, even
obsessed them. The way he could make them do things just out of sheer
liking for him almost amounted to mesmerism. It must be added that,
though they were often unpractical, crazy, unwise, even dangerous
things he influenced others to do, they were never shameful or in any
way shady. There wasn't a shameful instinct or thought in the whole of
Lundi Druro's composition. Gay, however, divined in him that his power
of obsessing the minds of other men had become, or was on the way of
becoming, a temptation and obsession to himself. She was wise enough
to realize that hardly any man in the world can stand too much
popularity, also to see the rocks ahead for Druro in a country where
men drink and gamble far too much, and are fast in the clutches of
these vices before they realize them as bad habits. It was not for
nothing that she was Derek Liscannon's daughter and Derry Liscannon's
sister.

She had her worries and anxieties, poor Gay, though she carried them
with a stiff lip and never let the world guess how often her heart was
aching behind her smile. But, of late, the worst of them had come to
be in the fear that Lundi Druro was going the way so many good men go
in Rhodesia--full-tilt for the rocks of moral and physical ruin.

This was the reason for her attack on him. She had long meditated
something of the kind, though quite certain that he would take it
badly. But she had thought that his friendship with her family and
herself warranted (she knew that her love did) her doing a thing from
which her soul shrank but did not retreat--hurting another human soul
so as to help it to its own healing. And it had all ended in
disappointment and despair. Nothing to show for it but the picture of
him standing happy and gay, his eyes admiringly fixed on another woman!
Perhaps the beautiful stranger would solace him for the wound Gay's
hand had dealt? Who could she be? the girl wondered miserably.

But, by the next afternoon, everyone in Wankelo knew that Mrs. Hading,
beautiful, unattached, and travelling for her pleasure, was staying at
the "Falcon"; and Beryl Hallett, who was also staying there, had
already met her and prepared a complete synopsis of her character,
clothes, and manners (not to mention features, complexion, and hair)
for the benefit of her friend, Gay Liscannon.

"My dear, she has lovely, weary manners and lovely, weary eyes, with an
expression as if she doesn't take any interest in anything;