"No, I am a cosmopolitan; incidentally of Scotch birth."
"Indeed!" Miss Chard looked politely interested. "You flatter yourself chiefly on the first, I suppose?"
"I did, until to-day."
"To-day?"
"Yes. A cosmopolitan's chief pride, you see, is in the fact that he can conceal his nationality, whilst able to detect instantly that of the person he is speaking to. Now I should never have guessed that you are—English."
Her colour remained unchanged: her eyes regarded him steadfastly.
"You took me for some new kind of barbarian, perhaps?"
He moved a hand deprecatingly: "Not at all; but if I had been asked for an expression of opinion, I should have said, 'A little Irish vagabond dragged up in Africa.'"
The girl's sweet laugh fell from her lips.
"What a ridiculous thing to say! You evidently have not heard that I have only been in Africa for a few weeks or so—my first visit."