nge; even of getting Alston Lake to send a
telegram to Jernington saying that his presence was urgently demanded in
his native Suffolk. Had he a mother? Till now Charmian had never thought
of probing into Jernington's family affairs. When, driven by stress of
circumstances, she began to do so, she found that his mother had died
almost before he was born. Indeed, his relatives seemed to be as few in
number as they were robust in constitution.

She dismissed the idea of the telegram. She even said to herself that of
course she had never entertained it. But what was she to do?

She tried to be a little cold to Jernington, thinking it might be
possible to convey to him subtly the idea that perhaps his visit had
lasted long enough, that his hostess had other plans in which his
presence was not included.

But Jernington was conscious of no subtleties except those connected
with the employment of musical instruments. And Charmian found it almost
impossible to be glacial to such a simple and warm-hearted creature. His
very boots seemed to claim her cordiality with their unabashed elastic
sides. The way in which he pushed his cuffs out of sight appealed to the
goodness of her heart, although it displeased her aesthetic sense. She
had to recognize the fact that old Jernington was one of those tiresome
people you cannot be unkind to.

Nevertheless she must get him out of the house and out of Africa.

If he stuck to the plan of leaving them at the end of August there would
probably be no need of diplomacy, or of forcible ejection; but it had
become obvious to Charmian that the last thing old Jernington was
capable of doing was just that sticking to a plan.

"Do you mean to sail on the _Marechal Bugeaud_ or the _Ville d'Alger_?"
she asked him.

"I wonder," he replied artlessly. "In my idea Berlioz was not really the
founder of modern orchestration as some have asserted. Your husband and
I--"

She could not stop him. She began to feel almost as if she hated the
delicious orchestral family. Jernington had a special passion for the
oboe. Charmian found herself absurdly feeling against that rustic and
Arcadian charmer an enmity such as she had scarcely ever experienced
against a human being. One night she spoke unkindly, almost with a
warmth of malignity, about the oboe. Jernington sprang amorously to its
defense. She tried to quarrel with him, but was disarmed by his fidelity
to the object of his affections. She was too much a