afraid I don't love you in the way
you want. I hadn't thought about it."

"I have been too sudden." He drew himself up, and his eyes followed
hers out to the darkness. And a touch of latent nobility seemed to
come out in him; a quiet dignity like her own that appealed to her
strongly. "I won't take your answer to-night. I shall come to you
again when you come back. Perhaps then ... when you have thought
about it ..." He broke off abruptly. "May I write to you?... Will you
sometimes write to me?... Perhaps I could follow ..."

They heard steps and voices coming towards them from the drawing-room
where Diana had wearied of her operas, and in sudden haste he caught
her hand and raised it to his lips.

"I think I have to thank you for a good deal," he told her a trifle
huskily. "Men of all nations are better for being admitted to the
friendship of women like you. If there were anything I could do to
serve you?..." and he waited for her to speak.

"Serve South Africa," she breathed tensely. "I could ask no more of
any man."

His hand tightened upon hers.

"Serve her with me. Together we could do so much."

He saw her waver.

"Let me tell you when I come back. Yes ... together we might do so
much...."

"When you come back ..." he said, and pressed her hand in
understanding.

Then Diana stepped out of the brightness of the drawing-room.

"How can you two stay sleepily there, looking at the stars like two
cats, when I am trying to lure you indoors with the latest comic-opera
music! Meinheer van Hert, Mister Pym says, will you drink with
him?..."

VI

THE JOURNEY

As he had three ladies with him Mr. Pym decided to take a private
saloon-car, but no saloon in the world could prevent them being nearly
smothered with the dust through Bechuanaland and Matabeleland in
August, and while Aunt Emily rent the air with her complainings and
sufferings, Diana chose to pass disparaging remarks upon the
long-suffering British Empire, which she considered responsible for
her journey north. Meryl said nothing, but there was often a wistful
expression in her eyes as they sighted a lonely farmstead, or stood in
a little wayside station with perhaps one corrugated-iron building,
where some white-faced woman looked listlessly at the train. When she
tried to voice her sympathy with their loneliness, however, Diana
snapped her up a little impatiently.

"My dear Meryl, you will look at things always in the sentimental
li