o we not every now and
again catch ourselves expecting somebody else to act far better under
given circumstances than we should ourselves?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

IN THE LONG KLOOF.

"How am I this morning? Oh yes, it's all very well. But you don't care
a straw how I am, or what becomes of me--now!"

Thus Violet Avory, in the softest, most plaintive tone, at the same time
lifting her eyelashes in just one quick, reproachful glance. The shaft
was effective. It brought down the bird at once. Renshaw stopped.

"I don't think it's quite kind of you to say that, Miss Avory," he
answered, a trifle nettled, for all that killing glance; for all that
beseeching, cooing tone. "You know you do not believe what you are
saying."

She had been leaning over the gate which led out of the flower garden in
front of the house. He was passing out to set off on his numerous
self-imposed duties, having for their object the keeping everything
straight during his friend's absence. The morning was young still--not
quite ten o'clock. He was hurrying by with a pleasant inquiry as to her
well-being, when arrested by her speech as above.

"Thank you," she answered, "I do happen to believe it, though. You
never come near me now--in fact, you avoid me like the plague. We have
not had one talk together since you came back. However, you don't
care--now, as I said before."

To an unprejudiced hearer conversant with the state of affairs, this was
pretty thick. For by that time it was manifest to all that the only
person who had any chance of a "talk together" with the speaker--as she
euphemistically put it--was Sellon; and long before it was to all thus
manifest the fact was painfully evident to Renshaw Fanning.

"If it is as you say, I don't think you can blame me," he answered. "I
thought my leaving you alone was exactly what you would wish. And that
idea you yourself seemed to bear out both by word and act."

"Do you think I have so many--friends, that I can bear to part with one,
Renshaw?"

Her tone was soft, pleading--suggestive of a tinge of despair. The
velvety eyes seemed on the point of brimming, as her glance
reproachfully met his, and a delicate flush came into her cheeks. She
was standing beneath a cactus, whose great prismatic blossoms in the
background hung like a shower of crimson stars, one of them just
touching her dark hair. To the unprejudiced witness again, conversant
with the facts, Violet Avory, stand