paper and read your -message and watch to see what happens. I couldn't bear any more trouble -about it." - -There was a pause. - -"No," agreed Kamis, then. "No--of course. I didn't think of that. I -'ll say good-by now, then." - -Margaret strained to see him, but the night hid him securely. - -"Wait!" she called carefully. "I don't want you to go away like that; -it 's simply that this is too risky." She paused. "I 'd better come -down to you," she said. - -She could not tell what he answered, whether joy or demurral, for she -drew her head in at once, and then opened the door and went out to the -corridor. - -It was good to be doing something, and to have to do with one whose -sympathies were not strained. She went lightly and noiselessly down the -wide stairs, and recognized again, with a smile, the secret aspect of -the hall in the dark hours. There was a thread of light under the door -of Dr. Jakes' study, and within that locked room the dutiful small clock -was still ticking off the moments as stolidly as though all moments were -of the same value. The outer door was closed with a mighty lock and a -great iron key, and opened with a clang that should have brought Dr. -Jakes forth to inquire. But he did not come, and she went unopposed out -to the stoep under the metallic rustle of its dead vines. - -She was going swiftly, with her velvet-shod feet, to that distant part -of it which was under the broad light of her window, when the Kafir -appeared before her so suddenly that she almost ran into him. - -"Oh." She uttered a little cry. "You startled me." - -"I 'm sorry," he answered. - -"You ought n't to be here," Margaret said, "because it 's dangerous. -But I am glad to see you." - -"That 's good of you," he said. "I got Paul's message. I had to come. -I had to see you once more, and besides, he said you were--in trouble. -About me?" - -"Oh, yes," said Margaret. "No end of trouble, all about you. An -anonymous letter, notice to quit, pity and smiles, two suitors, one with -intentions which were strictly dishonorable, and so on. And the simple -truth is, I don't care a bit." - -"Oh, Lord!" said the Kafir. - -They were standing close to the wall, immersed in its shadow and -sheltered from the wind that sighed above them and beside them and made -the vines vocal. Neither could see the other save as a shadowy presence. - -"I don't care," said Margaret, "and I refuse to bother about it. I 've -got to go, of course, and I don't like the feeling of being kicked out. -That rankles a little bit, when I relax the strain of being superior and -amused at their littleness. But as for the rest, I don't care." - -"It's my fault," said the Kafir quietly. "It's all my fault. I knew -all the time what the end of it would be; and I let it come. There 's -something mean in a nigger, Miss Harding. I knew it was there well -enough, and now it shows." - -"Don't," said Margaret. - -There fell a pause between them, and she could hear his breathing. She -remembered the expression on Ford's face when he had questioned her as -to whether she did not experience a repulsion at a Kafir's proximity to -her, and tried now to find any such aversion in herself. They stood in -an intimate nearness, so that she could not have moved from her place -without touching him; but there was none. Whoever had it for a pedestal -of well and truly laid local virtues, she had it not. - -"This is good-by, of course," said the Kafir, in his pleasant low tones. -"I 'll never see you again, but I 'll never forget how good and -beautiful you were to me. I must n't keep you out here, or there are a -hundred things I want to say to you; but that 's the chief thing. I 'll -never forgive myself for what has happened, but I 'll never forget." - -"There 's nothing you need blame yourself for," said Margaret eagerly. -"It 's been worth while. It has, really. You 're somebody and you 're -doing something great and real, while the people in here are just shams, -like me. Oh," she cried softly; "if only there was something for me to -_do_." - -"For you," repeated the Kafir. "You must be--what you are; not spoil it -by doing things." - -"No," said Margaret. "No. That 's just chivalry and nonsense. I want -something to do, something real. I want something that _costs_--I don't -care what. Even this silly trouble I 'm in now is better than being a -smiling goddess. I want--I want--" - -Her mind moved stiffly and she could not seize the word she needed. - -"It would be wasting you," Kamis was saying. "It would be throwing you -away." - -"I want to suffer," she said suddenly. "Yes--that 's what I want. You -suffer--don't you? That woman in Capetown will have to suffer; -everybody who really does things suffers for it; and I want to." - -"Do you?" said Kamis, with a touch of awkwardness. "But--what woman in -Capetown do you mean?" - -"Oh, you must have heard," said Margaret impatiently. "She married a -Kafir; it 's been in the papers." - -"Yes," he said, "I remember now." - -"I told them all, in here, a long time ago, that in some city of the -future there would be a monument to her, with the inscription: 'She felt -the future in her bones.' But while she lives they 'll make her suffer; -they 'll never forgive her. I wish I could have met her before I go." - -There was a brief pause. "Why?" asked Kamis then, in a low voice. - -"Why? Because she 'd understand, of course. I 'd like to talk to her -and tell her about you. Don't you see?" Margaret laughed a little. "I -could tell her about it as though it were all quite natural and -ordinary, and she 'd understand." - -She heard the Kafir move but he did not reply at once. - -"Perhaps she would," he said. "However, you 're not going to meet her, -so it does n't matter." - -"But," said Margaret, puzzled at the lack of responsiveness in his tone -and words, "don't you think she was splendid? She must have known the -price she would have to pay; but it didn't frighten her. Don't you -think it was fine?" - -"Well," Kamis answered guardedly; "I suppose she knew what she was -about." - -"Then," persisted Margaret, "you don't think it was fine?" - -She found his manner of speaking of the subject curiously reminiscent of -Ford. - -Kamis uttered an embarrassed laugh. "Well," he said, "I 'm afraid I 'm -not very sympathetic. I suppose I 've lived too long among white -people; my proper instincts have been perverted. But the fact is, I -think that woman was--wrong." - -"Oh," said Margaret. "Why?" - -"There isn't any why," he answered. "It 's a matter of feeling, you -know; not of reason. Really, it amounts to--it 's absurd, of course, -but it 's practically negrophobia. You can't bring a black man up as a -white man and then expect him to be entirely free from white prejudices. -Can you?" - -"But--" Margaret spoke in some bewilderment. "What's the use of being -black," she demanded, "if you 've got all the snobbishness of the white? -That 's the way Mr. Ford spoke about it. He said he could feel all that -was fine in it, but he wouldn't speak to such a woman. I thought that -was cruel." - -"Oh, I don't know," said Kamis. - -"Another time," said Margaret deliberately, "he asked me whether it -didn't make my flesh creep to touch your hand." - -"He thought it ought to?" - -"Yes. But it doesn't," said Margaret. "How does your negrophobia face -that fact? Doesn't it condemn me to the same shame as the woman in -Capetown? Or does it make exceptions in the case of a particular -negro?" - -"I said I did n't reason about it," replied Kamis. "I told you what I -felt. You asked me and I told you." - -"I wish you hadn't," said Margaret. "I thought that you at any rate--" - -She broke off at a quick movement he made. A sudden sense came to her -that they two were no longer alone, and, with a stiffening of alarm, she -turned abruptly to see what had disturbed him. Even as she turned, she -lifted her hand to her bosom with a premonition of imminent disaster. - -At the head of the steps that led down to the garden, and in the dim -light of the half-open front door, a figure had appeared. It came -deliberately towards them, with one hand lifted holding something. - -"Hands up, you boy!" it said. "Up, now, or I 'll--" - -By the door, the face was visible, the unhappy, greedy, Punchinello -features that Margaret knew as those of the policeman. Its hard eyes -rested on the pair of them over the raised revolver that threatened the -Kafir. - -The driving mists returned to beat her back from the spectacle; she was -helpless and weak. Warmth filled her throat, chokingly; an acrid taste -was in her mouth. She took two groping steps forward and fell on the -flags at the policeman's feet and lay there. - -From a window over their heads, there came the gurgle of Fat Mary's rich -mirth. