He did not notice that her voice was broken with tears, for the wind swept her words up to the trees and the boiling wrack of clouds beyond. But he knew that it was time for her to go. That wild pool of love and wind and stars was too sweet and dangerous a place for lovers to linger in. He wrapped her cloak about her and sheltered her back to the door from which she had emerged.
"Tomorrow morning . . . I shall be waiting for you in the lounge. We will settle then how soon you will give yourself to me—it must be very soon, darling. I am forty-four, and can't wait a moment."
The light from the door fell on his face and showed it gay as a boy's. Her face was hidden, or he must have, recognized the misery stamped upon it.
* * * * * *
In the morning light it seemed to her that the finger of snow on her hair had broadened a little. It was five o'clock of an ice-green dawn, with the mountain like an ashen wraith outside, and the wind still raging. South-easters last for three days, Kenna had said, and she shuddered to look at that unseen power whipping the leaves from the trees, beating down the beauty of the garden, tearing the mists from the mountain's side, only to pile them higher upon the summit. It took courage to go out in that wind, but it took greater courage to stay and meet Vereker Sarle. So she was dressed and hatted, with a small suit-case in her hand, and starting on a journey to the Paarl. She did not know what "the Paarl" was, nor where! Her first introduction to that strange name was at midnight, when she found it on one of the letters addressed to Diana. All the other letters were of no consequence, but the Paarl letter seemed to solve for her the pressing and immediate problem of how to escape from the terror of exposure by Kenna before the loved eyes of Sarle. It was from the parson's daughter, that eccentric painter who lived somewhere on the veld, and whose home was to have been Diana's destination. "Clive Connal" she signed herself, and said she hoped Diana would take the morning train, as it was the coolest one to travel by, and arrive at the Paarl by 8.30, where a mule-cart would be waiting to take her to Ho-la-lé-la.[1] So April meant to follow instructions and trust to luck to see her through. Whatever happened, it could not be more terrible than to read disgust and disillusion in Vereker Sarle's eyes.
She stole down the stairs like a shadow, and found a sleepy clerk in the booking-office. It was simple to explain to him that she was going away for a few days, but wished her room kept on, and everything left as it was. She would send a wire to say at what date she would be returning. There was no difficulty about the bill, for, fortunately, Bellew had supplied her with plenty of money, saying it was Diana's, and that she would have wished it to be used. It was too early for a taxi to be got, even by telephoning, but the porter caught a stray rickshaw that chanced to be passing, and April had her first experience of flying downhill behind a muscular black man with feathers in his hair and bangles on his feet. Before she reached the station her veil and hair were in streamers, and her scalp was almost torn from her head, but the serpent jaune which had gnawed her vitals all night had ceased from troubling, and joy of living glowed in her once more. She could not help it; there was something in the air and the wind and the blaze of Africa that made for life, and thrust out despair. It swept away misery as the south-easter had swept the skies, leaving them blue and clear as a flawless turquoise.
She caught her train, and in fate's good hour reached the Paarl, which proved to be a town of one long street, decked with stately oaks, and mellowed old Dutch homes. The mule-cart was waiting for her, and on the driver's seat a woman with the austere features and blue, pure, visionary eyes of Galahad, the stainless knight. But she was dressed in breeches and a slouch hat, a cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth, and she beckoned April gladsomely with an immense cowthong whip.
"Come on! I was afraid you'd shirk the early train, but I see you're the stuff. Hop in!"
April did her best, but hopping into a Cape cart that has both steps missing takes some practice. The mules did most of the hopping; she scrambled, climbed, sprawled, and sprained herself all over before she reached the vacant seat, already encumbered with many parcels. With a blithe crack of the whip and a string of strange words flung like a challenge at her mules, Miss Connal got under way.
The farm was six miles off, but ere they had gone two April knew the painter as well as if they had been twin sisters. Clive Connal hadn't a secret or a shilling she would not share with the whole world. She used the vocabulary of a horse-dealer and the slang of a schoolboy, but her mind was as fragrant as a field that the Lord hath blessed, and her heart was the heart of a child. It was shameful to deceive such a creature, and April's nature revolted from the act. Before they reached the farm she had confessed her identity—explaining how the change had come about, and why it was important to go on with the deception. Too much explanation was not necessary with a person of Clive's wide understanding. No vagaries of behaviour seemed to shock or astonish her large human soul. She merely, during the relation of Diana's tragedy, muttered once or twice to herself: