That one was Lyn. Her straight instinct and true ear had warned her.
“She is an adventuress,” was the girl’s mental verdict. “An impostor, who is hiding something. Some day it will come out.” Now she said to herself, watching the two, “He doesn’t like her. No, he doesn’t.” And there was more satisfaction in this conclusion than even its framer was aware of.
Throughout the evening, too, Hilary found himself keenly observing new developments, or the possibility of such. At supper, they were mostly shooting all the day’s bag over again, and going back over the incidents of other and similar days. Percival, in his seat next Hermia, was dividing his attention between his host’s multifold reminiscence and his next-door neighbour, somewhat to the advantage of the latter. A new development came, however, and it was after they had all got up from the table, and some, at any rate, had gone out on to the stoep to see the moon rise. Then it was, in the sudden transition from light to darkness, Blachland felt his hand stealthily seized and something thrust into it—something which felt uncommonly like a tiny square of folded paper. Hermia’s wrap brushed him at the time, and Hermia’s voice, talking evenly to Percival on the other side, arrested his ear. There was a good deal more talk, and lighting of pipes, and presently it was voted too cold to remain outside. But, on re-entering, the party had undergone diminution by two. Mrs Earle was looking more discontented than ever.
“What’s the odds?” chuckled her jolly spouse, with a quizzical wink at his two male guests. “They’re a brace of Britishers. They only want to talk home shop. Fine woman that Mrs Fenham, isn’t she, Blachland?”
“Yes. How did you pick her up?” he replied, noticing that the discontented look had deepened on the face of his hostess, and bearing in mind Bayfield’s insinuations, thought that warm times might be in store for Hermia.
“Oh, the wife found her. I hadn’t anything to do with it. But she’s first-rate in her own line: gets the nippers on no end. Makes ’em learn, you know.”
Would surprises never end? thought Hilary Blachland. Here was an amazing one, at any rate, for he happened to know that Hermia’s mind, as far as the veriest rudiments of education were concerned, was pretty nearly a blank. How on earth, then, did she contrive to impart instruction to others? He did not believe she could, only that she had succeeded in humbugging these people most thoroughly.
Then they had manoeuvred Lyn to the piano, and got her to sing, but Hilary, leaning back in his chair, thought that somehow it did not seem the same as up there in her own home, when night after night he had sat revelling in the sweet, clear, true notes. And then the other two, entering from their moonlight stroll, had subsided into a corner together. The sight reminded him of Spence, who must needs make an open book of his callow, silly face. Percival was doing the same.
“Just as I thought,” he said to himself, an hour later, as under cover of all the interchange of good nights, he managed to slip away for a moment to investigate the contents of the mysterious paper. “‘Meet to-morrow and have an explanation, or I may regret it all my life.’ Um—ah! very likely I shall do that in any case. Still, I’m curious about the explanation part of it myself, so meet we will.”
“Come along, old chap,” said Percival, grabbing him by the arm. “You’ve got to doss down in my diggings, and we’ll have a good round jaw until we feel sleepy. Phew! it’s cold!” he added, as they got out on to the stoep—for Percival’s room was at the end of the stoep, and was quite shut off from the house. The moonlit veldt stretched away in dim beauty around, its stillness broken by the weird yelp of hunting jackals, or the soft whistle of the invisible plover overhead.