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - -It was the scream of Mrs. Jakes that woke Ford, when, hearing -unaccountable noises and attributing them to the doctor, she went to the -hall and was startled to see in the doorway the figure of the Kafir, -with his hands raised strangely over his head, as though he were -suspended by the wrists from the arch, and behind him the shadowy -policeman, with his revolver protruded forward into the light. She -caught at her heart and screamed. - -Ford found himself awake, leaning up on one elbow, with the echo of her -scream yet in his ears, and listening intently. He could not be certain -what he had heard, for now the house was still again; and it might have -been some mere incident of Jakes' transit from the study to his bed, -into which it was better not to inquire. But some quality in the cry -had conveyed to him, in the instant of his waking, an impression of -sudden terror which he could not dismiss, and he continued to listen, -frowning into the dark. - -His room was over the stoep, but at some distance from the front door, -and for a while he heard nothing. Then, as his ears became attuned to -the night's acoustics, he was aware that somewhere there were voices, -the blurred and indistinguishable murmur of people talking. They were -hardly audible at all; not a word transpired; he knew scarcely more than -that the stillness of the night was infringed. His curiosity quickened, -and to feed it there sounded the step of a booted foot that fell with a -metallic clink, the unmistakable ring of a spur. Ford sat upright. - -A couple of moments later, some one spoke distinctly. - -"Keep those hands up," Ford heard, in a quick nasal tone; "or I 'll blow -your head off." - -Ford thrust the bedclothes from his knees and got out of bed. He lifted -the lower edge of the blind and leaned forth from the open window. -Below him the stone stoep ran to right and left like a gray path, and a -little way along it the light in the hall, issuing from the open door, -cut across it and showed the head of the wide steps. Beyond the light, -a group of dark figures were engaged with something. As he looked, the -group began to move, and he saw that Mrs. Jakes came to the side of the -door and stood back to give passage to four shuffling Kafirs bearing the -stretcher which was part of the house's equipment. There was somebody -on the stretcher, as might have been seen from the laborious gait of the -bearers, but the thing had a hood that withheld the face of the occupant -as they passed in, with Mrs. Jakes at their heels. - -Two other figures brought up the rear and likewise entered at the -doorway and passed from sight. The first, as he became visible in the -gloom beyond the light, was dimly grotesque; he seemed too tall and not -humanly proportioned, a deformed and willowy giant. Once he was opposite -the door, his height explained itself; he was walking with both arms -extended to their full length above his head and his face bowed between -them. Possibly because the attitude strained him, he went with a gait -as marked as his posture, a measured and ceremonial step as though he -were walking a slow minuet. The light met him as he turned in the -doorway and Ford, staring in bewilderment, had a momentary impression -that the face between the raised arms was black. He disappeared, with -the last of the figures close behind him, and concerning this one there -was no doubt whatever. It revealed itself as a trooper of the Mounted -Police, belted and spurred, his "smasher" hat tilted forward over his -brows, and a revolver held ready in his hand, covering the back of the -man who walked before him. - -"Here," ejaculated Ford, gazing at the empty stoep where the shadow-show -had been, with an accent of dismay in his thoughts. The affair of -Margaret and the Kafir leaped to his mind; all that had occurred below -might be a new and poignant development in that bitter comedy, and but -for a chance he might have missed it all. - -He was quick to make a light and find his dressing-gown and a pair of -slippers, and he was knotting the cord of the former as he passed out to -the long corridor and went swiftly to the head of the stairs, where the -lamp that should light Dr. Jakes to his bed was yet burning patiently. - -The stretcher was already coming up the staircase and he paused and -stood aside to make room for it. The four Kafirs were bringing it up -head first, treading carefully and breathing harshly after the manner of -the Kafir when he is conscious of eyes upon him. Behind them followed -Mrs. Jakes, shepherding them up with hushing noises. A gray blanket -covered the form in the stretcher with limp folds. - -The Kafirs saw Ford first and acknowledged his presence with -simultaneous grins. Then Mrs. Jakes saw him and made a noise like a -startled moan, staring up with vexed, round eyes. - -"Oh, Mr. Ford," she exclaimed faintly. "Please go back to bed. It -'s--it 's three o'clock in the morning." - -Beyond and below her was the hall, in which the lamp had now been turned -up. Ford looked past her impassively, and took in the two men who -waited there, the Kafir, with his raised arms--trembling now with the -fatigue of keeping them up--and the saturnine policeman with his -revolver. The stretcher had come abreast of him and he bent to look -under the hood. The bearers halted complaisantly that he might see, -shifting their grips on the poles and smiling uneasily. - -Margaret's face had the quietude of heavy lids closed upon the eyes and -features composed in unconsciousness. But the mouth was bloody, and -there were stains of much blood, bright and dreadful, on the white linen -at her throat. For all that Ford knew what it betokened, the sight gave -him a shock; it looked like murder. They had broken her hair from its -bonds in lifting her and placing her in the stretcher and now her head -was pillowed on it and its disorder made her stranger. - -Mrs. Jakes was babbling nervously at him. - -"Mr. Ford, you really must n't. I wish you 'd go back to bed. I 'll -tell you about it in the morning, if you 'll go now." - -Ford motioned to the Kafirs to go on. - -"Where's the doctor?" he demanded curtly. - -"Oh," said Mrs. Jakes, "I 'll see to all that. Mr. Ford, it 's _all -right_. You 're keeping me from putting her to bed by standing talking -like this. Don't you believe me when I say it 's all right? Why are -you looking at me like that?" - -"Is he in the study?" asked Ford. - -"Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes. "But _I 'll_ tell him, Mr. Ford. -I--I--promise I will, if only you 'll go back to bed now. I will -really." - -Ford glanced along the corridor where the Kafirs had halted again, -awaiting instructions from Mrs. Jakes. There was a picture on the wall, -entitled "Innocence"--early Victorian infant and kitten--and they were -staring at it in reverent interest. - -"Better see to Miss Harding," he said, and passed her and went down to -the hall. She turned to see what he was going to do, in an agony of -alertness to preserve the decency of the locked study door. But he went -across to speak to the policeman, and she hurried after the Kafirs, to -get the girl in bed and free herself to deal with the demand for the -presence of the doctor. - -The Kafir stood with his back to the wall, near the big front door, -closer to which was the trooper, always with the revolver in his hand -and a manner of watching eagerly for an occasion to use it. Ford went -to them, knitting his brows at the spectacle. The prisoner saw him as a -slim young man of a not unusual type in a dressing-gown, with short -tumbled hair; the policeman, with a more specialized experience, took in -the quality of his manner with a rapid glance and stiffened to -uprightness. He knew the directness and aloofness that go to the making -of that ripe fruit of our civilization, an officer of the army. - -"Have n't you searched him for weapons?" demanded Ford. - -"No," said the policeman, and added "sir," as an afterthought. - -Ford stepped over to the Kafir and passed his hands down his sides and -across his breast, feeling for any concealed dangers about his person. - -"Nothing," he said. "You can handcuff him if you want to, but there 's -no need to keep him with his hands up. It's torture--you hear?" - -"Yes, sir," responded the policeman again. "Put them down," he bade his -prisoner. - -Kamis, with a sigh, lowered his hands, wincing at the stiffness of his -cramped arms. - -"Thank you," he said to Ford, in a low voice. "I 've had them up--it -must be half an hour." - -"Well, you 're all right now," responded Ford, with a nod. - -He tried the study door but it was locked and there was no response to -his knocks and his rattling of the handle. - -"Jakes," he called, several times. "I say, you 're wanted. Jakes, -d'you hear me?" - -Kamis and the trooper watched him in silence, the latter with his bold, -unhappy features set into something like a sneer. They saw him test the -strength of the lock with a knee; it gave no sign of weakness and he -stood considering on the mat. An idea came to him and he went briskly, -with his long stride, to the front door. - -"I say," called the Kafir as he went by. - -Ford paused. "Well?" - -"In case you can't rouse him," said the Kafir, "you might like to know -that I am a doctor--M.B., London." - -"Are you?" said Ford thoughtfully. "You're Kamis, are n't you?" - -"Yes," answered the Kafir. - -"I 'll let you know if there 's anything you can do,", said Ford. - -The contrast between the Kafir's pleasant, English voice and his negro -face was strange to him also. But stranger yet, he could not in the -presence of the contemptuous policeman speak the thing that was in his -mind and tell the Kafir that he was to blame for the whole business. -The voice, the