“What a glorious stone! I do so love a yellow diamond. Is it out of the famous Montague mine, or a mere de Beer’s? Journalism must pay, dear Viwie!”
She gave a little silvery laugh that rippled up Vivienne’s spine like an asp, and left a poisoned wound.
Neither did a conversation carried on at her right in full hearing act as an antidote. A Judge of the High Court was telling his dinner neighbour what a charming fellow de Windt was, and how they would all miss him when he pulled out for the North.
“The country can’t afford to lose men like that! But they are real lovers of the wild and won’t stay when we begin to get too civilised.”
“Yet de Windt himself is one of the most civilised fellows I’ve ever met,” said the Administrator. “When all Colonials are like him, Africa will begin to move.”
“A Colonial? Pas possible!” cried a woman.
“It is possible though. He was born out here and spite of Harrow and Oxford and a place at the Bar, Africa has him in her maw for good.”
“The dear fellow would have been here to-night, if he had not been so ill,” said the hostess. And the wretched Vivienne was thankful she had been spared that ordeal at least. But she held fast to her plan. What matter whether de Windt were a splendid fellow or not? Since he loved the wild, all the better for him—he wouldn’t miss his gold mine! She felt herself growing harder and harder every moment.
“Millionaires must be made of tough stuff,” she thought sardonically. “Fine fellows! I expect I shall begin to look like one soon. Eyes like flint with pouches under them, and a tiger trap for a mouth! Zut, alors!”
Thanks to Lady Angela the news was all over Buluwayo the next day that she was wearing Montague’s ring. Even the fact that Cornwall came bearing propitious tidings did little to quench Vivienne’s rage.