him
waiting for her with Bellew and Dick Nichols, the old poker-playing,
battle-scarred warrior of the smoke-room, whose acquaintance she was
delighted to make. He was a little bit shy at first at sitting down in
his worn though spotless white-duck slacks opposite the beautiful girl
in black and silver, with straps of amethysts across her satiny
shoulders. But she had that gift which is born rather than acquired of
setting people at their ease, and she wanted to get the liking of this
man who was Sarle's friend. So she beguiled him by the blue of her
eyes and the eager interest of her smile, and he opened up like a book
of strange stories and pictures under the hand of a child. Listening
to the talk, she was transported to that strange region of bush and
spaces that is far from being enchanted land and yet casts an
everlasting spell. She heard lions roar and the shuffling steps of
oxen plodding through dust; felt the brazen glare of the sun against
her eyes; saw the rain swishing down on grass that grew taller than a
man's head.

She remembered a verse of Percival Gibbon's about the veld:

There's a balm for crippled spirits
In the open view
Running from your very footsteps
Out into the blue,
Like a wagon track to heaven
Straight 'twixt God and you.

Both Sarle and Nichols knew that track, she was sure. They were oddly
alike, these two veld men, with their gentle ways, their brown muscular
hands, and their eyes full of distance. A very different type to the
sleek and handsome Bellew, who sat so composed under the many blighting
glances cast his way.

"They know about the guile of creatures, but he has made an art of
beguiling human beings," thought April, and all the vexation of the day
came surging over her, almost spoiling her dinner and the pleasure of
the evening. Almost--not quite! When you are "young and very sweet,
with the jasmine in your hair," and have only to raise your eyes to see
desire of you sitting unashamed in the eyes of the man you love,
nothing can quite spoil your gladness of living. All the same, she
stuck to the card-room the whole evening, and her resolution to give
Sarle no chance of saying anything he might regret. He must have
realized it after a time, when she had once or twice eluded his little
plots to get her on deck, but he gave no sign. He was a hunter, and
could bide his time with patience and serenity.

It was not in her plan that when they par