address, the manner of the man were those of his own -class; it would have been like quarreling before servants. - -"Thank you," said the Kafir, as Ford went out to the stoep. - -The sill of the study window was only three feet above the ground, a -square of dull light filtering through curtains that let nothing be seen -from without of the interior of the room. Ford wasted no more time in -knocking and calling; he drew off a slipper and using it as a hammer, -smashed the glass of the window close to the catch. Half the pane went -crashing at the first blow, and the window was open. He threw a leg -over the sill and was in the room. - -A bracket lamp was burning on the wall and shooting up a steady spire of -smoke to the ceiling, where a thick black patch had assembled and was -shedding flakes of smut on all below it. The slovenliness of the -smoking lamp was suddenly an offense to him, and before he even looked -round he went across and turned the flame lower. It seemed a thing to -do before setting about the saving of Margaret's life. - -The room was oppressively hot with a sickening closeness in its -atmosphere and a war of smells pervading it. The desk had whisky -bottles, several of them, all partly filled, standing about its surface, -with a water jug, a syphon and some glasses. Papers and a book or two -had their place there also, and liquor had been spilt on them and a -tumbler was standing on the yellow cover of a copy of "Mr. Barnes of New -York." A collar and a tie lay on the floor in the middle of the room -and near them was a glass which had fallen and escaped breakage. Dr. -Jakes was in the padded patient's chair; it had its back to the window, -and at first Ford had imagined with surprise that the room was empty. -He looked round wonderingly, till his eyes lighted on the top of the -doctor's blond, childish head, showing round the chair. - -Dr. Jakes had an attitude of extreme relaxation. He had slipped forward -on the smooth leather seat till his head lay on one of the arms and his -face was upturned to the smirched ceiling. His feet were drawn in and -his knees protruded; his hands hung emptily beside him. The soot of the -lamp had snowed on him copiously, dotting his face with black spots till -he seemed to have broken out in some monstrous plague-rash. His lips -were parted under his fair mustache, and the eyes were closed tight as -if in determination not to see the ruin and dishonor of his life. He -offered the spectacle of a man securely entrenched against all possible -duties and needs, safe through the night against any attack on his peace -and repose. - -"Jakes," cried Ford urgently, in his ear, and shook him as vigorously as -he could. "Jakes, you hog. Wake up, will you." - -The doctor's head waggled loosely to the shaking and settled again to -its former place. It was infuriating to see it rock like that, as -though there were nothing stiffer than wool in the neck, and yet -preserve its deep tranquillity. Ford looked down and swore. There was -no help here. - -He unlocked the door and threw it open. In the hall the Kafir and the -policeman were as he had left them. - -"Come in here," he ordered briefly. - -The Kafir came, with the trooper and the revolver close at his back. -The latter's eye made notes of the room, the glasses, the doctor, all -the consistent details; and he smiled. - -"You 're a doctor," said Ford to the Kafir. "Can you do anything with -this?" - -"This" was Dr. Jakes. Kamis made an inspection of him and lifted one of -the tight eyelids. - -"I can make him conscious," he answered, "and sober in a desperate sort -of fashion. But he won't be fit for anything. You mustn't trust him." - -"Will he be able to doctor Miss Harding?" demanded Ford. - -"No," answered Kamis emphatically. "He won't." - -"Then," said Ford, "what the deuce are we to do?" - -The Kafir was still giving attention to Dr. Jakes, and was unbuttoning -the neck of his shirt. He looked up. - -"If you would let me see her," he suggested, "I 've no doubt I could do -what is necessary for her." - -Ford ran his fingers through his short stiff hair in perplexity. - -"I don't see what else there is to do," he said, frowning. - -The trooper had not yet spoken since he had entered the room. He and -his revolver had had no share in events. He had been a part of the -background, like the bottles and the soot, forgotten and discounted. -Not even his prisoner, whose life hung on the pressure of his -trigger-finger, had spent a glance on him. But at Ford's reply to the -suggestion of the Kafir he restored himself to a central place in the -drama. - -"There will be none of that," he remarked in his drawling nasal voice. - -Both turned towards him, the Kafir to meet the pistol-barrel pointing at -his chest. The trooper's mouth was twisted to a smile, and his -Punchinello face was mocking and servile at once. - -"None of what?" demanded Ford. - -"None of your taking this nigger into women's bedrooms. He 's my -prisoner." - -"I 'll take all responsibility," said Ford impatiently. - -The trooper's smile was open now. He had Ford summed up for such -another as Margaret, a person who held lax views in regard to Kafirs and -white women. Such a person was not to be feared in South Africa. - -"No," he said. "Can't allow that. It isn't done. This nigger 'll stay -with me." - -"Look here," said Ford angrily. "I tell you--" - -"You look here," retorted the other. "Look at this, will you?" He -balanced the big revolver in his fist. "That Kafir tries to get up those -stairs, and I 'll drill a hole in him you could put your fist in. -Understand?" - -He nodded at Ford with a sort of geniality more inflexibly hostile than -any scowls. - -Ford would have answered forcibly enough, but from the doorway came a -wail, and he looked up to see Mrs. Jakes standing there, with a hand on -each doorpost and her small face, which he knew as the shopwindow of the -less endearing virtues, convulsed with a passion of alarm and horror. -At her cry, they all started round towards her, with the single -exception of Dr. Jakes, who lay in his chair with his face in that -direction already, and was not stirred at all by her appearance on the -scene that had created itself around him. - -"O-o-oh," she cried. "Eustace--after all I 've done; after all these -years. Why didn't you lock the door, Eustace? And what will become of -us now? O-oh, Mr. Ford, I begged you to go to bed. And the Kafir to -see it, and all. The disgrace--o-o-h." - -The tears ran openly down her face; they made her seem suddenly younger -and more human than Ford had known her to be. - -"Oh, come in, Mrs. Jakes," he begged. "Come in; it 's--it 's all -right." - -"All right," repeated Mrs. Jakes. "But--everybody will know, soon, and -how can I hold up my head? I 've been so careful; I 've watched all the -time--and I 've prayed--" - -She bowed her face and wept aloud, with horrible sobs. - -Ford was at the end of his wits. While he pitied Mrs. Jakes, Margaret -might be dying in her room, under the bland and interested eyes of Fat -Mary. He turned swiftly to the Kafir. - -"Could you prescribe if I told you what she looked like?" he asked, in a -half-whisper. "Could you do anything in that way?" - -"Perhaps." The Kafir was quick to understand. Even in the urgency of -the time, Ford was thankful that he had to deal with a man who -understood readily and replied at once, a man like himself. - -"Let me pass, Mrs. Jakes," he said, and made for the stairs. - -As soon as he had gone, the trooper advanced to the desk and laid hands -on a bottle and a glass. He mixed himself a satisfactory tumbler and -turned to Mrs. Jakes. - -"The ladies, God bless 'em," he said piously, and drank. - -Kamis, looking on mutely, saw the little woman blink at her tears and -try to smile. - -"Don't mention it," she murmured. - -She came into the room and examined Dr. Jakes, bending over him to scan -his tranquil countenance. There was nothing in her aspect of wrath or -rancor; she was still submissive to the fate that stood at the levers of -her being and switched her arbitrarily from respectability to ruin. She -seemed merely to make sure of features in his condition which she -recognized without disgust or shame. - -"Would you please just help me?" she asked, looking up at the policeman, -very politely, with her hands on the doctor's shoulders. - -"Charmed," declared the policeman, with an equal courtesy, and aided her -to raise the drunken and unconscious man to a more seemly position in -his chair. It was seemlier because his head hung forward, and he looked -more as if he were dead and less as if he were drunk. - -"Thank you," she said, when it was done. "It is--it is quite a fine -night, is it not? The stars are beautiful. There is whisky on the -desk--very good whisky, I believe. Won't you help yourself?" - -"You 're very good," said the trooper, cordially, and helped himself. - -Ford came shortly. He ignored Mrs. Jakes and the trooper entirely and -spoke to the Kafir only. His manner made a privacy from which the -others were excluded. - -"I say," he said, with a manner of trouble. "She 's still in a faint. -Very white, not breathing much, and rather cold. She looks bad." - -The Kafir nodded. "You could n't take her temperature, of course," he -said. "There hadn't