“Or Resignation—that is strawberry and this is black currant.”
“Thanks, black currant. No—Philosophy. Resignation is the most loathsome of the virtues.”
“I can't say I care for any of them very much,” put in Maurice.
“No; I thought you seemed to shun them,” said Jack, like a flash.
“Sharp! very sharp! Jocelyn, do you know what we called him at school?—the French nail; he was so very long and thin and sharp! I might add polished and strong, but we were not so polite in those days. Poor old Jack! he gave as good as he got. But I must be off—the commerce of Western Africa awaits me. You'll be round at the office presently, I suppose, Jack?”
“Yes; I have an appointment there with a coloured person who is a liar by nature and a cook by trade.”
Maurice Gordon usually went off like this—at a moment's notice. He was one of those loud-speaking, quick-actioned men, who often get a reputation for energy and capacity without fully deserving it.
Jack, of a more meditative habit, rarely followed his host with the same obvious haste. He finished his breakfast calmly, and then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming out on to the verandah. It was a habit they had unconsciously dropped into. The verandah was a very important feature of the house, thickly overhung as it was with palms, bananas, and other tropical verdure. Africa is the land of creepers, and all around this verandah, over the trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers. The legend of the house—for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale—was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A telegram stopped her. A snake interrupted his labour of love.
Jack took a seat at once, and began to search for his cigar-case in the pocket of his jacket. In this land of flies and moths men need not ask permission before they smoke. Jocelyn did not sit down at once. She went to the front of the verandah and watched her brother mount his horse. She was a year older than Maurice Gordon, and exercised a larger influence over his life than either of them suspected.
Presently he rode past the verandah, waving his hand cheerily. He was one of those large, hearty Englishmen who seem to be all appetite and laughter—men who may be said to be manly, and beyond that nothing. Their manliness is so overpowering that it swallows up many other qualities which are not out of place in men, such as tact and thoughtfulness, and PERHAPS intellectuality and the power to take some interest in those gentler things that interest women.