Dick, in his heart of hearts, thought this rather a bore, and began to wonder what excuse he could make. It interfered with his plans. The other, reading his thoughts, smiled to herself. She had reason to know what he did not, that there was not the smallest chance of her invite being declined.
“Where is Mr Greenoak now?” she went on, not giving him time to utter the excuse he was trying to invent.
“Nobody knows, beyond that he’s bound on some mysterious mission, its object being to prevent the harmful unnecessary Gaika from taking the warpath.”
“Then I hope he’ll succeed. We have far too many of them as next-door neighbours. Well, we’ll get back to Pagel’s and have tea, and then it’ll be time to inspan. You haven’t got much luggage to pack up, I suppose?”
Dick was amused at the way in which she was taking possession of him as a matter of course. Personally she was a tallish, fair-haired woman of about five and thirty, rather good-looking, and with a pleasing voice. It would be great fun to accept that invitation, if only that Harley Greenoak would come back to find his bird flown. The said Greenoak had come to the conclusion that his charge could not get into much mischief in a crowded township, and with an arm in a sling, wherefore he had left him for a few days with an easy mind.
Even as Dick had said, the hotel—whither all this time they had been wending—was crowded. The stoep and the bar department were full of men and tobacco smoke, and battles were being fought over again, and the war brought to a sudden and satisfactory termination—according to more than one orator, who might or might not have taken any part in it. In the stuffy little dining-room they managed to find a quiet corner.
“How do you do, Mr Selmes?”
A red-hot needle dropped down the back of Dick’s neck might have produced a precisely similar effect to that evolved by this simple and exceedingly conventional query. He started violently in his chair, knocked both knees hard against the table, causing every article of crockery thereon to dance and rattle, and other people using it to scowl or laugh, according to mood. Then, as he extricated himself, he wondered if he were drunk or dreaming, for he stood holding the hand of—and looking down into the exquisitely winning face of Hazel Brandon.
The said face was demureness itself, but the sparkle of repressed mirth in the witching eyes told its own tale. Then, conscious that the gaze of the room was on him—on them—Dick pulled himself together.
“You here?” he gasped, as he gave her his chair—in the incoherence of mind born of the circumstances, overlooking the fact that another vacant one next to it, and which he now took, had been turned down as a sign of “engaged.” “Er—do you know Mrs Waybridge?”