"Indeed! Then I'll leave you, for you're certainly suffering from a dangerous swagger in the blood."
Tryon's smile had more than a tinge of sadness in it as he turned to go. This action of his was one of those that smell sweet and blossom in the dust, but, as yet, he was too near it to savour much more than its bitterness. The path is narrow and the gate is straight for those who serve faithfully at Love's high altar. As he went from the room, he looked with tender eyes at the flower-like girl who had come in with him and stood now with smiling lips and eyes full of tears looking at the man and the dog.
"You ought to give him a lecture, Gay. It isn't good for a man to be so puffed up with pride."
"Gay!" said Druro, standing up and letting Toby down with a rush.
"Yes, Lundi. Dick fetched me. I had to come and tell you how glad——"
She slid a hand into his, and he drew her into his arms and began to kiss her with those slow, still-lipped kisses that have all the meaning of life and love behind them.
Toby, having trotted out into the garden, now returned with a large stone which he had culled as one might gather a bouquet of flowers to present upon a triumphant occasion.
Rosanne Ozanne
PART I
Although the Ozannes kept an hotel in Kimberley, they were not of the class usually associated with hotel-running in rough mining-towns. It was merely that, on their arrival in the diamond fields, they had accepted such work as came to their hands, in a place where people like Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit were washing blue ground for diamonds in their own claims, and other men, afterward to become world-famous millionaires, were standing behind counters bartering with natives or serving drinks to miners.