been any fresh hemorrhage?" - -"No," replied Ford. "I asked Fat Mary. She was there, and she said -there 'd been no blood. I say--is it very dangerous?" - -He was a layman; flesh and blood--blood particularly--were beyond his -science and within the reach only of his pity and his fear. He had -stood by Margaret's bed and looked down on her; he had bent his ear to -her lips to make sure that she breathed and that her white immobility -was not death. His hand had felt her forehead and been chilled by the -cold of it; and he had tried inexpertly to find her pulse and failed. -Fat Mary, holding a candle, had illuminated his researches, grinning the -while, and had answered his questions humorously, till she realized that -she was in some danger of being assaulted; and then she had lied. - -He made his appeal to the Kafir as to a man of his own kind. - -"I 'm afraid it 's not much use," he said--"what I can tell you, I mean. -But do you think there 's much danger?" - -Kamis shook his head. "There should n't be," he answered. "I wish I -could see her. Cold, was she? Yes; temperature subnormal. I could -cup,--but you could n't. Do you think you could make a hypodermic -injection, if I showed you how?" - -"I could do any blessed thing," declared Ford, fervently. - -"Digitalin and adrenalin," mused Kamis. "He won't have those, though. -Do you know if he 's got any ergotin?" - -"He has," replied Ford. "He shoved some into me. Mrs. Jakes--ergotin? -where is it?" - -Mrs. Jakes was leaning on the back of the chair which contained the -doctor. She had recovered from the emotion which had convulsed and -unbalanced her at the discovery of the study's open door. She looked up -now languidly, in imitation of Margaret's manner when she was not -pleased with matters. - -"Really, you must ask the doctor," she said. "I couldn't think -of--ah--disposing of such things." - -Kamis had not waited to hear her out. Already he was overhauling the -drawers of the desk for the syringe. Ford aided him. - -"Is this it?" he asked, at the second drawer he opened. - -"Thank God," ejaculated Kamis. He could not help sending a glance of -triumph at Mrs. Jakes. - -"Now attend to me," he said to Ford. "First I 'll show you how to -inject it. Give me your arm; can you stand a prick?" - -"Go ahead," said Ford; "slowly, so that I can watch." - -"Take a pinch of skin like this," directed the Kafir, closing his -forefinger and thumb on a piece of Ford's forearm. "See? Then, with -the syringe in your hand, like this, push the needle in--like this. -See?" - -"I see." - -"Well, now do it to me. Here 's the place." - -The arm he bared was black brown, full and muscular. Ford took the -syringe and pinched the smooth warm skin. - -"In with it," urged the Kafir. "Don't be afraid, man. Now press the -plunger down with your forefinger. See? Go on, can't you? You mustn't -mess the business upstairs. Do it again." - -"That 's enough," said Ford. - -Drops of blood issued from the puncture as he withdrew the needle, and -he shivered involuntarily. It had been horrible to press the point home -into that smooth and rounded arm; his own had not bled. - -"Mind now," warned the Kafir. "You must run it well in. And now about -the drug." - -He was minute in his instructions and careful to avoid technical phrases -and terms of art. He took the syringe and cleaned and charged and gave -it to Ford. - -"Don't funk it," was his final injunction. "This is nothing. There may -be worse for you to do yet." - -"I won't funk it," promised Ford. "But--" he appealed to the Kafir with -a shrug of deprecation--"but isn't it a crazy business?" - -It was like a swiftly-changing dream to him. The hot and dirty room, -with the Kafir busy and thoughtful, the malevolent trooper and his -revolver, the sprawl of the doctor and his slumberous calm and Mrs. -Jakes groping through the minutes for a cue to salvation, were -unconvincing even when his eyes dwelt on them. They had not the savor -of reality. Six paces away was the hall, severe and grand, with its -open door making it a neighbor of the darkness and the stars. Then came -the vacant stairs and the long lifeless corridors running between the -closed doors of rooms, and the light leaking out from under the door of -Margaret's chamber. Through such a variety one moves in dreams, where -things have lost or changed their values and nothing is solid or -immediate, and death is not troublous nor life significant. - -Fat Mary was resting in Margaret's armchair when he pushed open the door -and came in, carrying the syringe carefully with its point in the air. -She rose hastily, fearful of a rebuke. - -"Miss Harding wake up yet?" Ford asked her. - -"No. Missis sleep all-a-time," replied Fat Mary. "She plenty quiet, -all-'e-same dead." - -"Shut up," ordered Ford, in a harsh whisper. "You're a fool." - -Fat Mary sniffed in cautious defiance and muttered in Kafir. Since her -duties had lain about Margaret's person, she had become unused to being -called a fool. She pouted unpleasantly and stood watching unhelpfully as -Ford went to the bedside. - -The blood had been washed away and there was nothing now to suggest -violence or brutality. The girl lay on her back in the utter vacancy of -unconsciousness; the face had been wiped clean of all expression and -left blank and void. Mrs. Jakes had known enough to remove the pillows, -which were in the chair Fat Mary had selected for her ease, and the head -lay back on the level sheet with the brown hair tumbled to each side of -it. Ford, looking down on her, was startled by a likeness to a recumbent -stone figure he had seen in some church, with the marble drapery falling -to either side of it as now the bedclothes fell over Margaret Harding. -It needed only the crossed arms and the kneeling angel to complete the -resemblance. The idea was hateful to him, and he made haste to get to -the work he had to do in order to break away from it. - -The sleeve of the nightgown had soft lace at the wrist and a band of -lace inserted higher up; softness and delicacy surrounded her and made -his task the harder. The forearm, when he had stripped the sleeve back, -was cool and silk-smooth to his touch, slender and shining. His fingers -almost circled its girth; it was strangely feminine and disturbing. A -blue vein was distinct in the curve of the elbow, and others branched at -the wrist where his finger could find no pulse. - -Fat Mary forgot her indignation in her curiosity, and came tiptoeing -across the floor, holding a candle to light him, and stood at his -shoulder to watch. Her big ridiculous face was gleeful as he took up -the syringe; she knew a joke when she saw one. - -Ford pinched the white skin with thumb and forefinger as he had been -bidden and touched it with the point of the needle. The point slipped -and was reluctant to enter; he had to take hold firmly and thrust it, -like a man sewing leather. The girl's hand twitched slightly and fell -open again and was passive. He felt sickish and feeble and had to knit -himself to run the needle in deep and depress the plunger that deposited -the drug in the arm. Over his shoulder Fat Mary watched avidly and -grinned. - -He drew the sleeve down again and laid the arm back in its place. He -passed a hand absently over his forehead and found it damp with strange -sweat, and he was conscious of being weary in every limb as though he -had concluded some extreme physical effort. He looked carefully at the -unconscious girl, seeking for signs and indices which he should report -to Kamis. The likeness of the marble figure did not recur to him; his -thoughts were laborious and slow. - -He woke Mr. Samson on his way downstairs, invading his room without -knocking and shaking him by the shoulder. Mr. Samson snorted and thrust -up a bewildered face to the light of the candle. His white mustache, -which in the daytime cocked debonair points to port and starboard, hung -down about his mouth and made him commonplace. - -"What the devil 's up?" he gasped, staring wildly. "Oh, it 's you, -Ford." - -"Get up," said Ford. "There 's the deuce to pay. That Kafir 's -arrested--Kamis, you know; Miss Harding 's had a bad hemorrhage and -Jakes is dead drunk. I want you to go to Du Preez's and send a messenger -for another doctor. Hurry, will you?" - -"My sainted aunt," exclaimed Mr. Samson, in amazement. "You don't say. -I 'll be with you in a jiffy, Ford. Don't you wait." - -He threw a leg over the edge of the bed, revealing pyjamas strikingly -striped, and Ford left him to improvise a toilet unwatched. - -The trooper was talking to Mrs. Jakes in the study when Ford returned -there. He had relieved himself of his hat, and his big head, on which -the hair was scant, was naked to the lamp. He had found himself a chair -at the back of the desk, and reclined in it spaciously, with his -half-empty tumbler at his elbow. The Kafir still stood where Ford had -left him, his eyes roving gravely over the room and its contents. The -trooper looked up as Ford came in, lifting his saturnine and aggressive -features with a smile. He had drunk several glasses in a quick -succession and was already thawed and voluble. - -"Well," he said loudly. "How's interestin' patient? 