many excuses for his
delay in returning to his expedition, lying supine and attendant at
Msala. It was by now an open secret on the coast that a great trading
expedition was about to ascend the Ogowe river, with, it was whispered,
a fortune awaiting it in the dim perspective of Central Africa.

Durnovo had already built up for himself a reputation. He was known
as one of the foremost ivory traders on the coast--a man capable
of standing against those enormous climatic risks before which his
competitors surely fell sooner or later. His knowledge of the interior
was unrivalled, his power over the natives a household word. Great
things were therefore expected, and Durnovo found himself looked up to
and respected in Loango with that friendly worship which is only to be
acquired by the possession or prospective possession of vast wealth.

It is possible even in Loango to have a fling, but the carouser must be
prepared to face, even in the midst of his revelry, the haunting thought
that the exercise of the strictest economy in any other part of the
world might be a preferable pastime.

During the three days following his arrival Victor Durnovo indulged,
according to his lights, in the doubtful pleasure mentioned. He
purchased at the best factory the best clothes obtainable; he lived like
a fighting cock in the one so-called hotel--a house chiefly affected and
supported by ship-captains. He spent freely of money that was not his,
and imagined himself to be leading the life of a gentleman. He rode
round on a hired horse to call on his friends, and on the afternoon
of the sixth day he alighted from this quadruped at the gate of the
Gordons' bungalow.

He knew that Maurice Gordon had left that morning on one of his frequent
visits to a neighbouring sub-factory. Nevertheless, he expressed
surprise when the servant gave him the information.

"Miss Gordon," he said, tapping his boot with a riding-whip: "is she
in?"

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later Jocelyn came into the drawing-room, where he was
waiting with a brazen face and a sinking heart. Somehow the very room
had power to bring him down towards his own level. When he set eyes on
Jocelyn, in her fair Saxon beauty, he regained aplomb.

She appeared to be rather glad to see him.

"I thought," she said, "that you had gone back to the expedition?"

And Victor Durnovo's boundless conceit substituted "feared" for
"thought."

"Not without coming to say good-bye," he ans