nt he is capable of great
development."

He raised his eyes and looked out into the distance. "If only we could
ensure it for him everywhere! Native commissioners and their clerks
and the magistrates, all men of fine fibre, who honestly care about
the natives under them and the welfare of the country. So much could
be done if ... if ..." He smiled a little grimly. "We are so apt to
expect the impossible," he finished. "How should numbers of men of
fine fibre ever reach Rhodesia at all? In so many cases we must just
take what we can get."

"But the standard will improve as the country grows?"

"O yes; it is improving steadily. All the signs are hopeful, if we can
but light upon what is truly the best method of administering the
native laws, and get good men to carry the work out."

And still the heavenly sense of unrestrained mental kinship lingered.
Happy, yet fearful, Meryl ventured a word of appreciation.

"It must make you glad to feel you are doing such a useful work for a
young country. It seems as if ... as if ... it is just what a man
might ask to be doing."

He drew himself up with a slightly taut movement, and she divined he
did not wish for any personal praise; yet, because a tinge of red
showed under the bronze, she was glad she had seized the opportunity
to offer a tribute that might at some odd moment heal a passing sense
of uselessness and appreciation.

She stood up also, and they moved slowly round the ruins together,
while he explained to her much that he had read and gathered and
surmised in his leisure hours, not only about the temple itself, but
about all the ancient remains and the mysterious people who had dwelt
there long ago. Told as he told it, the listener could only find it
enthralling, for the man's heart was in his subject; and where another
might have rhapsodised or sentimentalised, he only stated certain
remarkable facts, and gave her the simple reasons for and against
certain deductions, that she might decide her own view for herself.

"But you?..." she questioned at last. "In spite of the scientific men
who have scoffed, and their followers who have thrown cold water upon
all enthusiastic belief in the antiquity of the ruins, you are quite
satisfied that they are really of a very great age, are you not?"

"Absolutely."

"Can you tell me why chiefly?" She smiled a little. "I believe it
absolutely myself, but I am afraid it is partly a sentimental belief.
Already I love them,