'S well 's can be -expected--what? Didn't express wish to thank med'cal adviser in person, -I s'pose?" - -Ford bent a hard look on him. - -"I 'll attend to you in good time," he said, with meaning. "For the -present you can shut up." - -He turned at once to the Kafir and began to tell him what he had seen -and done, while the other steered him with brief questions. The trooper -gazed at them with a fixed eye. - -"Shup," he said, to Mrs. Jakes. "Says I can shup--for the present. -Supposin' I don't shup, though." - -He drank, with a manner of confirming by that action a portentous -resolution, and sat for some minutes grave and meditative, with his -bitter, thin mouth sucked in. He never laid down the big revolver which -he held. Its short, businesslike barrel rested on the blue cloth of his -knee, and the blued metal reflected the light dully from its surfaces. - -"Is it dangerous?" Ford was asking. "From what I can tell you, do you -think there 's any real danger? She looks--she looks deadly." - -"Yes, she would," replied the Kafir thoughtfully. "I think I 've got an -idea how things stand. As long as that unconsciousness lasts, there 'll -be no more hemorrhage, and there 's the ergotin too. If there 's -nothing else, I don't see that it should be serious--more serious, that -is, than hemorrhages always are." - -"You really think so?" asked Ford. "I wish you could see her for -yourself, and make certain. Perhaps presently that swine with the -revolver will be drunk enough to go to sleep or something, and we might -manage it." - -The Kafir shook his head. - -"If it were necessary, the revolver wouldn't stop me," he said. "But as -it is--" - -"What?" - -"Oh, do you think it would make things better for Miss Harding if you -took me into her bedroom? You see what has happened already, because -she has spoken to me from time to time. How would this sound, when it -was dished up for circulation in the dorps?" - -Ford frowned unhappily. He did not want to meet the mournful eyes in -the black face. - -"You think," he began hesitatingly--"you think it--er--it wouldn't do?" - -"You were here when the other story came out," retorted Kamis. "Can you -remember what you thought then?" - -"Oh, I was a fool of course," said Ford; "but, confound it, I did n't -think any harm." - -"Didn't you? But what did everybody think? Isn't it true that as a -result of all that was said and thought Miss Harding has to risk her -life by returning to England?" - -"No, it wouldn't do, I suppose," said Ford. "Between us we 've made it -a pretty tough business for her. We 're brutes." - -The thick negro lips parted in a smile that was not humorous. - -"At a little distance," said Kamis, "say, from the other side of the -color line, you certainly make a poor appearance." - -Mr. Samson made his entry with an air of coming to set things right or -know the reason. - -"Well, I 'll be hanged," he exclaimed in the doorway, making a sharp -inspection of the scene. - -He had got together quite a plausible equivalent for his daily -personality, and had not omitted to make his mustache recognizable with -pomade. A Newmarket coat concealed most of his deficiencies; his -monocle made the rest of them insignificant. - -Mrs. Jakes sighed and fidgeted. - -"Oh, Mr. Samson," she said. "What can I say to you?" - -"Say 'good-morning,'" suggested Mr. Samson, with his eye on Jakes. -"Better send for the 'boys' to carry him up to bed, to begin with--what? -Well, Ford, here I am, ready and waiting. This the fellow, eh?" - -His arrogant gaze rested on the Kafir intolerantly. - -"This is Kamis," said Ford. "Dr. Kamis, of London, by the way. He is -treating Miss Harding at present." - -"Eh?" Mr. Samson turned on him abruptly. "You 've taken him up there, -to her room?" - -"No," said Ford. "Not yet." - -"See you don't, then," said Mr. Samson strongly. "What you thinkin' -about, Ford? And look here, what 's your name!"--to the Kafir. "You -speak English, don't you? Well, I don't want to hurt your feelin's, you -know, but you 've got to understand quite plainly--" - -Kamis interrupted him suavely. - -"You need n't trouble," he said. "I quite agree with you. I was just -telling Mr. Ford the same thing." - -"Were you, by Jove," snorted Mr. Samson, entirely unappeased. "Pity you -didn't come to the same conclusion a month ago. You may be a doctor and -all that; I 've no means of disprovin' what you say; but in so far as -you compromised little Miss Harding, you 're a black cad. Just think -that over, will you? Now, Ford, what d'you want me to do?" - -There was power of a sort in Mr. Samson, the power of unalterable -conviction and complete sincerity. In his Newmarket coat and checked -cloth cap he thrust himself with fluency into the scene and made himself -its master. He gave an impression of din, of shouting and tumult; he -made himself into a clamorous crowd. Mrs. Jakes trembled under his -glance and the trooper blinked servilely. Ford, concerned chiefly to -have a messenger despatched without delay, bowed to the storm and gave -him his instructions without protest. - -"Mind, now," stipulated Mr. Samson, ere he departed on his errand; "no -takin' the nigger upstairs, Ford. There 's a decency in these affairs." - -The trooper nodded solemnly to the departing flap of the Newmarket -tails, making their exit with a Newmarket _aplomb_. - -"Noble ol' buck," he observed, approvingly. "Goo' style. Gift o' the -gab. Here 's luck to him." - -He gulped noisily in his glass, spilling the liquor on his tunic as he -drank. - -"Knows nigger when he sees 'im," he said. "Frien' o' yours?" - -"Mr. Samson," replied Mrs. Jakes seriously, "is a very old friend." - -"Goblessim," said the trooper. "Less 'ave anurr." - -Kamis and Ford regarded one another as Mr. Samson left them and both -were a little embarrassed. Plain speaking is always a brutality, since -it sets every man on his defense. - -"I 'm sorry there was a fuss," said Ford uncomfortably. "Old Samson 's -such a beggar to make rows." - -"He was right," said Kamis; "perfectly right. Only--I didn't need to be -told. I 've been cursing myself ever since I heard that the thing had -come out. It 's my fault altogether--and I knew it long before the row -happened, and I let it go on." - -Ford nodded with his eyes on the ground. - -"You could hardly--order her off," he said. - -"That wasn't it," answered Kamis. "Man, I was as lonely as a man on a -raft, and I jumped at the chance of her company now and again. I -sacrificed her, I tell you. Don't try to make excuses for me. I won't -have them. Go up and see how she is. What are we talking here for?" - -"God knows," said Ford drearily. "What else 'is there to do? We 've -both wronged her, haven't we?" - -There was no change in Margaret; she was as he had left her, pallid and -motionless, a temptation to death. - -Fat Mary was asleep in the armchair, gross and disgustful, and he woke -her with the heel of his slipper on her big splay foot. She squeaked -and came to life angrily and reported no movement from Margaret. He had -an impulse to hit her, she was so obviously prepared to say anything he -seemed to require and she was so little like a woman. It was impossible -in reason and sentiment to connect her with the still, fragile form on -the bed, and he had to exercise an actual and conscious restraint to -refrain from an openhanded smack on her bulging and fatuous countenance. -He could only call her wounding names, and he did so. She drooped her -lower lip at him piteously and again he yearned to punch her. - -There was no change to report to Kamis, who nodded at his account and -spoke a perfunctory, "All right. Thanks." The trooper sat in a daze, -scowling at his boots; Mrs. Jakes was lost in thought; the doctor had -not moved. Ford fidgeted to and fro between the desk and the door for a -while and finally went out to the stoep and walked to and fro along its -length, trying to realize and to feel what was happening. - -He knew that he was not appreciating the matter as a whole. He was like -a man dully afflicted, to whom momentary details are present and -apparent, while the sum of his trouble is uncomprehended. He could -dislike the apprehensive and timidly presumptuous face of the trooper, -pity Mrs. Jakes, distaste Mr. Samson's forceful loudness, smell the -foulness of the study and wonder at the Kafir; but the looming essential -fact that Margaret lay in a swoon on her bed, lacking the aid due to her -and in danger of death in a dozen forms--that had been vague and -diffused in his understanding. He had not known it passionately, -poignantly, in its full dreadfulness. - -He told himself the facts carefully, going over them with a patient -emphasis to point them at himself. - -"Margaret may die; it 's very likely she will, with only a fool like me -to see how she looks. I never called her Margaret till to-day--but it -'s yesterday now. And here 's this damned story about her, which every -one knows wrongly and adds lies to when he tells it. It would look -queer on the stage--Kamis doctoring her like this. But the point -is--she may die." - -The sky was full of stars, white and soft and misty, like tearful eyes, -and the Southern Cross, in which he had never been able to detect -anything like a cross, rode high. He could not hold his thoughts from -wandering to it and the absurdity of calling a mere blotch like that a -cross. Heaps