Throughout dinner Edala had seemed quite outside of herself. She had descanted volubly on all her favourite topics; had bantered, and argued, and pretended to disagree for the sake of arguing again. Her father was not a little astonished. He had never seen her as animated as this for years—certainly not since she had been grown up. Elvesdon was amusing, and talked well, but Thornhill would never have suspected him of being able to draw Edala out of her shell as he had succeeded in doing.
Dinner was over at last, and an uncommonly good one it had been; so much so as to move Elvesdon to congratulate his host on the excellence of his cook.
“Oh, he’s a coolie,” answered Thornhill. “He’s a great rascal, and was kicked out of one of the hotels in Maritzburg for boozing. I take jolly good care he gets no chance of that here, but he must have been bad if they had to get rid of him, for he can cook.”
(Coolie: In Natal all natives of India, of whatever occupation or profession, are so called. It is an absurd misnomer of course; about as much so as to talk about a ‘Boer Judge’ or a ‘Boer engineer’—but it sticks, and always will.)
“By Jingo he can!” assented Elvesdon emphatically. “Those sasaatjes were simply divine.”
“Mr Elvesdon clearly appreciates good ‘skoff’,” said Edala. “Great minds skip together, for so do I.”
“I appreciate good everything, I believe,” he answered as they got up, “especially good singing. Won’t you give us a song, Miss Thornhill? I haven’t heard you yet.”
“Immediately after dinner? Why, I should positively croak. No, that’s no time for vocal exercise. To-night perhaps—you will stay the night, won’t you? Well, so long. I am going to take it easy in private life until it gets cooler. Meanwhile I’ll leave you to exchange official news,” she added maliciously, over her shoulder.
“I can’t think what you’ve done to that child, Elvesdon,” remarked his host, when they were sitting alone together on the stoep. “I never saw her so lively before, or anything like it; certainly not since she was a little girl. Yet you managed to ‘draw’ her most effectually.”
Elvesdon was human, and at this profuse anointment of his self-esteem he mentally purred. Yet he did not know what the very deuce to answer. He could not, for instance, tell his host that this sort of life must be rather a monotonous one for a girl, and therefore anyone from outside, he supposed would make a welcome change.