She had hardly heard him, so desperately was she concentrated on the one idea that occupied her mind.
"Well, I won't wait for him," said Mr. Bailey. "I 'll get some of this muck off my face an'—an' have a drink, if you 'll be so kind, and then I 'll fade. But if ever I see him again—"
"Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, "where 'll you go?"
"Where? Well, to-night I reckon to sleep in plain air, as the French say—or is it the Germans?—somewhere about here till I can get word with a certain nigger who owes me money. And then, off to the station on my tootsies and take train back to the land of ticky (threepenny) beer and Y.M.C.A.'s."
"England?" asked Mrs. du Preez.
"England be—" Boy Bailey hesitated—"mucked," he substituted. "Capetown, me dear; the metropolis of our foster motherland. It 's Capetown for me, where the Christian Kafirs come from."
"Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez. "Bailey, take me."
"What?" demanded Boy Bailey. "Take you where?"
"Take me with you." She was still kneeling beside him and she put a hand on his arm urgently, looking into his blood-stained and smashed face. "I won't stay with him now. I said I wouldn't and I won't. I 'd die first. And you and me was always good pals, Bailey. Only for that breakdown at Fereira, we 'd have—we might have hitched up together. You were always hinting—you know you were, Bailey. Don't you know?"
"Hinting?" He was surprised at last, but still wary. "But I wasn't hinting at—supporting you?"