Mrs. du Preez and Christian were facing one another over the length of the table; they turned impatient and angry faces towards the door as he opened it and thrust his personality into the scene. He fronted them with his terrible smile and his manner of jaunty amity.
"Hot, ain't it?" he inquired. "I 've been down by the dam and the water 's nearly on the boil."
Neither answered; each seemed watchful of the other's first step. Christian gave him only a dark wrathful look and Mrs. du Preez colored and looked away. Boy Bailey, retaining his smile under difficulties, tossed his hat to a chair and entered.
"Not interrupting anything, am I?" he inquired.
"You 're not interrupting me," replied Mrs. du Preez. "I 've said all I 'd got to say."
"But I haven't said all I 've got to say," retorted Christian from his end of the table. "We was talking about you."
"About me?" said Bailey, with mild surprise. "Oh."
"Yes." The Boer, leaning forward with his hands gripping the thick end of the table, had a dangerous look which warned Bailey that impudence now might have disastrous consequences.
"Yes—about you. My wife says you are a gentleman and got gentleman's manners and you are her old friend. She says you don't mean harm and you don't look bad and dirty. She says I don't know how gentlemen speak and look and I am wrong to say you are a beast with the mark of the beast."
Bailey shifted uncomfortably under his gaze of fury held precariously in leash, and edged a little towards Mrs. du Preez. He was afraid the big, bearded man might spring forward and help out his words with his fist.