of other stars that did make crosses--neat and obvious -ones. The sky was full of crosses, for that matter. Astronomers were -asses, all of them. But the point was, Margaret might die. - -"That you, Ford?" - -Mr. Samson was coming up the steps and with him were Christian du Preez -and his wife. - -"These good people are anxious to help," explained Mr. Samson. "Very -good of 'em--what? And young Paul 's gone off on a little stallion to -send Dr. Van Coller. Turned out at the word like a fire engine and was -off like winkin'. Never saw anything smarter. If the doctor 's half as -smart he 'll be here in four hours." - -"That's good," said Ford. - -"And Mrs. du Preez 'll stay with Miss Harding an' do what she can," said -Mr. Samson. - -"I 'll do any blessed thing," declared Mrs. du Preez with energy. - -Mr. Samson stood aside to let his companions enter the house before him. -He whispered with buoyant force to Ford. - -"A chaperon to the rescue," he said. "We 've got a chaperon, and the -rest follows. You see if it don't." - -There was a brief interview between Mrs. du Preez and the Kafir under -the eyes of the tall Boer. Mr. Samson had already informed them of the -situation in the study, and they were not taken by surprise, and the -Kafir fell in adroitly with the tone they took. Ford thought that Mrs. -du Preez displayed a curious timidity before the negro, a conspicuous -improvement on her usual perky cocksureness. - -"Just let me know if there is any change," Kamis said to her. "That is -all. If she recovers consciousness, for instance, come to me at once." - -"I will," answered Mrs. du Preez, with subdued fervor. - -There seemed nothing left for Ford to do. Mrs. du Preez departed to her -watch, and it was at least satisfactory to know that Fat Mary would now -have to deal with one who would beat her on the first occasion without -compunction. Mr. Samson and the Boer departed to the drawing-room in -search of a breathable air, and after an awkward while Ford followed -them thither. - -"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Samson, as he appeared. "Here you are. You 'd -better try and snooze, Ford. Been up all night, haven't you?" - -"Pretty nearly," admitted Ford. "I couldn't sleep, though." - -"You try," recommended Mr. Samson urgently. "Lie down on the couch and -have a shot. You 're done up; you 're not yourself. What d' you think, -Du Preez? He was nearly takin' that nigger up to Miss Harding's room. -What d' you think of that, eh?" - -He was sitting on the music stool, an urbane and adequate presence. - -The Boer shook his head. "That would be bad," he said seriously. "He -is a good nigger--_ya_! But better she should die." - -Ford laughed wearily as he sat down. "That was his idea," he said. - -He leaned back to listen to their talk. Sleep, he felt, was far from -him. Margaret might die--that had to be kept in mind. He heard them -discuss the Kafir stupidly, ridiculously. It was pothouse talk, the -chatter of companionable fools, frothing round and round their topic. -Their minds were rigid like a pair of stiffened corpses set facing one -another; they never reached an imaginative hand towards the wonder and -pity of the matter. And Margaret--the beautiful name that it -was--Margaret might die. - -Half an hour later, Mr. Samson slewed his monocle towards him. - -"Sleepin' after all," he remarked. "Poor devil--no vitality. Not like -you an' me, Du Preez--what?" - -Ford knew he had slept when the Boer woke him in the broad daylight. - -"The doctor is here," said Christian. "He says it is all right. He -says--she has been done right with. She will not die." - -"Thank God," said Ford. - -Mr. Samson was in the room. The daylight showed the incompleteness of -his toilet; he was a mere imitation of his true self. His triumphant -smile failed to redeem him. The bald truth was--he was not dressed. - -"Everything 's as right as rain," he declared, wagging his tousled white -head. "Sit where you are, my boy; there 's nothing for you to do. Dr. -Van Coller had an infernal thing he calls a motor-bicycle, and it -brought him the twenty-two miles in fifty minutes. Makes a noise like a -traction engine and stinks like the dickens. Got an engine of sorts, -you know, and goes like anything. But the point is, Miss Harding 's -going on like a house on fire. Your nigger-man and you did just the -right thing, it appears." - -"Where is he?" asked Ford. - -"The nigger-man?" - -Mr. Samson and the Boer exchanged glances. - -"Look here," said Mr. Samson; "Du Preez and I had an understanding about -it, but don't let it go any further. You see, after all that has -happened, we could n't let the chap go to gaol. No sense in that. So -the bobby being as drunk as David's sow, I had a word with him. I told -him I didn't retract anything, but we were all open to make mistakes, -and--to cut it short--he 'd better get away while he had the chance." - -"Yes," said Ford. "Did he?" - -"He didn't want to at first," replied Mr. Samson. "His idea was that he -had to clear himself of the charge on which he was arrested. Sedition, -you know. All rot, of course, but that was his idea. So I promised to -write to old Bill Winter--feller that owes me money--he 's governor of -the Cape, or something, and put it to him straight." - -"He will write to him and say it is lies," said the Boer. "He knows -him." - -"Know him," cried Mr. Samson. "Never paid me a bet he lost, confound -him. Regular old welcher, Bill is. Van Coller chipped in too--treated -him like an equal. And in the end he went. Van Coller says he 'd like -to have had his medical education. I say, what 's that?" - -A sudden noise had interrupted him, a sharp report from somewhere within -the house. The Boer nodded slowly, and made for the door. - -"That policeman has shot somebody," he said. - - -Dr. Jakes waked to the morning light with a taste in his mouth which was -none the more agreeable for being familiar. He opened his hot eyes to -the strange disarray of his study, the open door and the somnolent form -of the policeman, and sat up with a jerk, almost sober. He stared -around him uncomprehending. The lamp burned yet, and the room was -stiflingly hot; the curtains had not been put back and the air was heavy -and foul. He got shakily to his feet and went towards the hall. His -wife, with coffee cups on a tray, was coming down the stairs. She saw -him and put the tray down on the table against the wall and went to him. - -"Well, Eustace?" she said tonelessly. "What is it now?" - -He cleared his burning throat. "Who opened the door?" he asked -hoarsely. - -She shook her head. "I don't know," she answered. "It does n't -matter--we 're ruined at last. It 's come, Eustace." - -He made strange grimaces in an endeavor to clear his mind and grasp what -she was saying. She watched him unmoved, and went on to tell him, in -short bald sentences of the night's events. - -"Dr. Van Coller will be down presently," she concluded. "He 'll want to -see you, but you can lock your door if you like. He 's seen me -already." - -He had her meaning at last. He blinked at her owlishly, incapable of -expressing the half-thoughts that dodged in his drugged brain. - -"Poor old Hester," he said, at last, and turned heavily back to his -study. - -Mrs. Jakes smiled in pity and despair, and took up her tray again. She -thought she knew better than he how poor she was. - -He slammed the door behind him, but he did not trouble to lock it. -Something he had seen when he opened his eyes stuck in his mind, and he -went staggeringly round the untidy desk, with its bottles and papers, to -where the policeman sprawled in a chair with his Punchinello chin on his -breast. His loose hands retained yet the big revolver. - -"He 'll come to it too," was Dr. Jakes' thought as he looked down on -him. He drew the weapon with precaution from the man's hand. - -He stood an instant in thought, looking at its neat complication of -mechanism and then raised it slowly till the small round of the muzzle -returned his look. His face clenched in desperate resolution. But he -did not pull the trigger. At the critical moment, his eye caught the -lamp, burning brazenly on the wall. He went over and turned it out. - -"Now," he said, and raised the revolver again. