wered. "It is not likely."

Just to demonstrate how fully he felt at ease, he took a chair without
waiting for an invitation, and sat tapping his boot with his whip,
looking her furtively up and down all the while with an appraising eye.

"And when do you go?" she asked, with a subtle change in her tone which
did not penetrate his mental epidermis.

"I suppose in a few days now; but I'll let you know all right, never
fear."

Victor Durnovo stretched out his legs and made himself quite at home;
but Jocelyn did not sit down. On the contrary, she remained standing,
persistently and significantly.

"Maurice gone away?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"And left you all alone," in a tone of light badinage, which fell rather
flat, on stony ground.

"I am accustomed to being left," she answered gravely.

"I don't quite like it, you know."

"YOU?"

She looked at him with a steady surprise which made him feel a trifle
uncomfortable.

"Well, you know," he was forced to explain, shuffling the while uneasily
in his chair and dropping his whip, "one naturally takes an interest in
one's friends' welfare. You and Maurice are the best friends I have in
Loango. I often speak to Maurice about it. It isn't as if there was an
English garrison, or anything like that. I don't trust these niggers a
bit."

"Perhaps you do not understand them?" suggested she gently.

She moved away from him as far as she could get. Every moment increased
her repugnance for his presence.

"I don't think Maurice would endorse that," he said, with a conceited
laugh.

She winced at the familiar mention of her brother's name, which was
probably intentional, and her old fear of this man came back with
renewed force.

"I don't think," he went on, "that Maurice's estimation of my humble
self is quite so low as yours."

She gave a nervous little laugh.

"Maurice has always spoken of you with gratitude," she said.

"To deaf ears, eh? Yes, he has reason to be grateful, though perhaps I
ought not to say it. I have put him into several very good things on the
coast, and it is in my power to get him into this new scheme. It is a
big thing; he would be a rich man in no time."

He rose from his seat and deliberately crossed the room to the sofa
where she had sat down, where he reclined, with one arm stretched
out along the back of it towards her. In his other hand he held his
riding-whip, with which he began to stroke the skirt of her dress, which
reached al