"Hold my tongue, an' lose you? Why, what d'you s'pose I got ter live for?" he cried out, stung through and through by the idea of his own impotence, his utter failure to arouse one spark of feeling in the girl.
He was shaking from head to foot. It seemed so enraging, so absurd, that he, whose great strength could compel this frail creature to anything, absolutely dare not touch her—was reduced to stammering, humiliated silence, by her unconcealed disdain. It always came to this between them. He stood, fighting his feeling, facing the blank wall of her indifference, when there was a sudden increase of sound from the scene of the revels—a door opened, a furious voice bellowed: "Millie!"
It was enough; he was by her side again at once. Snatching the pile of spoons and forks, he put them into her apron, picking up a pyramid of plates himself, and they went back to the supper-room.
They were received with a babel of derisive remarks, the pith of which seemed to be that Millie had been away with one young man, when she was going to be married to another.
"Come along, Millie!" said the deep, guttural voice of Oom Pieters, rumbling in his hairy throat; "we're only waiting for you, to drink your health."
Since the irruption of diamond-seekers into the pastoral district, the temperate Boer habits had sadly altered. Peach brandy was on the table in generous quantity, and many of the more old-fashioned sort, following a bad fashion, had partaken, and not being used to such things, were not perfectly under their own control.
Amurrica was seated on Tante Wilma's right, leaning back in his tilted chair, and sending out smoke rings from a mouth which wore a gratified smile.
"Goin' to marry Otis," was bandied from lip to lip. "He's bought a share in the Vierkleur from Maarten Brandt, and he says, when Millie's a bit fatter she'll do fine in the bar. Goin' to sit up together to-night."
This in allusion to the old Boer custom which decrees that an engaged couple shall ratify their troth by sitting up all night together, and burning candles.
"Sh! Hold your tongue," said Millie, in a low voice to Bert, who was about to explode. "They're all drunk; what's the good of noticing?"