“Stupid boy!” said she laughing. “I shall be too old to wear diamonds then.”
“Oh no, you won’t.”
My lady gave him a hearty kiss, and went to bed and to sleep. Roland’s visions were not without their effect upon her, and she had a most delightful dream of driving about in a charming city, whose streets were paved with malachite marble, brilliant to look upon. How many times Roland had dreamt that Port Natal was paved with gold, he alone knew.
Had Roland been troubled with over-sensitiveness in regard to other people’s feelings, and felt himself at a loss how to broach the matter to Mr. Galloway, he might have been pleased to find that the way was, in a degree, paved to him. On the following morning Mr. Galloway was at the office considerably before his usual hour; consequently, before Roland Yorke. Upon looking over Roland’s work of the previous day, he found that a deed—a deed that was in a hurry, too—had been imperfectly drawn out, and would have to be done over again. The cause must have been sheer carelessness, and Mr. Galloway naturally felt angered. When the gentleman arrived, he told him what he thought of his conduct, winding up the reproaches with a declaration that Roland did him no service at all, and would be as well out of the office as in it.
“I am glad of that, sir,” was Roland’s answer. “What I was about to tell you will make no difference, then. I wish to leave, sir.”
“Do you?” retorted Mr. Galloway.
“I am going to leave, sir,” added Roland, rather improving upon the assertion. “I am going to Port Natal.”
Mr. Galloway was a little taken aback. “Going to where?” cried he.
“To Port Natal.”
“To Port Natal!” echoed Mr. Galloway in the most unbounded astonishment, for not an inkling of Roland’s long-thought-of project had ever reached him. “What on earth should you want there?”