lashes down upon the world, in some remote
corner, a glorious colour scheme, just for his own delight."

Meryl raised herself on her elbow, with a little tender smile. "And I
suppose He said to Himself, 'I will let Diana and Meryl Pym see one of
my secret, treasured places'?"

"Yes, exactly. And though I don't hold with saying grace before meals,
because, since God made us, it seems the least He can do to enable us
to obtain food to keep us alive, I will say a grace this morning to
Him for letting me see His colour scheme on the Charter Flats at
sunset and sunrise."

A little later they had a fragrant breakfast of liver from a buck the
engineer had shot about daybreak; and that is a delicacy known only to
those who fare forth across the veldt, and have a bright wood fire
burning in readiness for the spoils of the hunt directly they are
brought in.

Then they started away again across the flats, once more moving in a
vague world of soft shadings, with only the long sandy road
stretching away into space behind them and before. And sometimes,
before the sun mounted too high, they found themselves moving across a
space of gold and bronze, where grass that had not been burnt shone
like amber in the morning glory; and again presently a space of
loveliest emerald-green, where the grass had been burnt early and the
new blades were already sending up joyous blades into the sunlight.
And sometimes a Kaffir-boom tree added a splash of brilliant scarlet,
painted upon a canvas of soft, hazy shadings; and sometimes the veldt
showed them a little piece of her flower-carpet--the carpet that was
to spread broadcast presently--of delicate-tinted lovely flowers in
reckless profusion upon a ground of rich terra-cotta soil.

Neither girl talked. It was not a scene to talk in. It did not call
for raptures and exclamations; only for dreaming and absorbing. It
seemed as if it might have been the spot where God rested upon the
seventh day, so utter and absolute and complete was the sense of
detachment from all the exigencies of being and doing.

Two verses of a poem by Arthur Symons repeated themselves in pleasant
rhythm in Meryl's mind:--

"I leave the lonely city street,
The awful silence of the crowd;
The rhythm of the roads I beat,
My blood leaps up, I shout aloud,
My heart keeps measure with my feet.

"A bird sings something in my ear,
The wind sings in my blood a song
'Tis good at times