Kitabı oku: «Flower o' the Peach», sayfa 17

"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."