"That is almost eloquent," she said quietly.
"I thought it was rather bald," he replied. "You see, few people really understand Bones. I thought, the first time I saw him, that he was a fool. I was wrong. Then I thought he was effeminate. I was wrong again, for he has played the man whenever he was called upon to do so. Bones is one of those rare creatures—a man with all the moral equipment of a good woman."
Her eyes were fixed on his, and for a moment they held. Then hers dropped quickly, and she flushed ever so slightly.
"I think you have defined the perfect man," she said, turning the leaves of her book.
The next morning she was admitted to an audience with that paragon of paragons, Henry Hamilton Bones.
He lived in the largest of the Houssa huts at the far end of the lines, and had for attendants two native women, for whom Bones had framed the most stringent and regimental of orders.
The girl paused in the porch of the hut to read the typewritten regulations which were fastened by drawing-pins to a green baize board.
They were bi-lingual, being in English and in coast Arabic, in which dialect Bones was something of a master. The girl wondered why they should be in English.
"Absolutely necessary, dear old lady friend," explained Bones firmly. "You've no idea what a lot of anxiety I have had. Your dear old brother—God bless him!—is a topping old sport, but with children you can't be too careful, and Ham is awfully thoughtless. There, I've said it!"
The English part of the regulations was brief, and she read it through.