th a quieter
mien; but, when occasion or social duty demanded, she seemed perhaps a
little readier than before to talk of indifferent topics, to laugh at
indifferent wit. Those who have ears to hear and eyes wherewith to see
learn to distrust the laugh that is too ready, the sympathy that flows
in too broad a stream. Happiness is self-absorbed.

Four months elapsed, and the excitement created in the small world of
Western Africa by the first dazzling success of the Simiacine Expedition
began to subside. The thing took its usual course. At first the experts
disbelieved, and then they prophesied that it could not last. Finally,
the active period of envy, hatred, and malice gave way to a sullen
tolerance not unmixed with an indefinite grudge towards Fortune who had
favoured the brave once more.

Maurice Gordon was in daily expectation of news from that far-off
favoured spot they vaguely called the Plateau. And Jocelyn did
not pretend to conceal from herself the hope that filled her whole
being--the hope that Jack Meredith might bring the news in person.

Instead, came Victor Durnovo.

He came upon her one evening when she was walking slowly home from a
mild tea-party at the house of a missionary. Hearing footsteps on the
sandy soil, she turned, and found herself face to face with Durnovo.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, and her voice thrilled with some emotion which he
did not understand. "Ah, it is you!"

"Yes," he said, holding her hand a little longer than was necessary. "It
is I."

His journey from Msala through the more civilised reaches of the lower
river, his voyage in the coasting boat, and his arrival at Loango,
had partaken of the nature of a triumphal progress. Victor Durnovo was
elated--like a girl in a new dress.

"I was coming along to see you," he said, and there was a subtle offence
in his tone.

She did not trouble to tell him that Maurice was away for ten days. She
felt that he knew that. There was a certain truculence in his walk which
annoyed her; but she was wonderingly conscious of the fact that she
was no longer afraid of him. This feeling had as yet taken no definite
shape. She did not know what she felt, but she knew that there was no
fear in her mind.

"Have you been successful?" she asked, with a certain negative kindness
of tone bred of this new self-confidence.

"I should think we had! Why, the lot that Oscard brought down was a
fortune in itself. But you saw Oscard, of course. Did he stay