saddling I'll
never speak to you again," she declared.

"Why should I not when you indignantly vow you would not come this
little way to meet me?" he rejoined, still with a faint smile playing
round the corners of his mouth.

"You know I would," she flashed forth impulsively. "Don't be horrid,
Colvin! I didn't, exactly come to meet you, but I did walk down here on
the--offchance that--that you might be coming. There. Why is it that
you always make me say everything right out--things I don't in the least
want to say? Nobody else could. Yet you do."

For answer Colvin Kershaw deliberately placed one arm around the
speaker, and, lifting her face with his other hand, kissed her on the
lips. He did not hurry over the process either, nor did she seem
anxious that he should. Yet these two were not lovers in the recognised
and affianced sense of the term.

"How pretty you look in that white _kapje_!" he said, as he released
her. "It suits you so well. If it hadn't been for the glint of the
white catching my eye I believe I should have passed you without seeing.
And of course you would have let me?"

"Of course I should. But we had better go back to the house now,
because if Frank or mother saw you ride down to the drift, they will be
wondering how it is you are so long in getting to the other side.
Come!"

They strolled up the stony river bank together, he leading his horse.
But a sort of constraint fell upon the girl as they drew near the house.
She had noticed her mother looking at her strangely of late when the
talk had turned upon the man now at her side. He, for his part, felt no
constraint at all. In point of fact, he never did.

No dogs heralded their approach with loud-mouthed clamour. No
self-respecting dog given to erratic movement, and poking his nose into
every corner where he should not, could live a day on a well-organised
ostrich farm by reason of the poisoned morsels--carefully planted out of
the way of the birds themselves--wherewith the run is strewn; for the
benefit of cats and jackals, and leopards. One ancient and wheezy cur,
however, incapable of any lengthier peregrination than a hundred yards,
greeted their approach with sepulchral barks, and behind it came the
owner, with his coat half on half off.

"Hallo, Colvin!" he sang out. "Why, you're quite a stranger these days.
Haven't been here for weeks. Plotting treason with your friends the
Dutchmen, I believe?"

"That's it, Fra