it difficult to get his charge
away from Haakdoornfontein, thought the only spectator. The thought was
quickly followed by another. Was he so unaffectedly anxious to get away
from it himself? Well, why should he be? This bright, beautiful child
had brought such sunshine into their daily life, why should he not enjoy
his share of it simply because he was no longer young? Harley Greenoak
had a strong sense of the ridiculous. Now he saw himself, rough,
middle-aged, rapidly turning grey, and secretly he laughed; but it was a
laugh not altogether free from wistfulness.

"What an experience yours must have been!" she went on. "I suppose you
can't even count the number of people whose lives you have saved?"

"I never tried--er--and excuse me, Miss Brandon, but--you didn't bring
me up here to make me brag, did you?"

"To make _you_ brag?" she repeated. "That would be a feat--one that I
don't believe any one ever accomplished yet."

"I hope not. I'm only a plain man, Miss Brandon. I don't know that I
ever had much education, but I've always held a theory of my own that
every one is put into the world to be of some use, and I've always tried
to act up to it."

"Haven't you just, and succeeded too? I suppose all South Africa knows
that."

The soft-voiced flattery, the glance that accompanied it, were
calculated to stir the pulses of even so strong a man as Harley
Greenoak, and this he himself realised while striving to neutralise
their effect.

"When I was young," he went on, "people used to look on me as a sort of
ne'er-do-well, something not far short of a scamp, because I elected for
a wandering life instead of what they called `settling down to
something.' Perhaps they were right, perhaps not."

"They were idiots," broke forth Hazel, impulsively.

"I don't know," went on the other, with a smile at the interruption.
"Anyhow, I believe in a man taking to what he's most fitted for, and
I've lived to know that this is the life I'm the most fitted for. Some
might call it an idle life, but if I may say so without bragging, I
believe it has been of more service to other people than if I had
launched out in the `settling down' line of business."

"I should think so indeed," said the girl, her beautiful eyes aglow with
sympathy and admiration. Secretly she was delighted. She had made
Harley Greenoak talk--and not merely talk, but talk about himself--a
thing which, if popular report spoke truly, no one had eve