Thus the miserable day wore to its close. A steward, no doubt heavily subsidized, spent most of the afternoon carrying notes backwards and forwards between Diana and Bellew. April stayed in her cabin as much as possible, and for the rest was careful to be always near other people, so that Sarle would find no opportunity of giving expression to the things to be seen in his eyes. It was a precarious joy to read those sweet things, but she dared not let him utter them. For when the debacle came at Cape Town, he must have nothing to regret. The moment they were quit of the ship and its scandal she would be relieved of her promise to Diana and able to tell him the truth. If he had spoken no word of love to her before then he would be free as air to go his way without speaking one, while she just slipped away and disappeared, to be seen of him no more. But if he chose not to go his ways----? If when he heard all he still wished to stay? Ah! what a sweet, perilous thought was that! She dared not dwell on it, and yet if she banished it utterly from her mind all the thrill went out of life, and every throb of the engine bringing them nearer land seemed a beat of her heart soon to be silenced for ever.
Evening came at last--an evening of dinner parties and best frocks, with an early commencement of the bridge-drive afterwards. Sarle, several days before, had arranged to have a special small table for four with a special dinner, asking April to be his hostess and choose the other two guests. She, with an instinct that they would be left out in the cold by everyone else, had chosen Diana and Bellew. Now, at the last moment, Diana shirked the ordeal, and from behind her locked door announced in muffled tones that she had a headache and was going to bed. So April sent a message to Sarle, giving him the chance of filling the gap if he so wished. When she went down she found him waiting for her with Bellew and Dick Nichols, the old poker-playing, battle-scarred warrior of the smoke-room, whose acquaintance she was delighted to make. He was a little bit shy at first at sitting down in his worn though spotless white-duck slacks opposite the beautiful girl in black and silver, with straps of amethysts across her satiny shoulders. But she had that gift which is born rather than acquired of setting people at their ease, and she wanted to get the liking of this man who was Sarle's friend. So she beguiled him by the blue of her eyes and the eager interest of her smile, and he opened up like a book of strange stories and pictures under the hand of a child. Listening to the talk, she was transported to that strange region of bush and spaces that is far from being enchanted land and yet casts an everlasting spell. She heard lions roar and the shuffling steps of oxen plodding through dust; felt the brazen glare of the sun against her eyes; saw the rain swishing down on grass that grew taller than a man's head.