Vincent Le Sage was riding leisurely homeward to his farm in the Kunaga
River Valley.
His way lay down a stony bush road, winding along a ridge--whence great
kloofs fell away on either side, clothed in thick, well-nigh
impenetrable bush. Here and there a red krantz with aloe-fringed brow
rose up, bronze-gleaming in the morning sun, and away below, in front,
and on either hand, the broad river valley into which he was descending.
He was a middle-aged man, of medium height, but tough and wiry. He had
good features and his short beard was crisp and grizzled, but the
expression of his eyes was cold and business-like, as indeed it was
bound to be if there is anything in the science of physiognomy, for he
was a byword as being a hard nail at a deal, and everything he touched
prospered. In fact his acquaintance near and far were wont to say that
Le Sage had never made a bad bargain in his life. Perhaps they were
right, but Le Sage himself, now as a turn of the road brought some
objects in sight, was more than inclined to question that dictum.
The said objects were only some cattle, a most ordinary everyday sight,
and the cattle were not even his. Yet a frown came over his face. The
cattle were poor, and one or two, to his experienced eyes, showed signs
of disease.
"Wyvern's, of course!" he pronounced to himself wrathfully. "Every case
of redwater or _brand-ziekte_ in the whole country-side is sure to be
traceable to Wyvern's cattle or sheep. What the devil could have put
into such a fellow's head that he was any good in the world at fanning?
He'd better stick to his fusty books and become a damned professor.
That's about all he's good for. I doubt if he's even good for that I
doubt if he's even good for anything."
These wrathful reflections were due to the fact that he had just met
with a reminder--one of many--that he had at any rate made one bad
bargain, for Wyvern was engaged to his daughter; and now it was a
question only of months perhaps, when Wyvern should be sold up.
Then and there he made up his mind again that the engagement should be
broken off, and yet while so making it up--we said "again"--the same
misgiving that had haunted him on former occasions did so duly and once
more, that the said breaking off would be a matter of no little
difficulty even were it ever achieved at all. Wyvern might be a bad
fanner, a hopeless one in fact, but he would be a hard nut to crack in a
matter of this kind, and Lalante--well, here was a hard and fast
alliance for the offensive and defensive, which would require a breaking
power such as he could not but realise to himself he scarcely possessed.
On rode Vincent Sage, mile after mile, still frowning. The good bargain
he had made at yesterday's ale had well-nigh faded from his thoughts
now, and as he drew near to his home his private worries seemed to oust
his professional satisfaction over his own acuteness and the steady but
sure accumulation of the goods of this world. He had liked Wyvern well
enough during the earlier period of their acquaintance--in fact more
than well enough; but he had all the invariably successful man's
impatience of--even contempt for--the chronically unsuccessful; and in
this particular instance his oft repeated dictum to himself--and
sometimes to others--was "Wyvern will never do any good for himself or
for anybody else either."
Suddenly he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and emitted a whistle. He
was scanning the road, scanning it intently.
"Oh-ho! So that's how the cat jumps!" he exclaimed to himself, grimly.
He had reached the point where the track to Wyvern's farm joined the
wider road leading to his own. The frown became more of a set one than
ever.
"One horse spoor coming this way alone," he pronounced, "and I know what
horse made that spoor. Two horse spoors going back--and the same horse
made one of these spoors. That's the game, is it, directly my back is
turned? Well, it's a game that must be stopped, and, damn it--it shall
be."
In spite of which vehemence, however, that same little cold water
misgiving returned to render Vincent Le Sage's mind uncomfortable.
He rode on, slowly now, keeping his horse at a walk; he was near home
and there was no occasion for hurry. But as he went, he read that road
like the pages of a book. He would find Wyvern at his place? Not a bit
of it. For he had marked the returning spoors of the other horse.
Then again he reined in, suddenly and shortly, for the horse-hoofs had
ceased and with them mingled the print of boots--and the said boots
spelt one of each sex. From that point the spoor of one horse continued
alone. The other was a returning one. This, then, was where they had
parted.
Vincent Le Sage had every sign of the veldt at his fingers' ends, and
here, these imprints on a scantily used road, were as the very
elementary side of his craft to him. They had not been made to-day;
there were evidences of the effect of dew to show that. They had been
made yesterday, and tolerably late at night; that too, he took in, and
doing so felt more than ever justified in his resentment. What on earth
had Lalante come to that she should ride over, alone, to this man's
place directly his own back was turned, and--return with him late at
night? Now he had good ground for interference, and what his inner
consciousness told him was still better, a just grievance against
Wyvern.
"He'll be sold up," he said to himself in hot wrath, as he covered the
short distance which still lay between him and his homestead. "He'll be
sold up, and I'll buy the place--I will, by God, even if it's the only
rotten bargain I ever made in my life. I won't leave the chance to any
other fool, with some arrangement perhaps for keeping him on on the
halves. No--I'll buy it myself--although it won't be worth a tinker's
twopenny damn for years to come. Then he'll have to clear, and that's
what I want."
A Hottentot stable boy ran to take his horse as he dismounted at the
gate. Lalante came down the garden path to meet him. Her greeting of
him was unreservedly affectionate. Perhaps his own to her thawed more
than he was aware of.
"Come along in, father dear," she cried, hooking her arm within his, and
drawing him through the open door into the cool room beyond. "And tell
me how you got on. But first of all, you must have something after your
ride," unlocking a cupboard and producing a decanter of excellent Boer
brandy. "Now, did you pick up anything worth having?"
