“Yes, though few people get what they deserve in this wicked world.”
“So I have often thought. Had it been otherwise, for example, I should have been—”
“What would you have been?” she asked, considering him curiously.
“Oh! a better shot than Mr. Allan Quatermain, and as beautiful as a lady I once saw in my youth.”
“Don’t talk rubbish before luncheon,” I remarked sternly, and we all laughed, the first wholesome laughter that I had heard at the Temple. For this young lady seemed to bring happiness and merriment with her. I remember wondering what it was of which her coming reminded me, and concluding that it was like the sight and smell of a peach orchard in full bloom stumbled on suddenly in the black desert of the burnt winter veld.
After this we became quite friendly. She dilated on her skill in having produced the Temple from an old engraving, which she fetched and showed to us, at no greater an expense than it would have cost to build an ordinary house.
“That is because the marble was at hand,” said Anscombe.
“Quite so,” she replied demurely. “Speaking in a general sense one can do many things in life—if the marble is at hand. Only most of us when we look for marble find sandstone or mud.”
“Bravo!” said Anscombe, “I have generally lit upon the sandstone.”
“And I on the mud,” she mused.