Other grounds for general detestation by her own sex soon made patent to Vivienne were: (1) that Wolfe Montague, the richest man in South Africa, took no pains to hide the fact that his main business in Buluwayo was to be perpetually at her heels; (2) that having been romantically lost on the veld and found again no one quite knew how, she was the most-talked-of person in the country; and (3) that she had turned up looking perfectly radiant, and been seen of none until after regaining possession of her extremely chic clothes. Tales with a tang to them were soon flying round Buluwayo. Vivienne assumed her mask and with a calm mien went about her business of “writing up” the country. But behind the mask and the mien she was raging. It was London and the torment of the last few years over again, only at closer quarters, for here she must share the same hotel with her enemies, run into them daily, and smile and exchange sweet words with them.
“If I could only wipe my boots on them all instead!” she thought savagely, and at such moments almost decided to marry Montague, whose flame grew more and more ardent with the days. But always a shadow slipped between her and her decision—a shadow with grey eyes! Where had those eyes disappeared to? She never saw them, and no one mentioned the name Kerry. The thing puzzled her, yet she was grimly glad. Of what use getting that strange torment of honey and perfume and wild places into her veins again, when she cared only for the call of civilisation, longed only for power and the weapons of wealth with which to smite these little-minded women who thought themselves so clever and fine? She would never be happy until she had power to make others suffer as she had been made to suffer. What had such an ambition to do with the honeyed madness she had known on the banks of the Lundi? Nothing.
One day, writing by the open window of her bedroom, she heard two men talking in the hotel verandah. One was a solicitor whom she had met, called Cornwall, and a remark of his riveted her attention.
“Brain and Hunt are after it. They’ll give five hundred, but de Windt doesn’t seem inclined to sell, though he needs money to get up North.”
“I’ll go a hundred better,” said the other man firmly. “It’s a good farm and I’d like it myself. Try him with that.”
“Right. I’ll try him.”
Vivienne sat transfixed. The whole story rushed back to her mind and with it the remembrance of her plan to outdo the rogues by buying the farm herself. She had scorned the idea then, and despised herself for harbouring it, but in her present frame of mind it stood up salient and welcome as an old friend. Swiftly she found herself once more considering the question of where to raise the money.
She heard the other man bid Cornwall good-bye with a last injunction to see de Windt at once and make the offer, and a moment or two later she sauntered into the verandah and spoke to the solicitor.
“I heard that man’s offer for de Windt’s farm, and I want to tell you I’d like to buy it myself. I’ll give 800 pounds.”
Cornwall stared at her, smiling.