Part 8 (2/2)
”Then he won't do for h ”I don't care about a man who can't be jealous I like them to be jealous
Makes one ht, 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 coe by the bold expedient of running in right under the eneht errant, Gracie,” she replied, with a ht emphasis on 'your' ”So he is made of sterner stuff, is he?”
The only ansas a sniff of conte this as an affir hiht, Gracie?”
”I won't bet on anything so ridiculous--so atrocious,” was the tart reply ”Roden Musgrave is too far out of the ordinary specier, Mona”
It was the speaker's turn to colour now She had spoken with such unconscious war 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 hisin 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, La direction, oing to have a rhybok shoot to-estion onlyto be back For the second of the two horseun 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 alarasfontein, 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 ie proportion of people ould 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 colance at his companion when they had resumed their way
”Does he? I'estion I don't particularly care for the fellow”
”He see the fool with hiirl, and she certainly doesthem all to their knees I tell her she'll end her days an old maid”
The other ss, for the two men had become very intiht at one tih the same mill
The warmth of welcome Roden met at the hands of his hostess was about equal to the warmth hich she scolded him What did he mean by such behaviour? It was nearly a reat 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 redee point in the Godforsakenness of the place, and so on, and so on
”That's right, Mrs Suffield; crowd it on thick! Nothing like hed
”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 ooned you far harder, when you were handed over tothe river in the box”
”Well, you were rather ill-tempered,” she admitted maliciously ”I wonder how Mona would have stood it”