'Warner's better than somebody we both know,' grumbled Hood.
'Having a car of his own hasn't made him any younger.'
'Never mind,' the explorer said, 'there's two of us out in Africa yet, and not likely to marry. There used to be three, usedn't there?'
'I do wish we had one to spare,' said Hood. 'It'd be rather a tragedy for the other one if one of us two deserted. But you'll try not, won't you, and I'll try too.'
While they stayed with their bachelor host, friends of his, married and single alike, were very kind to them. The rector, who had only come last year, asked them to make themselves at home in his garden. It had a blaze of civilization in its front borders, now, but at the back of the house it was rather wild and very shady. The rector's youngest sister, Perpetua, kept house for him, a girl whose English coloring took a pretty and subdued form; Hood and the explorer were much interested in her romance. The curate, Warner said, was her continual worshipper. He was a keen sort of curate that.
She had been kind to him till quite recently. Now she was uninterested, or seemed so.
The Good-bye of the reunion came round, but the explorer and Hood went not with the others. The married guests went off to their home comforts, but these two stayed on for at least a week more. They became fast friends with both Perpetua and the curate, but they found it best for social joy not to mix them.
Perpetua shared a sailing expedition with the strangers. Therein they explored much of the Evenlode, the hay-harvest breeze favoring them. Another day she went with them afoot to the Hinkseys. Certain moot points of poetic identification were hardly settled by that trip, so another followed. They came home by Cumner both days.
'She would do for Africa,' confided the explorer to Hood one night. The village band had been playing, and they had thought no scorn of it. The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and the full moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable that evening.
'She might do for Africa,' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn't let her go and spoil her complexion.'
'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile.