"I didn't say you were," she answered eagerly. "Bailey, I 'm not a fool; I 've got temperament too. You said yourself I had, only the other day. And--and I can't stop with him now."
Mr. Bailey looked at his fingers thoughtfully and felt his face again.
"Fact is," he said deliberately, "you 're off your balance. You 'll live to thank me for not taking advantage of it. You 'll say, 'Bailey had me and let me go, as a gentleman would. He remembered I was a mother. Bless him.' That 's what you 'll say when you 're an old woman with your grandchildren at your knee. And anyhow, what d'you think you 'd do in Capetown? You ain't far off forty, are you?"
She shook him by the arm she held to fix his attention.
"Bailey," she said. "That don't matter for a time. I 've got a bit of money, you know. I 'm not leaving that behind."
The wonderful thing in women such as Mrs. du Preez is that they see so clearly and yet act so blindly. They know they are sacrificed for men's gain and do not conceal their knowledge. They count upon baseness, cruelty and falsity as characteristics of men in general and play upon these qualities for their purposes. But furnish them with a reason for depending upon a man, and they will trust him, uphold him, obey him, lean upon him and compensate the flimsiest rascal for the world's contempt and hardness by yielding him a willing victim.
They looked at each other. Bailey still sitting on the floor, she on her knees, and each read in the other's eyes an appraisement and a stratagem. The coffee-pot that stood all day beside the fire to be ready for Boer visitors, sibilated mildly at their backs.
"It would n't last for ever, the bit you 've got," said Bailey. "There 's that to think of."
"Is it--is it as much as fifty pounds?" he asked.
"It 's more," she answered. "Never you mind how much it is, Bailey. It's a good bit and it 's mine, not his."
He thought upon it with his under-lip caught up between his teeth, almost visibly reviewing the possibilities of profit in the company of a woman who had money about her. Mrs. du Preez continued to urge him in hard whispers.
"I 'd never manage it by myself, Bailey, or I wouldn't be begging you like this. I 've tried to bring myself to it again and again, but I was n't game enough. And it isn't as if I was goin' to be a burden to you. It won't be long before I 'll get a job--you 'll see. A barmaid, p'r'aps, or I might even get in again with a show. I haven't lost my figure, anyhow. And as for staying here now, with him, after this--Bailey, I 'll take poison if you leave me."