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIX* - - -Upon that surprising morning when Mr. Samson, taking his early -constitutional, was a witness to the cloud that rode across the sun and -presently let go its burden of wet to fall upon the startled earth in -slashing, roaring sheets of rain, there stood luggage in the hall, -strapped, locked, and ready for transport. - -"Gad!" said Mr. Samson, breathless in the front door and backing from -the splashes of wet that leaped on the railing of the stoep and drove -inwards. "They 'll have a wet ride." - -He flicked at spots of water on the glossy surface of his gray coat and -watched the rain drive across and hide the Karoo like a steel-hued fog. -The noise of it, after months of sun and stillness, was distracting; it -threshed vehemently with uproar and power, in the extravagant fashion of -those latitudes. It was the signal that the weather had broken, -justifying at length Mrs. Jakes' conversational gambit. - -She came from the breakfast-room while he watched, with the wind from -the open door romping in her thin skirts, and stood beside him to look -out. They exchanged good mornings. - -"Is n't it wet?" said Mrs. Jakes resourcefully. "But I dare say it 's -good for the country." - -"Rather," agreed Mr. Samson. "It 'll be all green before you know it. -But damp for the travelers--what?" - -"They will have the hood on the cart," replied Mrs. Jakes. - -She was not noticeably changed since the doctor's death, three weeks -before. Her clothes had always been black, so that she was exempt from -the gruesome demands of custom to advertise her loss in her garments. -The long habit of shielding Jakes from open shame had become a part of -her; so that instead of abandoning her lost position, she was already in -the way of canonizing him. She made reverential references to his -professional skill, to his goodness, his learning, his sacrifices to -duty. She looked people steadily and defiantly in the eyes as she said -so, and had her own way with them. The foundations were laid of a -tradition which presented poor Jakes in a form he would never have -recognized. He was in his place behind the barbed wire out on the veld, -sharing the bed of little Eustace, heedless that there was building for -him a mausoleum of good report and loyal praise. - -"Hate to see luggage in a house," remarked Mr. Samson, as they passed -the pile in the hall on their way to the breakfast-room. "Nothing -upsets a house like luggage. Looks so bally unsettled, don't you know." - -"Things _are_ a little unsettled," agreed Mrs. Jakes civilly. "What -with the rain and everything, it doesn't seem like the same place, does -it?" - -She gave a tone of mild complaint to her voice, exactly as though a -disturbance in the order of her life were a thing to be avoided. It -would not have been consistent with the figure of the late Jakes, as she -was sedulous to present it, if she had admitted that the house and its -routine, its purpose, its atmosphere, its memories, the stones in its -walls and the tiles on its roof, were the objects of her living hate. -She was already in negotiations for the sale of it and what she called -"the connection," and had called Mr. Samson and Ford into consultation -over correspondence with a doctor at Port Elizabeth, who wrote with a -typewriter and was inquisitive about balance-sheets. Throughout the -consequent discussions she maintained an air of gentle and patient -regret, an attitude of resigned sentiment, the exact manner of a lady in -a story who sells the home of her ancestors to a company promoter. Even -her anxiety to sell Ford and Mr. Samson along with the house did not -cause her to deflect for an instant from the course of speech and action -she had selected. There were yet Penfolds in Putney and Clapham -Junction, and when the sale was completed she would see them again and -rejoin their congenial circle; but her joy at the prospect was private, -her final and transcendent secret. - -Nothing is more natural to man than to pose; by a posture, he can -correct the crookedness of his nature and be for himself, and sometimes -for others too, the thing he would be. It is the instinct towards -protective coloring showing itself through broadcloth and bombazine. - -Mr. Samson accepted his coffee and let his monocle fall into it, a sign -that he was discomposed to an unusual degree. He sat wiping it and -frowning. - -"Did I tell you," he said suddenly, "that--er--that Kafir 's going to -look in just before they start?" - -Mrs. Jakes looked up sharply. - -"You mean--that Kamis?" she demanded. "He 's coming _here_?" - -"Ye-es," said Mr. Samson. "Just for a minute or two. Er--Ford knows -about it." - -"To see Miss Harding, I suppose?" inquired Mrs. Jakes, with a sniff. - -"Yes," replied Mr. Samson again. "It isn't my idea of things, but then, -things have turned out so dashed queer, don't you know. He wrote to ask -if he might say good-by; very civil, reasonable kind of letter; Ford -brought it to me an' asked my opinion. Couldn't overlook the fact that -he had a hand in saving her life, you know. So on my advice, Ford wrote -to the feller saying that if he 'd understand there was going to be no -private interview, or anything of that kind, he could turn up at ten -o'clock an' take his chance." - -"But," said Mrs. Jakes hopefully, "supposing the police-- - -"Bless you, that 's all right," Mr. Samson assured her. "The police -don't want to see him again. Seems that old Bill Winter--you know I -wrote to him?--seems that old Bill went to work like the dashed old -beaver he is, and had Van Zyl's head on a charger for his breakfast. -The Kafir-man 's got a job of some sort, doctorin' niggers somewhere. -The police never mention him any more." - -"Well," said Mrs. Jakes, "I can't prevent you, of course, from bringing -Kafirs here, Mr. Samson, but I 've got my feelings. When I think of -poor Eustace, and that Kafir thrusting himself in--well, there!" - -Mr. Samson drank deep of his coffee, trying vaguely to suggest in his -manner of drinking profound sympathy with Mrs. Jakes and respect for -what she sometimes called the departed. Also, the cup hid her from him. - -It was strange how the presence of Margaret's luggage in the hall -pervaded the house with a sense of impermanence and suspense. It gave -even to the breakfast the flavor of the mouthful one snatches while -turning over the baffling pages of the timetable. Ford, when he came in, -was brusk and irresponsive, though he was not going anywhere, and -Margaret's breakfast went upstairs on a tray. Kafir servants were -giggling and whispering up and down stairs and were obviously interested -in the leather trunks. A house with packed luggage in it has no -character of a dwelling; it is only a stopping-place, a minister to -transitory needs. As well have a coffin in the place as luggage ready -for removal; between them, they comprise all that is removable in human -kind. - -"Well," said Mr. Samson to Ford, attempting conversation; "we 're goin' -to have the place to ourselves again. Eh?" - -"You seem pleased," replied Ford unamiably. - -"I 'm bearin' up," said Mr. Samson. "You seem grieved, though." - -"That," said Ford, with venom, "is because I 'm being bored." - -"The deuce you are." Mr. Samson was annoyed. "I don't want to talk to -you, you know. Sulk all you want to; doesn't affect me. But if you -could substitute a winnin' smile for the look you 're wearin' at -present, it would be more appetizin'." - -"Er--the rain seems to be drawing-off, I think," remarked Mrs. Jakes, -energetically. "It might be quite fine by-and-by. What do you think, -Mr. Samson?" - -Mr. Samson, ever obedient to her prompting, made an inspection of the -prospect through the window. But his sense of injury was strong. - -"There are things much more depressing than rain," he said, rancorously, -and occupied himself pointedly with his food. - -Ford made his apology as soon as they were free from Mrs. Jakes. She -had much to do in the unseen organization of the departure, and -apologized for leaving them to themselves. It was another adjunct of -the luggage; not within the memory of man had inmates of the Sanatorium -sat at table without Mrs. Jakes. - -"Sorry," said Ford then, in a matter-of-fact way. - -"Are you?" said Mr. Samson grudgingly. "All right." - -And that closed the incident. - -Soon after breakfast, when the stoep was still uninhabitable and the -drawing-room unthinkable and the hall uncongenial, Margaret came -downstairs, unfamiliar in clothes which the Sanatorium had not seen -before. Mrs. Jakes made mental notes of them, gazing with narrow eyes -and lips moving in a soundless inventory. She came down smiling but -uncertain. - -"I didn't know it could rain," was her greeting. "Did you see the -beginning of it? It was wonderful--like an eruption." - -"I saw it," said Mr. Samson. "I got wet in it. It 'll be cool for your -drive to the station, even if it 's a bit damp." - -"There 's still half an hour to wait before the cart comes," said -Margaret. "Where does one sit when it 's raining?" - -"One doesn't," said Mr. Samson. "One stands about in draughts and one -frets, one does." - -"Come into the drawing-room," said Ford briefly. - -Margaret looked at him with a smile for his seriousness and his manner -of one who desires to get to business, but she yielded, and Mr. Samson -ambled in their wake, never doubting that he was of their company. Ford, -holding the door open for Margaret, surprised him with a forbidding -scowl. - -"We don't want _you_," he whispered fiercely, and shut the affronted and -uncomprehending old gentleman out. - -The drawing-room was forlorn and very shabby in the cold light of the -rainy day and the tattoo of the rain-splashes on its window. Margaret -went to the hearth where Dr. Jakes had been wont to expiate his crimes, -and leaned her arm on the mantel, looking about the apartment. - -"It 's queer," she said; "I shall miss this." - -"Margaret," said Ford. - -She turned to him, still smiling. She answered nothing, but waited for -him to continue. - -"I wanted to tell you something," he went on steadily. "You know I love -you, don't you?" - -"Yes," she answered slowly. "You--you said so." - -"I said it because I do," he said. "Well, Dr. Van Coller was here -yesterday, and when he