And the cheery old settler, dropping the weighty Gladstone, wrung his young friend’s hand in a manner that left no sort of doubt as to the genuine pleasure wherewith he regarded the meeting.
“Why, what a man you’ve grown!” he went on, looking Gerard up and down with an approval that made the latter feel and look extremely foolish. “May!” he called out. “Where are you, May? Here’s young Ridgeley, come back looking twice the chap he was when he went, as I always said he would.”
As the girl came forward with extended hand, and a look of unaffected pleasure in her eyes, Gerard was not quite sure whether he was standing on his head or on his heels. He thought he had never seen a sweeter, lovelier vision in his life. And, indeed, from an impartial standpoint, and outside the enthusiasm of our young friend, May Kingsland certainly was a very sweet and winsome girl, and one calculated, as she stood there in all the brightness of her fresh young beauty, to damage a far less susceptible heart than that which she had so easily taken captive.
“We are so glad to see you again, Mr Ridgeley,” she said simply, though this time there was ever so faint a tinge of constraint, which had Gerard read and understood would have lifted him into the seventh heaven of delight. “You will have such a lot of adventures to tell us by-and-by. I am dying to hear if you ever met your friend the Zulu again—you remember I predicted you would. But now the second gong is about to strike, and I must run away and make myself presentable.” And with a bright little nod she left him.
“Hallo, John Dawes! You here, too?” sung out old Kingsland, as the former strolled leisurely up. “Why, when did you fellows get back?”
“The other day. We looked in at your place on the way, but there was nobody there. It was all shut up.”
“Ah yes, of course. My boy Tom is going to leave me, going to get married, and is looking out for a farm of his own. Dare say Arthur was away helping him. May and I have been down at Durban the last three weeks. Ah, thanks—but have we got time?” taking the tobacco-pouch which Dawes tendered, and hurriedly cramming his pipe for a brief before-dinner smoke.
We may be sure that a very cheery, happy group were those four persons, as they sat out beneath the verandah that evening after dinner, and the events of the trip were narrated and discussed. And one of them, at any rate, was silently, radiantly, thankfully happy. One, did we say? Two, perhaps— But there, softly! for are we not on the verge of betraying a secret—or anyhow what is likely to be a secret of the future.
We may be sure, further, that as far as our young friend was concerned, that blissful frame of mind extended over the next two days, for during that period he contrived to be very much in May Kingsland’s society, whether walking about the town or seated under the cool shady verandah of the hotel. To him, further, it was surprising how the time had slipped away, and how much of her company he had had all to himself during the process. Time, however, as we know, has a knack of taking to itself wings under the circumstances, and so as this period drew to a close Gerard’s spirits began to sink with a rapid motion towards zero. But there was a further surprise awaiting him. The evening before their departure Mr Kingsland said—
“By the way, Ridgeley, you haven’t asked after our former shipmate, Maitland.”