"

They all applauded this except Gay, who submitted that a picnic was not
a picnic unless conducted on alfresco lines, with all the cooking and
eating done out of doors by the picnickers themselves. Druro
understood that she objected to his ranch and was sorry he had spoken,
especially as some of the others looked at her with understanding eyes
also. However, she was outvoted, everyone crying that if she liked
hard work and out-door cooking, and spiders and ants running over the
table-cloth and mosquitoes biting her ankles, she could have them, but
they would have the ranch. To Druro's surprise and relief, she laughed
and gave in quite pleasantly. Being a man, he could not know that, at
that very moment, she was dismally deciding that, considering all that
had passed, she could not possibly go to Druro's ranch.

"I shall have to be taken ill at the last moment," she reflected, and
could have wept, for she loved picnics, and Druro's ranch had a secret
call for her heart. But she laughed instead, and helped, with a
cheerful air, to draw up the lists of those who were to supply cars,
chickens, cakes, crockery, and all the other incidentals that go to the
making of a successful picnic. The tea-party had by this time become
enlarged to the size of a reception, and with everybody talking and
arguing at once, no one (except Gay) noticed that, after a little quiet
conversation, Mrs. Hading and Druro withdrew and disappeared. It
transpired later that they had ordered an early lunch and started for
Selukine in the Argyle.

And that was only the beginning of it. In the week that followed, it
became more usual to see Mrs. Hading in Lundi Druro's car than out of
it.

Gay, staunch to her resolve, absented herself from the festivity at
Sombwelo. It was no great exaggeration to plead that she was ill, for
her spirit was sick if her body was not. But no one spared her the
details of a successful and delightful day. It seemed that Druro had
been a perfect host and Mrs. Hading a graceful and gracious guest.
And, from that time forward, never a day passed in which the two did
not spend some, at least, of its hours together. When Marice was not
by Druro's side in the big red car, sometimes learning to drive,
sometimes just tearing through the air, _en route_ to some mine or
other which she wanted to see, they might be found in the "Falcon"
lounge, playing bridge with another couple or just sitting alone,
talking of London