"...And I can really give you no other answer."
"Don't say that, Mona. We haven't known each other so very long,
certainly, but still..."
"It isn't that, Dr Lambert. I like you very much, and all that sort of
thing, but I can say no more than I have said."
The two were alone together under the shade of the trees behind the
house: Mona, still furtively engaged in the favourite pastime Lambert
had come upon her more actively pursuing--viz., lying in a hammock
admiring her own magnificent proportions. The doctor's infatuation,
fired to fever heat over the symmetrical and sensuous grace of this
splendid creature, had taken words, and we have just come in for the end
of his proposal and--rejection.
"Of course, some one else," he jerked out bitterly, after a few moments
of silence. "Lucky chap, anyhow; only, don't take too much on trust in
that quarter," with a sneer.
She half started up in her hammock, and her eyes flashed. The
compression of her lips, together with the hardening of the lower half
of her face, was not now attractive; to an impartial spectator, it would
have bordered on the repellent. But Lambert was not an impartial
spectator, being madly in love.
"That's right," she retorted. "Pray go on. Just like all you men,"
with bitter, stinging emphasis. "When you can't have everything as you
want it you swing round and become insulting."
"Oh, I had no intention that way," he returned quickly, half cowed by
the lash of her anger. "I made the remark simply and solely in your own
interest."
"My own interest is very well able to take care of itself." Then
relenting, for she felt mercifully disposed towards this fresh victim.
"Never mind. You are very much upset. I can see that. We will think
no more about it."
He made no reply, but sat looking straight in front of him. The molten
glare of afternoon was merging into the slanting rays of approaching
sunset. From the scorching stoniness of the hillside the screech of
crickets rang out in endless vibration--varied now and again by the
drowsy hum of winged insects, or the "coo" of a dove from the willows
overhanging the dam. A shimmer of heat lay over the wide veldt, and a
thundercloud was gathering black upon the craggy turrets cresting the
distant spurs of the Stormberg mountains.
"You are right. I am rather--er--well, not quite myself," said Lambert
jerkily. "I think I had better go."
Mona's face softened. She had refused him, it was true, but she was not
going to dismiss him altogether. That was not her way, being a young
woman who thoroughly believed in proving the fallaciousness of the
proverb about not being able to eat your cake and have it too.
"Don't go away angry," she said, throwing a deft plaintiveness into her
pleading. "We have been such good friends--why should we not continue
to be? You will come and see us as usual?"
The melting wistfulness of her eyes, even the lingering pressure of the
hand which she had extended--half dropped--to him out of the hammock,
had their effect on Lambert, who in a matter of this kind was as easy to
make a fool of as most men.
"Well, I think I'll go now," he said unsteadily. "Yes, I hope we'll
continue to be friends--for I must go on seeing you," he added with a
kind of desperation. "Good-bye."
"Not good-bye. Only `so long' as they say here," she answered kindly.
And with a hurried assent he tore himself away.
Mona, left to herself, felt regretful, but it was a regret dashed with a
kind of triumph; which exultation in turn gave way to a feeling
bordering on fierce resentment. Not against Lambert, though; for before
his horse's hoofs were out of hearing along the Doppersdorp road she had
almost forgotten her dejected and discomfited adorer. No, it was evoked
by his parting insinuation, which had so aroused her anger at the time,
and now moved her to an exultation which made all her pulses stir, and,
alone as she was, caused her to flush hotly.
Not long, however, was she destined to be left to her own thoughts, such
as they were, for presently Mrs Suffield invaded her solitude. At her
the latter shot a quick, curious glance.
"Well, Mona; and what have you done to him?"
"To him? To whom?"
"You know who well enough: the doctor, of course. He could hardly bid
me good-bye coherently, and went away with a face as if he were about to
hang himself."
"Well, he wouldn't be going _away_ to do that; because he could hardly
find a tree big enough for the purpose in the whole district except
here. He'd have to do it here or nowhere."
"What a heartless girl you are, Mona! Why did you play with the poor
fellow like that? Of coarse its all fun to you--"
"And death to him, you were going to say. But it isn't. He's glum
enough now--but wait a year or two and see. He'll brag about it then,
and go about hinting, or more than hinting, that there was a stunning
fine girl down Doppersdorp way--this, if he's changed his abode--who was
awfully smashed on him, and so on. Wait and see. I know them, and
they're all alike." And the speaker stretched herself languidly, and
yawned.
Grace Suffield hardly knew what to say, or whether to feel angry or
laugh. But she was spared the necessity of replying, for Mona went on--
"By the way, we never see anything of Mr Musgrave now. Its ages since
he's been here."
"I was nearly saying, `small wonder, after the way you treated him.'
But I won't, for there, at any rate, is a man whom even you can't make a
fool of. He's built of sterner stuff."
"Is he?" with a provoking smile. "But what on earth do you mean, Grace,
by `the way in which I treated him'?"
"Oh, you know very well what I mean. You did nothing but encourage him
at first; then you cold-shouldered him, and launched out in a fast and
furious flirtation with the new doctor, because he _was_ new, I
suppose."
"So was the other. But, Grace, I didn't cold-shoulder him. I liked the
man. If he was so weak as to become jealous of the doctor, I can't help
it."
