“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Hope you won’t be very lonely.”
“Do you?” For the life of her she could not avoid the little ironical question.
“Pity I’m not a woman, and then I could come up and stay with you and keep you company—eh? Wouldn’t there be a lot of talk?”
“If you were a woman?”
“No, as we are. You knew what I meant, Mrs. Lewin.”
Oh, this wearisome talk that led nowhere, and always had a vacant laugh in it. And the sameness of the fringe of ravenalas lifting solemn hands along the shore—and the blue bay—and the zinc-roofed, gim-crack town. She looked at the glare of sunlight on Maitso and Mitsinjovy, and her eyes ached, and then at the black walls of coal to cool them, as she had done hundreds of times before. They were all in the rat-trap, and her fellow rats were no better off than she—save that perhaps the others had not the soul-haunting sweet dread that she had put behind her all day. For when she was free of these people and went back alone to the bungalow, there was nothing to prevent her thinking of the nearness of Government House, and the short cut through the grounds, while all the rooms listened for a step.
She heard Hamilton Gurney urging some one to come and drink a final cého with the U.C.L. men, and her heart sank, for this was always a last ceremony. Then Mrs. Stern came up and said good-bye, her blue eyes very large and gentle, with their strange gift of divination, and by a mutual impulse the two tall women kissed each other. Even after the boat had swung out into the harbour and passed between the gates, Leoline stood watching it as she had the Greville that morning, as if it carried away yet another barrier of her safety, and lingered to chat with one and another of her acquaintance. Captain Gilderoy came up to ask her if she were selling any of the ponies—she could not ride three during Captain Lewin’s absence, and he rather fancied Snapshot. She caught at the discussion, and suggested his coming over one day to look at Nanton, Ally’s last purchase.
“Will you come back with me now, you and Mrs. Gilderoy?” she said, with a strange eagerness. “And dine? I am very much alone.”
“Thanks, I wish we could, but we are bound to the Jacksons’.”