"Yes: I got the advice about them: they'll be in dock to-morrow. We'll go down and look everything over during the week if you like. How long are you going to give yourself before you go back?"
"Well, my leave is six months, you know—one of them gone already, by Jove! I shall be about another three or four weeks fixing up my private affairs on the Rand and getting things sent off from here. Then I propose to give myself a few months at 'home' before I go into exile for five years."
"Five years of solitude and natives and pioneers!" commented Bramham. "Pretty tough on you!"
"Oh, you needn't pity me. I don't mind the solitude. There'll be plenty to do turning that little sixty thousand square miles into a civilised centre, now that we've got the roads open. In five years' time we shall have the rails laid right to the capital, and the mines in full swing. That's the time I shall make tracks for newer scenes. But in the meanwhile it's fine, Bram. The fellows that make pioneers are the right stuff—you know that. It's the people who come up after the work is done who stick in my gizzard."
"I daresay it's all right," said Bramham. "There are bright bits, no doubt. And, of course, you'll get more ribbons to tie your stockings up with and lockets to hang on your breast when you come back. But it seems to me to be a precious lonely life in the meantime, and I'm glad it isn't mine. Why don't you take your wife up with you, Karri?" He spoke with an idle smile, not looking at Carson, but at his hands on the bale before him arranging cigars in a box. Carson gave him a quick glance, but he laughed carelessly.
"Even if I possessed such a luxury I couldn't very well ask her to come up to a wild place like that—for wild it will be for many a year yet, thank the gods! Do you suppose any woman would care about it?"
"I know half a dozen who'd jump at the chance, and I expect you do, too. Women are fearfully keen on adventure nowadays. And then you're an attraction in yourself, Karri."
"Thanks, old chap! You're easily pleased, I'm afraid." Carson's smile was affectionate, but frankly sleepy. He began to yawn. Bramham, caring nothing for hints of weariness, pursued the subject.
"Joking apart—you ought to marry. Why don't you, Karri?"
"For one thing, I can't afford it. You forget that I'm not a bloated millionaire like you. My little excursions into different parts of the interior were never cheap, and the original expedition into Borapota cost me privately as much as it did the Government, and since I've been Administrator I've found it a mighty expensive business, and you know, I've never been a money-hugger, Bram. I suppose I am a thousand or two to the good now, apart from my shares and concerns on the Rand, which wouldn't fetch much with the market in its present condition. But how far would that go towards setting up a ménage-à-deux in the desert? Even supposing that I knew someone anxious to share it——"