“Who? The ‘nigger’?”
“Morning, Lamont. Come to have breakfast, of course?” for they had just sat down. “We were just talking about you.”
“I’ll change the subject to a more interesting one then,” was the answer. “How are you, Mrs Fullerton, and did you have a restful night, for I’m sure you deserved one?”
“Not very. I’m a shocking coward, but I’m afraid it’s constitutional,” answered poor Lucy. But he laughingly reassured her, and talked about the fineness of the day, and the extent of the view around Kezane, and soon got away from yesterday’s battle entirely.
Lamont’s morning greeting, as far as Clare was concerned, was a fine piece of acting, for they had arranged not to make public their understanding until safe back at Gandela. Yet the swift flash as glance met glance, and a subtle hand-pressure, were as eloquent as words to those most concerned.
Watching him, though not appearing to, Clare’s heart was aglow with illimitable pride and love. The emergency had brought out the man beyond even her estimate of him, and that had been not small. She had read him from the very first, had seen what was in him, and her instinct had been justified to the full. She was proud to remember how she had always believed in him, and that the more detraction reached her ears the more did it strengthen rather than sap that belief. And now—and now—he was hers and she was his.
Others dropped in—Peters, and Jim Steele, and Strange the doctor, and two or three more, and soon the talk became general. At a hint from Lamont the subject of the fight of yesterday was left out, and they got on to others, just as if nothing had occurred to disturb the peace in the midst of which, a short twenty-four hours back, they had imagined themselves to dwell. But it seemed to Lamont that Grunberger’s wife, a pleasant-looking Englishwoman who was taking care of their wants, was eyeing him with a mingling of covert amusement and interest. “Shall we stroll about outside, Miss Vidal?” he said, a little later, when they were out in the air again. “What do you think, Mrs Fullerton? A constitutional won’t hurt us.”
But Lucy protested that no consideration on earth would induce her to set foot outside the gates—as they knew she would. No, no. These horrible savages had a knack of springing up out of nowhere. Clare seemed to know how to take care of herself, but she, assuredly, did not. It was in vain for Lamont to impress upon her that the ground around the place was quite open, and that there were pickets posted at intervals where the not very thick bush began. She was obdurate—as he knew she would be.
The question of making some sort of patrol had been discussed, but it had been decided that it was not worth the risk. Their force was none too strong to defend the place if attacked by numbers, which was very likely to happen, for the Kezane was one of the largest and most important stores along the line of coaches, and was always well supplied with everything likely to tempt the cupidity of the savages. A patrol might venture too far and in the wrong direction, and get cut off; then what a serious weakening of their forces that would mean. So pickets were posted instead.
“Then you haven’t awoke to the conclusion you were rather hasty last night, Clare?”