“Yes, thanks.”
“Are you going back to—them?”
“No, I leave to-morrow morning early by the Portuguese boat. I am going home to be married.”
“Indeed! Then I suppose you will wash your hands of Africa for ever?”
“Not quite,” he replied. “I told Meredith that I would be prepared to go up to him in case of emergency, but not otherwise. I shall, of course, still be interested in the scheme. I take home the first consignment of Simiacine; we have been very successful, you know. I shall have to stay in London to sell that. I have a house there.”
“Are you to be married at once?” inquired Jocelyn, with that frank interest which makes it so much easier for a man to talk of his own affairs to a woman than to one of his own sex.
“As soon as I can arrange it,” he answered with a little laugh. “There is nothing to wait for. We are both orphans, and, fortunately, we are fairly well off.”
He was fumbling in his breast-pocket, and presently he rose, crossed the room, and handed her, quite without afterthought or self-consciousness, a photograph in a morocco case.
Explanation was unnecessary, and Jocelyn Gordon looked smilingly upon a smiling, bright young face.
“She is very pretty,” she said honestly.