d. "Really, you are getting
perfectly unmanageable." And she accompanied her words with a warning
gesture towards the door of the inner room. The young man laughed
aloud.

"No fear," he said. "You're all alone again as usual."

"How do you know that?"

"Never mind how. I do know, and it wasn't you who told me. But"--
becoming suddenly reproachful--"why didn't you?"

"Oh, I didn't want to distract you from your work, for one thing. You
have been neglecting it far too much of late. Hilary says you'll never
make a prospector."

"Oh, damn Hilary! He doesn't know everything."

"Ssh--" with a hand over his mouth. "You mustn't use swear words. And
now, you dear ridiculous boy, what are you looking so absurdly happy
about?"

"Ah, that'll come in time. I'm not going to tell you all at once," he
retorted, suddenly becoming mysterious. "But, Hermia my darling, it's
like new life to see you again."

She smiled softly, her dark eyes into his blue ones. It was like new
life to her, this passionate and whole-hearted adoration. And he was so
handsome too; the sunbrowned face with its refined features, the tall,
well-knit figure, stirred the animal side of her, and she found herself
contrasting him with the absent one. Hilary was really getting old and
prosaic and satirical. He had no more sentiment left in him than a
cuttlefish--was the result of the mental contrast which she drew.
Whereas this one--it did occur to her that he, too, would one day lose
the buoyancy and fire of youth, or even that this might come to be
diverted on some object other than herself; but for the first, it was
far enough off in all conscience--for the second, she had too much pride
in her own powers to give it a thought.

"Ah, yes," she answered. "You think so now, but--you wouldn't always.
Remember, Justin, I am older than you--well, only a little. But at any
rate I have seen far more of the world--of life--than you can possibly
have done. But what's the use of talking? We shall have to part sooner
or later."

They had dropped down on the couch, and were seated side by side, he
holding both her hands.

"But why shall we have to part sooner or later?" he asked, and the lack
of lugubriousness with which he echoed her words struck her at the time.

"Well, Justin, just look at things in the face. Isn't love in a cottage
a synonym for the very height of absurdity? What about its Mashunaland
equivalent--love in a prospector's