She told him, told the story graphically and well, but so far as her own part in it was concerned rather diffidently.
Denham was interested with a vengeance, and in his own mind could not but draw contrasts. This girl, walking beside him in her neat, tasteful attire, why, they might have been walking on an English country road or in an English park! She would have fitted in equally well there. She might have been giving him an account of some dance or theatrical performance, yet just as naturally did she narrate the midnight poaching expedition and the shooting of the large animal by the light of the moon—by herself. The naturalness of her, too, struck him with astonishment: the utter self-possession, living, as she did, a secluded life.
“What are you thinking about?” she said, for he had relapsed into unconscious silence.
“About you,” he answered.
“About me? I expect I can guess what you were thinking.”
“Try.”
“Very well. You were thinking: Here’s a boisterous, sporting female, who rides and shoots like a man, and who fires pistol shots at natives when they offend her; and who probably smokes and swears and drinks, into the bargain.”
“Go on. Anything else?”
“No; that’s enough to go on with.”
“All right. I was thinking nothing of the kind. I was thinking of your pluck, for one thing, and your naturalness for another. I was also thinking that we were having an awfully jolly walk.”