right."

Wyvern caught one swift look which rejoiced his heart. She had resolved
not to let the whole afternoon go by without him if she could be with
him. But there was more beneath her plan than he suspected. She did
not mean to afford her father any opportunity of quarrelling with him,
as he almost certainly would, in his then mood, if they were alone
together for any space of time just then. In most things Lalante
contrived to get her own way.

Now with a rush and a racket, two small boys came tumbling in, hot and
ruddy with their scramblings about the veldt. Each exhibited, in
triumph, a bunch of long feathers from the tail of the mouse-bird, or
rather of many mouse-birds; the spoil of their bow and spear--or rather,
catapults.

"Here you are, dad. You're set up in pipe-cleaners now for some time to
come. Hullo, Mr Wyvern. There'll be enough for you too."

They chucked the feathers down unceremoniously upon the table, and began
to draw up chairs. But Lalante interposed.

"No. No you don't, Charlie--Frank--away you go, and do the soap and
basin trick. I'm not going to have you sitting down to table straight
out of the veldt," she said decisively. "Come--scoot--do you hear?"

"Oh, all right. Man--Mr Wyvern, but there's a big troop of guinea-fowl
down by the second _draai_. I hope you brought your gun."

"Did I say `Scoot'?" repeated Lalante, the disciplinarian.

They lingered no further after that. They were good-looking boys, with
their sister's large grey eyes. In a trice they were back again,
keeping things lively with their chatter, and the girl encouraged them.
There was thunder in the air, she recognised, and her main anxiety was
to avert the impending storm. And afterwards, before she retired to put
on her riding-gear, she managed to impress upon the two youngsters that
they were to help entertain their guest for all they knew how until her
return, which duty--Wyvern being a prime favourite with them--was not an
onerous one; moreover with them Lalante's word was law.

Their ride forth was not exactly a success. Lalante, bright, beautiful,
sparkling, kept up a flow of laughing quips, but the more she did so,
the more gloomy--grumpy she called it--did her father become. Wyvern,
riding by her side, felt all aglow with the pride of possession as he
noted every fascinating little trick of speech, or manner, or pose, all
absolutely natural and unaffected, and all going to make up the ver