"I saw you," he said, "in the play."
"Did you? What d' you think of it?"
"Allemachtag," he answered. "I have been thinking of it all night."
To his eye, she was all she had promised to be. The fragility of her was most wonderful to him, accustomed to the honest motherly brawn of the girls of his own race. The rather aggressive perkiness of her address was the smiling courage that had thrilled and touched him. He stood staring, unable to carry the talk further.
But it was for this kind of thing that Miss Vivie Sinclair had "gone on the stage," and she was not at all at a loss.
"I 'm going this way," she said, and in her hands, Christian was wax—willing wax. He found himself walking at her side under the eyes of the town. She waited before she spoke again till they were by the stoep of Pagan's store, where a dozen loungers became rigid and watchful as they passed.
"You 've heard about the smash-up?" she inquired then.
"Smash-up?"
"Our smash-up? Oh, a regular mess we 're in, the whole lot of us. You had n't heard?"
"No," he answered.