"Because then, after he got dem seegar, he sell you Laura for half dem price he ask before."
"You're an impertinent savage," said Carter half tickled, half annoyed.
But White-Man's-Trouble stopped, put down the yellow Gladstone bag on the baking sand, and pointed to the blue parallel tribal tattoo marks between his brows. "I Krooboy, sar. I no bushboy, sar! I lib for educate as deckboy an' stan'-by-at-crane boy on steamah, sar. I no fit for stay with you, sar, if you call me impertinent savage."
Carter stared. "Good heavens, man! I didn't intend to hurt your feelings."
White-Man's-Trouble waved the bleached inside of his paw towards his master. "Oh, Carter, you apologize. Palaver set." He bowed a head which was quaintly shaved into garden patches, replaced the Gladstone bag on its central bed of wool, and once more strode cheerfully ahead.
Carter followed moodily. How had they all guessed at his admiration for Laura? He had thought it the most intimate of secrets, a delicate confidence that he had no more than dared breathe even to his own inner consciousness. But first old Smith had blurted it out, and now even his servant talked about it openly. He had no doubt whatever that the whole thing had been fully discussed over the cooking fires of the native compound at Malla-Nulla the night before.
Then somehow his eyes swung round to the dancing horizon, and the Liverpool steamer's smoke, boring up towards the North, easily ferried his thoughts across the gap which lay between that baking African beach, and the cool village tucked snugly in beneath the Upper Wharfedale moors. He tried to concentrate his mind on the roses in the vicarage garden. His mother liked abundance of blooms, and cared little about the size. The Vicar admired big blooms and snipped off superfluous buds when his wife was out of the way, and during summer a gentle wrangle over the roses was quite one of the features of their quiet life.
But the roses refused to stay in the centre of the picture. Laura insisted on taking their place. Suppose he took Laura back to Wharfedale—as Mrs. George Carter. His mother, blessed woman, might be sorry, but she would accept her. He was sure of that. But his father? Almost the last piece of advice the Vicar had given on parting was:
"Now, lad, remember always you're a white man, and don't get mixed up with any woman who owns a single drop of blood darker than your own. If you do, you can never come back here, and you'll hate yourself all the rest of your life. Remember I held an Indian chaplaincy before I got this living, and I know what I'm talking about."
Carter shook a sudden fist at the steamer's smoke for supplying him with such a distasteful train of thought, and turned for light conversation to White-Man's-Trouble. That garrulous person was quite ready to humor him in the matter.