had done with you, I had a word with him. I -wanted to know if I could go Home too; so he came up to my room and made -an examination of me, a careful one." - -Margaret had ceased to smile. "Yes," she said. "Tell me: what did he -say?" - -"He said No," replied Ford. "I mustn't leave here. He was very clear -about it. I 've got to stay." - -The emphasis with which he spoke was merely to make her understand; he -invited no pity for himself and felt none. He was merely giving -information. - -"But," said Margaret,--"never? It isn't as bad as _that_, is it?" - -"He couldn't tell. He isn't really a lung man, you know. But it -doesn't make any real difference, now you 're going. Two years or ten -years or forever--you 'll be away among other people and I 'll be here -and the gap between us will be wider every day. We 've been friends and -I had hopes--nothing cures a chap of hoping, not even his lungs; but now -I 've got to cure myself of it, because it's no use. I would n't have -told you, Margaret--" - -"Yes, you would," interrupted Margaret. "You wouldn't have let me go -away without knowing, since you--you love me." - -"That's it, exactly." He nodded; he had been making a point and she had -seen it. "I felt you were entitled to know, but I can't say why. You -understand, though, don't you?" - -"Yes," she said. "I understand." - -"I knew you would," he answered. "And you won't think I 'm whining. I -'m not. I 'm so thankful that we 've been together and understood each -other and that I love you that I don't reckon myself a loser in the end. -It 's all been pure gain to me. As long as I live I shall be better off -for it; I shall live on it always and never let any of it go. If I -never see you again, I shall still be to the good. But perhaps I shall. -God knows." - -"Oh, you will," cried Margaret. "You 're sure to." - -He smiled suddenly. "That's what I tell myself. If I get all right, it -'ll be the easiest thing in the world. I 'll come and call on you, -wherever you happen to be, and send in my card. And if I 'm not going -to get well, I shall have to know it sooner or later, and then, if you -'d let me, I 'd come just the same. - -"I shouldn't expect anything," he added quickly. "Not a single thing. -Don't be afraid of that. Just send in my card, as I said, and see you -again and talk to you, and call you Margaret. I would n't cadge; you -could trust me not to do that, at least." - -"You must get well and then come," said the girl softly. "And if you -call me Margaret, I will call you--" - -She stopped. "I never heard your Christian name," she said. - -"Just John," he answered, smiling. "John--not Jack or anything. I will -come, you can be sure. Either free or a ticket-of-leave, I 'll come. -And now, say good-by. I mustn't keep you any longer; I 've hurt old -Samson's feelings as it is. Good-by, Margaret. You 'll get well in -Switzerland, but you won't forget the Karoo, will you? Good-by." - -"I won't forget anything," said Margaret, with eyes that were bright and -tender. "Good-by. When your card comes in, I shall be ever so glad. -Good-by." - -There was a fidgety interval before the big cart drove up to the house, -its wheels rending through the gritty mud and its horses steaming as -though they had been boiled. Mr. Samson employed each interlude in the -talk to glare at Ford in lofty offense; he seemed only to be waiting -till this dull business of departure was concluded to call him to -account. Mrs. du Preez, who had come across in the cart to bid Margaret -farewell, was welcome as a diversion. - -"Well, where 's the lucky one?" she cried. "Ah, Miss Harding, can't you -smell London from here? If you could bottle that smell, with a drop o' -fog, a drop o' dried fish and a drop o' Underground Railway to bring out -the flavor, you 'd make a fortune, sellin' it to us poor Afrikanders. -But you 'll be sniffin' it from the cask in three weeks from now. Lord, -I wish it was me." - -"You ought to make a trip," suggested Margaret. - -"Christian don't think so," declared Mrs. du Preez, with her shrill -laugh. "He knows I 'd stick where I touched like a fly in a jam-pot, -and he 'd have to come and pull me out of it himself." - -She took an occasion to drop a private whisper into Margaret's ear. - -"Kamis is outside, waitin' to see you go. He 's talkin' to Paul." - -The farewells accomplished themselves. That of Mrs. Jakes would have -been particularly effective but for the destructive intrusion of Mrs. du -Preez. - -"Er--a pleasant voyage, Miss Harding," she said, in a thin voice. "I -may be in London soon myself--at Putney. But I suppose we 're hardly -likely to meet before you go abroad again." - -"I wonder," said Margaret peaceably. - -It was then that Mrs. du Preez struck in. - -"Putney," she said, in a loud and callous voice, in itself sufficient to -scrape Mrs. Jakes raw. "South the water, eh? But you can easy run up -to London from there if Miss Harding sends for you, can't you?" - -Kamis came eagerly to the foot of the steps as Margaret came down, and -Mr. Samson, with a loud cough, posted himself at the head of them to -superintend. - -"I am glad you came," said Margaret. "I didn't want to go away without -seeing you." - -He glanced up at Mr. Samson and the others, a conscientious audience -ranged above him, deputies of the Colonial Mrs. Grundy, and smiled -comprehendingly. - -"Oh, I had to come," he said. "I had to bid you good-by." - -There was no change in his appearance since she had seen him last. His -tweed clothes were worn and shabby as ever, and still strange in -connection with his negro face. - -"And I wanted to thank you for what you did for me that night," said -Margaret earnestly. "It was a horrible thing, wasn't it? But I hear--I -have heard that it has come all right." - -Mr. Samson coughed again. Mrs. Jakes, with an elbow in each hand, -coughed also. - -"All right for me, certainly," the Kafir answered. "They have given me -something to do. There 's an epidemic of smallpox among the natives in -the Transkei, and I 'm to go there at once. It couldn't be better for -me. But you. How about you?" - -The Kafir boys who were carrying out the trunks and stacking them under -Paul's directions in the cart were eyeing them curiously, and the -audience above never wavered in its solemn watch. It was ridiculous and -exasperating. - -"Oh, I shall do very well," said Margaret, striving to be impervious to -the influence of those serious eyes. "You have my address, have n't you? -You must write me how you get on." - -"If you like," he agreed. - -"You must," she said. "I shall be keen to hear. I believed in you when -nobody else did, except Paul." - -A frightful cough from above did not silence her. She answered it with a -shrug. She meant to say all she had to say, though the ground were -covered with eaves-droppers. - -"I shan't forget our talks," she went on; "under the dam, with Paul's -models. You 'll get on now; you 'll do all you wanted to do; but I was -in at the beginning, wasn't I?" - -"You were, indeed," he answered; "at the darkest part of it, the best -thing that ever happened to me. And now you 've got to go. I 'm keeping -you too long." - -Mr. Samson coughed again as they shook hands and came down the steps to -assist Margaret into the cart. - -"Remember," said the girl; "you must write. And I shall always be glad -and proud I knew you. Good-by and good luck." - -"Good-by," said the Kafir. "I 'll write. The best of luck." - -Paul put his rug over her knees and reached for his whip. The tall -horses leaned and started, and the stoep and its occupants, and the -Kafir and Mr. Samson, slid back. A thin chorus of "good-bys" rose, and -Margaret leaned out to wave her hand. A watery sun shone on them feebly -between clouds and they looked like the culminating scene in some -lugubrious drama. - -When next she looked back, she saw the house against the gray sky, -solitary and little, with all the Karoo for its background. It looked -unsubstantial and vague, as though a mirage were left over from the -months of sun, to be the abode of troubles and perplexities that would -soon be dim and remote also. Paul pulled his horses to a standstill -that she might see better; but even at that moment fresh rain drummed on -the hood of the cart and came threshing about them, blotting the house -from view. - -"That 's the last of it, Paul," said Margaret. "No more looking back -now." - -Paul smiled slowly and presently found words. - -"When we come to the station," he said, "I will find a Kafir to hold the -horses and I will take you to the train. But I will not say much -good-by." - -"Why not?" inquired Margaret. - -"Because soon I am coming to London too," he answered happily, "and I -will see you there." - -Mr. Samson and Ford were the last to reënter the house. The Kafir had -gone off unnoticed, saying nothing; and Mrs. Jakes could not escape the -conversational attentions of Mrs. du Preez and was suffering in the -drawing-room. The two men stayed to watch the cart till the rain swept -in and hid it. Then Mr. Samson resumed his threatful glare at Ford. - -"Look here," he said formidably. "What d'you mean by your dashed cheek? -Eh?" - -"Sorry," said Ford calmly. - -Mr. Samson snorted. "_Are_ you?" he said. 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