"She'll have to think about something worse, before he's cold in his grave, or I'm much mistaken," said Bert, scowling.
The clergyman pondered.
"Do you want me to speak to her father for you?" he presently asked, point-blank.
Bert hesitated; he grew red, then pale.
"Don't like to be beholden to me, do you?" said Mayne cheerfully. "Well, I sympathise with you. But you and I are just walking round the question, you know, Mestaer. The whole point is, what does Millie say? Will she have you?"
The colour again rushed over the crestfallen face of Bert. "Gals like that don' know what they want," he grunted.
"Then it would be very wrong to push her into a life-long contract."
"She don' know what's good for her," repeated Bert. "She'd oughter be arranged for; that's the way to do it. She'd not repent it if she married me."
"Well, look here; I'll make a bargain. If Millie comes to me and says she's willing to marry you, I'll speak to Mr. Lutwyche; but you know quite as well as I do, he would never hear of it against her will."
Hereupon Bert damned first British pride, then his own Boer ancestry, then Tante Wilma, who had caused her husband to contemn all Boers for her sake.