“Sea air? But can you get to the sea so soon?” said Mrs Bateman, surprised.
“Oh yes. In less than an hour.”
Both then began to enthuse about the sea, after the British method, which was the more inexplicable considering they had just had three weeks of it, and that viewed from its very worst standpoint—upon it, to wit. They must go there to-morrow. Was it easy to find the way? And so forth. What could John Ames do but volunteer to show it them?—which offer was duly accepted. Things were now upon a good understanding.
“Do they ride bikes much up-country—I think you said you were from up-country, did you not?” said Nidia, artlessly, with that quick lift of the eyelids.
“Oh yes, a good deal. But it’s more for the hard practical purpose of getting from one place to another than just riding about for fun. It strikes one though, if one has any imagination, as a sample of the way in which this aggressive civilisation of ours wedges itself in everywhere. You are right away in the veldt, perhaps only just scared away a clump of sable or roan antelope, or struck the fresh spoor of a brace of business-like lions, when you look up, and there are two fellows whirring by on up-to-date bikes. You give each other a passing shout and they are gone.”
“Yes. It is a contrast, if one has an imagination,” said Nidia. “But not everybody has. Don’t you think so?”
“Certainly. But when a man lives a good deal alone, and sees comparatively little of his kind, it is apt to stimulate that faculty.”
Nidia looked interested. The firm, quiet face before her, the straight glance of the grey eyes, represented a character entirely to her liking, she decided. “Is it long since you came out?” she asked.
“Well, in the sense you mean I can’t be said to have come out at all, for I was born and bred out here—in Natal, at least. But I have been in England.”
“Really? I thought you were perhaps one of the many who had come out during the last few years.”