ked forward to his visits, and greeted him with unfeigned pleasure
when he appeared. He talked so well, and never failed to interest and
amuse her. He had been about and had seen so much, and moreover there
was a subtle suggestion of strength about him that appealed to her
vividly. To most of her male acquaintance Edala assumed a sort of
unconscious attitude of stiffening up. The youthful side of it
represented to her so many puppies whose eyes had yet to open; the more
mature side so many prigs who bored or patronised her. This man did
neither. He neither talked up to her, nor down--she would have despised
him for the first and resented him for the second. He simply treated
her as a rational being with a full share of intelligence and ideas--and
no surer road could he have taken towards her approval.

Having said so much it is not surprising that Edala's feelings as
regarded her new relative's proposed visit should, by this time, have
undergone some degree of modification. This stranger--of whose very
outward appearance she was entirely ignorant--might conceivably prove
one too many, the more so that the stranger was what her father had just
described as "a member of the feminine persuasion." She was not in the
least in love with Elvesdon; she was far too evenly balanced to let
herself go like that at such short notice. But she felt a strong
proprietary interest in him as a friend worth having; wherefore in the
background lurked that cloud of half unconscious jealousy. Yet that
very jealousy itself ought to have warned her.

Thornhill, watching developments, was anything but displeased. As a
Civil servant Elvesdon was not likely to amass wealth, but he was a good
official and likely to get on. His personal opinion of the man we have
already set forth, and it he had seen no reason to modify. If the
present excellent understanding between him and Edala came to anything
more permanent, why so much the better.

A fortnight had gone by since Manamandhla's craving for beef had so
nearly brought that enterprising savage to an untimely end: and the Zulu
had been comfortably dwelling on the place ever since and showed not the
smallest symptom of moving. He made a show of helping here and there,
as an excuse for drawing his--plentiful--rations, nor was he ever out of
snuff, and he frequently enjoyed other luxuries. But for all this he
knew he was living on a volcano.

Thornhill was getting desperate. For hour