"I am thinking that it is hard to fancy you in a calico dress with a copper bucket," he said.
Melicent was suddenly grave.
"People who have always lived in England don't realise," she said absently. "We dwell in a kind of Garden of Eden here, and nobody appreciates it. They should go to some place such as I was brought up in, and learn what thorns and briars lie outside the garden gates."
"I saw a good deal of it during the campaign," the soldier answered. "A good deal of outer darkness, I mean."
"Does England seem good after it?" she asked.
"Exactly what you say. Like the Garden of Eden."
At the moment dinner was announced, and they went into the dining-room.
"I suppose," said Melicent, who was seated next Mr. Mayne, "that it is of no use to ask you after old acquaintance? It is so long since you left Slabbert's Poort?"
"Well," he answered, "I have kept up with one or two of the folks there. But the general scatter, when the war broke out, made great changes, though, as you know, the place was never in the line of march. Marten Brandt still owns the Vierkleur."
"I often meant to ask you in my letters what became of Otis?"