“Oh, yes,” she answered easily, and as if the other matter had clean passed from her mind. “I’m thinking of going in for native studies. Would they catch on in Europe should you think, Mr Elvesdon?”
“They’d have the advantage of originality, at any rate,” he answered. A merry peal escaped Edala.
“What a good official reply,” she cried. “Never mind, Mr Elvesdon. I like it. If you had declared they could not do otherwise I don’t know what I should have thought of you, if only that never having seen a sample you couldn’t possibly know that they were any good at all.”
“Why, obviously,” rejoined Elvesdon, secretly pleased with himself for having refrained from giving utterance to a second banality. “I’m afraid I’m too old to launch out into paying compliments; and”—he added slyly—“too official.”
Thornhill chuckled. He, silently emitting puffs of smoke, was watching the battle of wits between the pair and keenly enjoying it. Moreover he rejoiced that Edala should have found a foeman worthy of her steel, one with whom she could sharpen wits. It would relieve the dulness of her life, render her more contented perhaps. Nor did the admiration which would now and then shine out prominently in the eyes of their visitor, when the latter was animated, and therefore off his guard, escape him. So he listened, and smoked complacently, as they branched off from one topic to another, sometimes indulging in a passage of arms, frequently agreeing enthusiastically. Yes, it was a pleasant way of getting through the morning of a “day of rest.”
Chapter Eight.
Her “Aerial Throne.”
“I know what we must do this afternoon, father,” said Edala, when dinner was nearly over. “We’ll take Mr Elvesdon to the top of Sipazi.”