and sand, that's all we're in for;
and uncle in a prosaic, 'I told you so' mood."

"We may see lions when we are trekking."

Diana put her head on one side, like a small, bright-eyed bird. "We
can see those in the Zoo, beloved."

"Well, and you can see Norway on a cinematograph."

Diana turned away with a low laugh.

"Clean bowled. Good for you, O wise Hypatia! Well, we'll go to this
heathen land and be horribly uncomfortable for a time, and then we'll
come back and make things hum in London as they never hummed before.
Where is Jeanne, I wonder? If I've got to do my own hair for two solid
months I'll never touch a wisp of it until we go," and she rang the
bell peremptorily.

Later, for a few moments, Meryl again stood out on the balcony,
enjoying the June night, and as she looked at the stars she smiled
softly. She was going back to Africa, after all--her Africa, and
perhaps Life would give her something big to do yet.

And half unconsciously, though with a sense of pleasurable possession,
she stood with her eyes to the south.

And away in a distant land, on a high hill, strewn with ruins of an
ancient, mysterious race, a man stood with his eyes to the north.

A taciturn, difficult, unaccountable man, who baffled the people that
would fain be friendly with him, and chilled any who showed him
warmth, and yet was invariably liked and trusted by all who had the
perspicacity to see beyond the rigid exterior.

Even to-day, though he was mourning his sovereign, he had shown no
softening of grief to those who beheld him. Rather, if anything, he
had been more silent, more taciturn, more aloof than ever.

Yet the enfolding night and the quiet stars saw what none others saw.
They saw the ache in the steady eyes, the compression as of pain on
the resolute lips, the swift, unusual hunger, sternly suppressed, for
something that had once been in some old life and was now for ever
ended.

V

WILLIAM VAN HERT

They, that is, the Pyms, stayed in Johannesburg before they started on
their travels. Mr. Pym had built for himself a charming house in the
Sachsenwald neighbourhood, architectured, of course, by Mr. Herbert
Baker, and having a lovely view to far blue hills.

Few people who have never seen Johannesburg have the smallest
conception of the charm of its best suburbs, with their wonderful far
vistas to a dream country of blue mountains on the horizon. To most it
suggests little beyond dump-heaps of white