Thus Mrs Inglefield, consulting her watch. She was an acid looking person, who might once have been passable in aspect. Now the deepening of her habitual frown was far from prepossessing.
“It’s only on the stroke of seven,” said Inglefield, shortly. “Give him a little law, Annie. He’ll be here directly. Perhaps some nigger turned up at the last moment on particular business.”
The suggestion was like throwing paraffin upon flames.
“That makes it worse,” exploded the lady. “To keep me—to keep us—waiting to suit the convenience of a few filthy blacks—”
“Well, give the chap a show,” snapped Inglefield, not in the best of humours himself. The while, Crosse, the cattle inspector, sat profoundly pitying Inglefield, thinking, too, that the defaulter, when he did come, was not going to enjoy his dinner overmuch.
“Hope I’m not late,” said a voice in the doorway.
“Not a bit, Ames; at least, only two minutes, and that doesn’t count,” cried Inglefield, cordially, feeling very much “in opposition.”
“Roll up, man, and have an appetiser, Crosse, you’ll cut in?”
John Ames, ignoring the coldness of his hostess’ greeting, noticed that fully a quarter of an hour went by before they sat down to table. When they did sit down the interior of the hut looked snug enough. The bright lamp shed a cheerful glow upon the white napery and silver forks; and pictures and knick-knacks upon the walls and about the room—or rather, the hut, for such it was—rendered the place pleasant and homelike, suggestive of anything but the wilds of savage Matabeleland. Any remark, however, which he addressed to his hostess was met by a curt monosyllable, she turning immediately to converse with Crosse, affably voluble. It mattered nothing. He had only consented to come upon Inglefield’s urgent and repeated invitation, having experienced that sample of behaviour before.
“What sort of a time did you have down in Cape Town, Ames?” said Crosse presently, when he could conversationally break away.