“Yes,” said Ally uneasily. A sensible and considerate wife is a very useful article so long as her husband wishes to make use of these two qualities; when he does not, he would prefer her to be more unreasonable.
Chum’s suggestion was awkward, because he was afraid to refuse to go to Maitso lest she should be surprised.... Hang it! the whole thing had become a nuisance. How glad he was he should be out of it to-morrow! Then a brilliant idea struck him. He would go down to the club and be detained. He could write Di a note, too, from there, and ask her to come down and see him off if possible. He did not know when they would leave, so it was most probable that she would miss him—he did not mind that either. Anyhow, there would be plenty of fellows at the club to make an excuse for getting no further. He might see Churton too. He liked Churton—when he didn’t feel a grovelling cad.
“All right, perhaps I’d better. I can go after dinner, but I shan’t be long,” he said. Mrs. Lewin did not answer or look at him. She was very busy over the portmanteau.
It was rather a silent dinner, but he noticed with real pain and affection how soft and fair Leoline looked in her long white dinner-gown, and wondered when they would have one of their merry tête-à-tête meals again. He was devoted to his wife—in theory at any rate. Perhaps Chum could not have pleaded much more, save that she tried to practise what she preached. If men were not such complex animals the Day of Judgment would be a simpler ceremony, but as things are they will have many pleas to enter of former good conduct and extenuating circumstances. Ally rode away with his heart full of his wife, because she had entered there through his eyes, and with no thought of infidelity to her. At the club he sat down and wrote a note, which was the more emphatic because he did not mean it, and a little more reckless in expression than usual because he was going away in safety.
He could not find his own sais, who should have followed him into town to look after his pony, and risked sending a loafer whom he knew by sight, to Maitso. The man grinned and put the letter in his breast before he hitched up his trousers to show his zeal, the action meaning that Captain Lewin was to understand he would run all the way.
Ally laughed good-naturedly. “Mind it’s important. Give it to Mrs. Churton herself,” he said. “I’ll pay you when you come back without it.”
“Yes, Baas! I give it dere!” said the nigger, and he started off at a jog-trot along the twinkling street towards the dusk of Maitso Hill.
Ally turned back into the club, still laughing.
CHAPTER XII
“‘Lachye noogh?’ as Botha said to his slave.”—Boer Proverb.