"What is that?"
"There is not a single piece of cast off European finery among them—their garb is native, pure and simple; and, while I'll have to admit there isn't much to it, it lends a dignity to them that European clothing would change to the absurd."
"I quite agree with you," said Smith. "I wonder why I didn't get a safari like this."
"Lord Passmore is evidently an African traveller and hunter of long experience. No amateur could hope to attract such men as these."
"I shall hate to go back to my own camp, if I stay here very long," said Smith; "but I suppose I'll have to; and that suggests another unpleasant feature of the change."
"And what is that?" she asked.
"I shan't see you any more," he said with a simple directness that vouched for the sincerity of his regret.
The girl was silent for a moment, as though the suggestion had aroused a train of thought she had not before considered. "That is true, isn't it?" she remarked, presently. "We shan't see each other any more—but not for always. I'm sure you'll stop and visit me in London. Isn't it odd what old friends we seem? And yet we only met two days ago. Or, maybe, it doesn't seem that way to you. You see I was so long without seeing a human being of my own world that you were quite like a long lost brother, when you came along so unexpectedly."
"I have the same feeling," he said—"as though I had known you forever—and—," he hesitated, "—as though I could never get along without you in the future." He flushed a little as he spoke those last words.
The girl looked up at him with a quick smile—a sympathetic, understanding smile. "It was nice of you to say that," she said. "Why it sounded almost like a declaration," she added, with a gay, friendly laugh.