"My dear child," protested the Colonel, making himself heard at length in her pause for breath. "No one wants you to go anywhere or do anything against your will. Piet Cradock isn't so unreasonable as that, if he is a Dutchman. Now don't distress yourself. There isn't the smallest necessity for that. I thought it just possible that you might like the idea as I was to be with you. But as you don't—well, there's an end of it. We will say no more."
Nan's arm was around his neck as he ended, her cheek against his forehead.
"Dear, dear daddy, don't think I'm cross with you. You're just the sweetest old darling in the world, and I'd go to Kamschatka with you gladly—in fact, anywhere—anywhere—except South Africa. Can't we go somewhere together, just you and I? Let's go to Jamaica. I'm sure I can afford it."
"No, no, no!" protested the Colonel. "Get away with you, you baggage! What are you thinking of? Miss the cubbing season? Not I. And not you either, if I know you. There! Run along to bed, and take my blessing with you. I'll send a line to Piet, if you like, and tell him you don't object to waiting for him a bit longer under your old father's roof. Come, be off with you! I'm going to lock up."
He hoisted himself out of his chair with the words, looked at her fondly for a moment, took her pretty face between his hands, and kissed her twice.
"She's the worst pickle of the lot," he declared softly.
He did not add that she was also his darling of them all, but this was a perfectly open secret between them, and had been such as long as Nan could remember. She laughed up at him with tender impudence in recognition of the fact.
CHAPTER V
The letter from Piet Cradock was not again referred to by either Nan or her father. The latter answered it in his own way after the lapse of a few weeks. He was of a peaceable, easy-going nature himself, and he did not anticipate any trouble with Nan's husband. After all, the child's reluctance to leave her home was perfectly natural. He, for his part, had never fully understood the attraction which his son-in-law had exercised upon her. He had been glad enough to have his favourite daughter provided for, but the actual parting with her had been a serious trouble to him, the most serious he had known for years, and he had been very far from desiring to quarrel with the Fate that had restored her to him.