been particularly tiring. Though young and
energetic, and with an extraordinary sense of love and responsibility
toward these naughty, attractive children, she wondered, for a weary
moment, whether she could stand the racket. The work of governessing
was new to her. Any work was new to her, and governessing in Africa is
as different to governessing in England (which is bad enough) as
plowing cultivated land is to opening up virgin soil. But life had
unexpectedly laid the burden of work upon Christine Chaine, and having
put her hand to the plow, she did not mean to turn back. Only, for
once, she was glad when nightfall brought the hour when she could leave
her charges for a while in someone else's care.

Once the children were safely in bed, it was Meekie's task to sit
beside them until Christine had dined and rested, and chose to come to
bed. Meekie belonged to the kraal people, but she had white blood in
her, like so many natives, and spoke very good English.

That all the men on the farm should turn up to dinner that evening did
not seem to Christine so much a cause for surprise as for contempt. In
her short but not too happy experience of life, she had, like a certain
great American philosopher, discovered that the game of life is not
always "played square" when there is a woman in it. Of course, it was
comprehensible that all men liked a good dinner, especially when it was
not marred by hymns and long prayers, fervent to the point of
fanaticism. Equally, of course, the pretty hostess, with a charming
word of welcome for everyone, was an attraction in herself. But,
somehow, it sickened the clear heart of Christine Chaine to see this
jubilant gathering round a dinner table that was usually deserted, and
from which the host had just departed, a sick and broken man. She
thought the proceedings more worthy of a lot of heartless schoolboys
delighting in a master's absence than of decent, honest men.

And whatever she thought of the Hollanders and colonials, whose
traditions were unknown to her, it was certain that her scorn was
redoubled for the one man she knew to be of her own class and land.

Yet there he sat at the elbow of his hostess, calm and smiling, no whit
removed from his usual self-contained and arrogant self. Christine
gave him one long look that seemed to turn her violet eyes black; then
she looked no more his way. She could not have told why she hated this
action in him so bitterly. Perhap