ttempt at a path
down there. Prior, you keep along the top, on the right--hundred yards
in front of us, or a little more."

Thornhill was pleased. He was glad to have Evelyn with him. There was
something about her that was both congenial and restful. And then she
was so tactful and considerate. As a matter of fact he had been
meditating whether to ask her to accompany him, but had decided not to.
Why should she be bored with an old fogey, while there were young ones
in the party? And she--well she must have read his thoughts, and of her
own initiative had offered to accompany him. This was the sort of thing
that Edala never did. Time had been, when as a child she had adored
him, when his every word was law, when she would give up anything and
everything to be with him. Now, all this was reversed. In these days
she never thought of consulting his wishes, let alone of forestalling
them; and the change had caused him many an hour of bitter reflection
and disappointment.

"We can start now," he pronounced. "Those two will have had time to get
into position."

They moved forward and downward, keeping near the bottom of the kloof,
while the three natives, spread out on each side, whooped and rapped
with their sticks. The way lay now through growth of some denseness,
now beneath overhanging trees, or a cliff in miniature, its brow lined
with a row of straight stemmed euphorbia. It was hot down here in the
kloof, in spite of the abundant shade.

But Evelyn Carden's thoughts were all upon the man riding in front of
her, and she had all but lost sight of the object of their being there
at all, sport to wit. This new relative of hers was clean outside all
her experience. She admired his strength, his decisive downrightness,
his easy refinement of speech and thought; and that in the teeth of the
fact that his earlier life had been rough and hard, and, not
infrequently perilous. Yet, throughout, those instincts of culture had
not only been retained but had developed, and she was forced to own to
herself that he was the most delightful companion she had ever met.

And Edala? She was fond of the girl--very--yet there were times when
she could not but feel secretly angry with her; she had too much _savoir
faire_, however, to let any trace of it appear. Edala did not
appreciate her father in the least: on the contrary she treated him with
coldness, even bordering upon repulsion. Of course, of any actuating
cause