Part 8 (1/2)

Inwardly Le Sage was furious He rode on in front grih those two lory of the sunlit plains--together Together! Yes, and the word covered a haven of rest to both, for then it was that all the world-- with its worries and anxieties and apprehensions--was a thing outside

Yet froood deal to be said

He was not a demonstrativeain in his life; yet in his heart of hearts he had a very soft place for this beautiful only daughter of his, and the secret of his rancour lay in the fact that he resented her leaving him at all--or at any rate for some time to come It was unreasonable, he would candidly allow to hihtened his home and his life, and now she was prepared--even anxious--to cease doing both--to leave hier of whose very existence barely a year ago she had hardly been aware Had it been a ifts and substantial position upon who of the pill; but she had chosen to throw herself away upon a ”waster”--as his favourite and wrathful epithet put it--one on the verge of insolvency, and without the requisite faculties for righting himself--ah, that rendered the potion a very black and nauseous one to the universally successful h, and quip, and tender tone of the pair behind hiive Wyvern his _conge_, and that in unmistakable terms He had made up his mind to do this, froate, but Lalante had taken care they should never be alone together Well, he would do it--not to-day but to-, and if no opportunity occurred he would make one; point-blank if need be A ”waster” like that, who couldn't even keep hie You seeside, as they topped the last rise, wherefrom the homestead came into view about ayou off on that fool's errand after the long ride of it you had had”

”Oh, I'h as wire, thank the Lord Is that confounded vermin-preserve behind your place as full as ever, Wyvern? It's about time you killed some of it off, isn't it?”

The reference was to the network of rugged bushy kloofs of which mention has beenof various forms of wild life, antipathetic and detrimental to stock

”Well, I think it is, now youhunt next week You'll co Lalante too, and the youngsters”

”Don't know I' to be jolly busy next week,” was the answer, the speaker gri whether their relations even next day would still be such as to render any arrangement of the kind possible

And so they reached hoe that she had no ”accomplishments” She could not play three notes, she declared, neither did she sing, though the voice in which she trilled forth odd snatches naturally and while otherwise occupied, seeht have done so had she chosen Drawing and painting too, were equally out of her line She had had enough of that sort of thing at school she would explain, and was not going to be bothered with it any more On the other hand she had a reement of her father's house was perfect So also was that of her two small brothers, who, by the ere only her half brothers, Le Sage having twice e

Them she ruled with a rule that was absolute, and--they adored her Her orders admitted of no question, and still they adored her Was there one of their boyish interests and pursuits--fro details of the last blood-and-thunder scalping story they had been reading--into which she did not enter? Not one And when the question arose of sending them away to school, it was Lalante who declared in her breezy, decisive way that they were still too small, and what did it e in raphy? They would soon pick it all up afterwards For her part she never could see as the advantage of learning a lot of stuff about all those rascally old kings who chopped off everybody's head who had ever been useful to them That was about all that history consisted of so far as she reraphy--well, that of course was of soht in school it seemed to consist of ere the principal towns of all sorts of countries none of them were ever likely to see in their lives, and whether this particular place was noted for the manufacture of carpets, or that for the production of bone-dust As for the ”three R's” she herself had given the youngsters an ele there, which was about all she was capable of doing, she declared frankly, with her bright laugh--indeed, she wondered that she was even capable of doing that

Lalante's order of beauty was extremely hard to define, but it was there for all that Hers were no straight classical features; the contour of the face was rather towards roundness, and the cupid-bowin repose, and perfectly irresistible when flashi+ng into a frequent and brilliant s in its contradictoriness--the lower half, lance of the large grey eyes, and the clearly marked brows, spelt ”character” writ in capitals It seemed, too, as if Nature had been undecided whether to create her fair or dark, and had given up the probleht brown hair, which the waro beneath the clear skin al over in his ownhe sat watching her, deciding, not for the first time either, that if there was one situation more than another in which she seemed at her very best, it was here in her hoe was drowsy and inclined to nod However, he wasin the sheer conte to ah a few stitches of work, now throwing a bright s at length packed the youngsters off to bed, she was free for a long, delightful chat--Le Sage was snoring audibly by this ti--one of many--that he would remember to the end of his life, and no instinct or presentiht be the last of the kind he was destined to experience At last Le Sage snored so violently that he woke hi up, pronounced it time to turn in--which indisputably it was But the announceht a certain amount of relief to Lalante, for she had not been without anxiety on the ground of leaving the two alone together

”I have been si,” whispered Wyvern passionately, as he released her froht erew luminous, as she lifted her lips for a final kiss A word of love from him was sufficient to make her sione

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ”WORD IN PRIVATE”

”I want to have a ith you in private, Wyvern”

”In private?”

”Yes I was going to yesterday but left it till now Business ”

Thus Le Sage, as the two met over their early coffee Lalante had not yet appeared

”All right,” assented Wyvern, who had a pretty straight inkling of as co ”Where shall we hold our council of war?”

”Out in the open Nothing like the open veldt if you want to talk over anything iets overheard, and a word or two is often quite enough to give away the whole show”

”There I entirely agree Well--lead on”

Le Sage did so Hardly a as exchanged between the two as they walked for about half aa bush path, then over the veldt One was turning over in his mind how he should put the case to the other The other, anticipating their bearing, had already ue came to a halt They had reached the brink of a _krantz_, of no great height and railing away now in slabs, now in aloe-grown boulders, to the Kunaga River, the swirl and babble of whose turgid waters they could hear, as it coursed between its n banks--could hear but not see, for abeyond a radius of twenty yards