"Weak!" flashed out Grace. "Weak! I don't think there's much weakness
about Mr Musgrave, and I'm certain he's not the sort of man to indulge
in anything so--so--feeble as jealousy."
"Then he won't do for me," rejoined Mona, with a light laugh. "I don't
care about a man who can't be jealous. I like them to be jealous.
Makes one more valuable, don't you see."
"All right, Mona, my child. I can only say what I've said more than
once before, and that is, Wait until your own time comes, as come it
assuredly will; then we shall see."
Furious with herself for doing so, Mona was conscious of colouring ever
so slightly at this prediction, often uttered, but coming now so close
upon her former meditations. She took refuge by the bold expedient of
running in right under the enemy's guns.
"Far be it from me to disparage your knight errant, Gracie," she
replied, with a mischievous laugh, and a slight emphasis on `your.' "So
he is made of sterner stuff, is he?"
The only answer was a sniff of contempt.
"Very well," she went on adopting this as an affirmative; "what will you
bet me I don't bring him to my feet in a fortnight, Gracie?"
"I won't bet on anything so ridiculous--so atrocious," was the tart
reply. "Roden Musgrave is too far out of the ordinary specimen of a man
to be twisted round even your finger, Mona."
It was the speaker's turn to colour now. She had spoken with such
unconscious warmth that Mona was gazing fixedly at her with the most
mischievous expression in the world.
"Oh!" was all she said. But the ejaculation spoke volumes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a curious coincidence, but a coincidence, that Lambert, about
halfway on his road to Doppersdorp, should encounter--or rather, so
absent and self-absorbed was his mood, run right into--a couple of
horsemen riding in the direction from which he had just come. Indeed,
it was the cheery hail of one of the latter that first made him aware of
their presence.
"Hi! Hallo, Lambert! You're riding in the wrong direction, man. Turn
round, turn round and come back with us. We are going to have a rhybok
shoot to-morrow."
But Charles Suffield's hospitable suggestion only made Lambert scowl,
and mutter something about having to be back. For the second of the two
horsemen was the objectionable Musgrave himself, who carried a gun. The
sight almost made him hesitate. He had no mind to leave the field open
to his rival, for so, in his soreness and jealousy, he considered the
other. His excuse, however, was not altogether a bogus one. Of late,
quite an alarming proportion of his time had been spent at
Quaggasfontein, and his patients were beginning to grumble, notably
those who had ridden or driven some three or four hours to find him, and
found him absent. His practice would suffer; for, apart from the
possibility of the importation of a rival medico, there was a large
proportion of people who would speedily find out their ability to do
without treatment, from the mere fact that they had to. So he stuck to
his intention as first expressed.
"Lambert looks a trifle off colour," said Suffield, with a comical
glance at his companion when they had resumed their way.
"Does he? I'm not sorry he didn't leap at your suggestion. I don't
particularly care for the fellow."
"He seems awfully gone on Mona, and I suppose she's playing the fool
with him, as usual. She's a most incurable flirt, that girl, and she
certainly does manage to bring them all to their knees. I tell her
she'll end her days an old maid."
The other smiled drily over Suffield's artless ramblings, for the two
men had become very intimate by this time. It occurred to him that Mona
had thought at one time to pass him through the same mill.
The warmth of welcome Roden met at the hands of his hostess was about
equal to the warmth with which she scolded him. What did he mean by
such behaviour? It was nearly a month since he had been near them.
Busy? A great deal to do? Nonsense! She knew better than that.
Doppersdorp Civil Servants were not the most hard-worked of their kind,
there was always that redeeming point in the Godforsakenness of the
place, and so on, and so on.
"That's right, Mrs Suffield; crowd it on thick! Nothing like making up
for lost time," he laughed.
"Well, but--you deserve it."
"Oh yes. I won't make that bad excuse which is worse than none, and
which you have been discounting before I made it. Besides, you owe me a
blowing-up. I'm afraid I dragooned you far harder, when you were handed
over to my tender mercies, crossing the river in the box."
"Well, you were rather ill-tempered," she admitted maliciously. "I
wonder how Mona would have stood it."
"Stood what? The crossing or the temper?" said Mona. "I've got a fine
old crusted stock of the latter myself."
"You have," assented Roden.
"That's rude."
"Your own doing," was the ready rejoinder. "You left me the choice of
two evils, though, Miss Ridsdale. Wouldn't it be ruder still to
contradict a lady?"
"Go on, you two hair-splitters!" laughed Grace. "Mr Musgrave, I've put
you in the same room you had last time. You know your way. Supper will
be ready directly."
"And you'd better turn on a fire in the sitting-room, Grace," said
Suffield. "The days are hot for July, in this high veldt, but the
nights are nipping. Besides, like a nigger, I'm keen on a fire to smoke
the evening pipe beside, when one can invent the shadow of an excuse for
lighting one. It's more snag, you know."
And so it was. Seated there at the chimney-corner smoking the
post-prandial pipe, while the burning logs crackled brightly, and
conversation flowed free and unrestrained, varied by a song or two from
Mona, as also from Suffield, who was no mean vocalist, and the prospect
of some sport on the morrow, it occurred to Roden that life as at
present constituted was a fairly enjoyable thing. That illustrious, if
out-of-the-world township, Doppersdorp, might not have been precisely
the locality he would have chosen as an abiding place; but even it
contained compensating elements.