t kind. She has often had arguments with father
over them."

So in the evening van Hert came in eager haste to have his talk with
Diana. And Diana had taken herself off to a dinner-party and was not
forthcoming. So the lovers sat on the verandah alone, and after a
little they began to feel at a loss for anything to say, and wished
devoutly that Diana would return.

As she was likely to be late, van Hert got up and spoke of departing.
He said he had a measure to study carefully, ready for the reopening
of Parliament at Cape Town. And while he was still explaining, Diana
returned. She had made an excuse and left the party early.

"It was so dull," she said. "I have no patience with people who let me
bite them, and do not try to bite back. I bit them all, more or less,
in the end, and left them bathing each other's sores, so to speak, and
exclaiming with bated breath at my cleverness. Fools and blockheads!
just because I've got a banking account that would buy half of them
up, and never miss it. As if I didn't know, when I'm in that mood, I'm
a cattish little spitfire!..."

"So you came home to worry us?..." and the pleasure in his face was
suddenly illuminating.

"Well, you have the pluck to hit back," and she looked at him with a
flash of her eyes that made his senses reel a little. She threw her
costly evening-cloak on to a chair, and pushed it a little aside with
her foot, with a graceful action that displayed a dainty slipper and
ankle, in no wise lost upon him. "I always hit back myself," she
continued. "I've no sympathy with the 'other cheek' theory. I hit
twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I
should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not
worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my
mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the
poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing.

The laughter was coming back to her own eyes too. When she entered
they had been clouded, and her lips pouting. If they only knew it,
she had been bored to tears at the party; bored utterly and
completely, longing to be back on the verandah fighting a wordy, keen,
good-tempered battle with van Hert; and she felt sure he would have
gone when she returned. She had noticed he never stayed late when she
was absent. But she was just in time. He had not g