There was a laugh at this. Denham was delighted. There was something about the girl at his side that was infinitely taking. She, for her part, talked on and talked well. How had she acquired the art, he marvelled, spending life in a place which her father had described as “precious wild.” But perhaps she had been home to England for educational purposes. But to a question to that effect Verna promptly replied in the negative. She had once been to Johannesburg, and that not for long; beyond that she had never been outside Zululand and Natal.
“I am utterly uneducated, you know,” she added frankly, but with the most taking smile.
“You don’t expect me to take that seriously, Miss Halse?” said Denham.
“Well, it’s true.”
He shook his head, of course unconvinced. In rough and out-of-the-way parts a girl might suffer from want of educational opportunities, but this one had not. Her speaking voice was refined and her grammar flawless. Perhaps she had a clever and refined mother, he thought. And then it occurred to him for the first time that he was in entire ignorance as to what Ben Halse’s household consisted of. He had made no inquiries on the subject, and now he was going to be a temporary member of it.
“You won’t believe what I say?” she went on mischievously.
“No.”
“All right, you’ll see. Just get me on to Shakespeare and Byron, or is it Bacon? and all that lot that you learned people like talking about, and then you’ll see where I don’t come in.”
Denham was more and more delighted. There was such a charming frankness about this daughter of the wilderness that was clean outside all his experience. There was no affectation about it either. At the same time he could see that this was no ordinary type of womanhood. She had character, and plenty of it. Here was an object of interest—of vivid interest—he had by no means bargained for.
“But I’m not a ‘learned’ person, Miss Halse,” he answered, with a laugh. “Anything but. I like collecting things. That’s all.”