She was holding desperately to her resolution, eager to be off before the six rosewood chairs, the table and the sofa should overcome her and make good their claim to her.
"What 's those?" Bailey nodded at the bundles torpidly.
"Oh," she was burning to be moving, to be committed, to see her boats flaming and smoking behind her. "This is grub, Bailey. We 'll want grub, won't we? And this is my things."
"The—er—money, I suppose, an' all that?"
"Yes, yes. Oh, do come on, Bailey. The money 's all here. Everything 's here. You carry the grub an' let 's be going."
"The grub, eh?" Mr. Bailey rose grunting to his feet. "You 'd rather—well, all right."
None viewed that elopement to mark how Mrs. du Preez slipped her free hand under Bailey's arm and went forth at his side in the bravery she had donned as though to bring grace to the occasion. Paul was down at the dam with sheep, and before he returned the brown distances of the Karoo had enveloped them and its levels had risen behind them to blot out the dishonored roof of the house.
At the hour of the midday meal, Paul ate alone, contentedly and unperturbed by his mother's absence. For all he knew she had one of her weeping fits upstairs in her bedroom, and he was careful to make no noise.
CHAPTER XII
Margaret entered the drawing-room rather late for tea and Mrs. Jakes accordingly acknowledged her arrival with an extra stoniness of regard. In his place by the window, Ford turned from his abstracted contemplation of the hot monotony without and sent her a discreet and private smile across the tea-table. Mrs. Jakes, noting it and the girl's response, tightened her mouth unpleasantly as the suspicion recurred to her that there was "something between" Mr. Ford and Miss Harding. More than once of late she had noticed that their intercourse had warmed to the stage when the common forms of expression need to be helped out by a code of sympathetic looks and gestures. She addressed the girl in her thinnest tones of extreme formality.