t.

He stepped forward at once and reached his hand up to her, and she saw
that his keen eyes were of that intense clear blue seen in so many
strong, notable men, but that they looked at her in a cold, aloof
manner which made her feel rather small and childish. "Surely," she
thought, "he is not genuinely angry just because I did not tell him I
was there?" Aloud she said:

"Thank you," and placed her hand quite calmly in the strong, inviting
brown one upheld to her.

Then, taken with a fit of devilry out of growing exasperation, she
added, "I'm not the daughter, I'm the niece."

"Miss Pym, I presume," he said, coldly, and bowed to her.

"Miss Diana Pym," she replied, and slightly inclined her head.

"My name is Carew," he told her, with bluntness.

"And are you ... er ... a scientist, evolving a theory about the
ruins?"

"I am a policeman." He said it brusquely, almost rudely, and Diana was
taken with a sudden desperate inclination to laugh. All in a moment he
reminded her forcibly of the uniformed autocrat holding up one lordly
hand to stop the traffic. She moved towards the entrance, keeping her
face averted. "The same sort of policeman as Mr. Stanley, I suppose?"
she suggested, affably, but he seemed not to hear her, and a covert
glance at his face was not reassuring. But the mere fact only spurred
her on. If she was silent he might think he had overawed her.
Goodness! how appalling! She quickened her step, and tossed her small
head a little with a kind of challenging jerk.

"I rather like your ruin," she said. "It's quite a nice old heap of
stones."

IX

THE BEAR

Once more Carew vouchsafed no reply, but Diana knew perfectly well
that his lips tightened slightly, which signified that in some way she
had hit him.

So pretending to be perfectly unaware of his non-responsive attitude,
she ran airily on:

"Such a mad idea to travel hundreds of miles to see a few old remains
of a doubtful edifice, built by Bantus! or is the plural Bantams?...
I'm sure when you heard we were coming you wondered if you had better
prepare a dwelling for us with padded walls. Now, didn't you?..." and
she looked up archly into his face.

"I understood Mr. Pym had come to this neighbourhood about some gold
claims," in cold, even tones.

"Yes, so he has. But we haven't; at least Meryl hasn't. She came to
see Rhodesia. I don't quite know what I've come for," naively. "I was
just wondering about it sitting on that wa