"Not bad in a small way. Couple of dozen slaughter-oxen of Piet Nel's--
he's in a bad way, you know, and obliged to sell I can turn them down
upon Hartslief at Gydisdorp, at an easy two pound a head profit, if not
more. There was nothing else quite worth taking on. Warren'll do the
delivery for me on very small commission."
He had thawed still more as he watched his daughter moving about,
ministering to his comfort. Any preconceived idea that Vincent Le Sage
was of the tyrannical order of parent may at once be jettisoned. He
was--as we have said--simply intolerant, to a fault, of the unsuccessful
man.
"Warren?" repeated Lalante, in some astonishment, as she placed the
porous terra-cotta water-bottle wits its fresh, cool contents upon the
table. "Was Mr Warren at the sale then?"
"No. I came back by his place."
There was a something in her father's tone, and the searching glance he
threw upon her face as he said this, that struck the girl as strange.
She had not expected him back by that particular way, but she failed to
connect the circumstance with her doings of the day before. The
mysteries of spoor, of course, were rather outside her scope.
"Oh, did you?" was all she said. "A little further round, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I had business with him--this and other. Where are the
kiddies, Lalante?"
"Oh, they're larking about down the kloof, catapulting birds, or
something."
"All the better. I want to have some serious talk with you."
"Serious? Don't scare me, old chap, will you?" she answered, going to
him, and taking his face between her long cool fingers. "Because I'm
easily scared, and `serious' sounds so unconscionably alarming."
Le Sage felt more than ever disarmed. He was glowing angry with
himself, and in proportion felt the less inclined to be so with her.
His heart swelled with pride and love, as he met the half-laughing,
half-wistful eyes of this beautiful, splendid girl of his. How the
devil could he get out what he wanted to say, he asked himself savagely?
But the thought of Wyvern came to his aid. With him, at any rate, he
felt desperately angry.
"What time did you get back last night?" he said, shortly.
It was Lalante's turn to feel disconcerted.
"Last night? Get back?" she repeated, changing colour ever so slightly.
"Yes. That's what I said," he answered, still more shortly, and
inwardly lashing himself up. "What time?"
"Well, it wasn't so very late," replied the girl, serenely. She had had
time to pick herself up, though it cost her an effort, while wondering
who had given her away; though indeed who could have done so, seeing
that she herself had met her father at the gate before he had spoken to
anybody? "But there was a fine bright moon--almost at the full."
"Well, you have done a thing I entirely disapprove of. You had no
business to go over there all by yourself like that, at night."
"But I didn't go at night. I went in the morning."
"But you came back at night. At least if you didn't I'm a raw Britisher
at reading spoor. How's that?"
Spoor? Oh, this was what had given her away then. This was a factor
Lalante had wholly omitted to take into account, and even if she had not
she had never reckoned on her father returning by that particular road
at all.
"How's that?" she repeated sweetly. "Why of course that you're not a
raw Britisher at all."
"Surely you must see it isn't the thing for a girl to go and spend the
day with a man at his own place all alone," he fumed. "Can't you see
that?"
"It depends on the girl and the man," she answered demurely. "Not if
they are engaged?"
"Not even then. Coming back late at night too. I'm surprised at Wyvern
being a party to it; and shall let him have a bit of my mind next time I
see him."
"Oh, don't blame him," said Lalante, rather quickly. "I paid him a
surprise visit, and--and--well, under the circumstances I stopped on.
_I_ stopped on. He couldn't very well turn me out. Now could he?"
Le Sage snorted. He had no reply ready. The shrewd practical farmer,
the hard-headed man of business, was floundering more and more
hopelessly out of his depth here.
"Were you never young once, father?" said the girl in her softest tone,
bending over him and sliding an arm round his shoulders.
"Young? Young? Well, Wyvern's not particularly young at any rate, and
ought to have known better." Then, bitterly, "I wish to God we'd never
set eyes on him."
The arm was removed.
"You didn't always wish that. You thought a great deal of him once."
"That was before I found out he was no good," retorted Le Sage, who had
succeeded in lashing himself up again. "Pity, while you were about it,
if you must go in for--for leaving me--you didn't fix upon some solid
and sensible fellow like Warren, for instance, instead of a mere
dreamer. Warren's worth fifty of such wasters as that."
The "leaving me" had softened the girl, but the opprobrious term applied
to her _fiance_ had been as the one nail that driveth out another.
"Don't call him names," she said, coldly, not angrily, thanks to her
power of self-control. "He has been unfortunate, but he is the most
honourable man who ever lived. The word `waster' doesn't apply."
"Oh, I'm not saying anything against his honour," snapped her father.
"But the fact remains that he has never done any good for himself and
never will. He's no chicken, mind; he can't be so very many years
younger than myself. And when a man of his age gets to that age and
is--well, where Wyvern is, the chances are a thousand to one he never
picks himself up again. How's that?"
"How's that? It isn't."
"Isn't it. Well, then, Lalante, now we're well on the subject I want
you to understand that this affair between you and him had better be
broken off. In fact it must be broken off."
The girl was standing erect and her face had gone white. The large,
dark-lashed grey eyes had something of a snap in them.
"It's too late for that now," she answered. "It cannot and shall not be
broken off, no never. As long as he lives I will cling to him, and the
more unfortunate he is the more I will cling to him. He is--my life."
Le Sage's face had gone white too--at least as far as the weather-beaten
bronze was capable of doing--white with anger.
"So that's your answer?" he said.
"That's my answer."
For a moment they gazed at each other. Then, before a reply could come,
a sound without struck upon the ears of both. It was the creaking sound
made by the swing of a gate upon its hinges. Both faces turned to the
window. Coming up the path between the orange trees was Wyvern himself.
Whereby it is manifest that infinite potentialities lay within the space
of the next half-hour.