"There 's nothing about that woman in Capetown this week?" she asked, and smiled meaningly as she caught Margaret's eye.
"No," said Ford. "I was looking for that, but there 's nothing."
"What woman was that?" inquired Margaret.
"Oh, a rotten business. A woman married a Kafir parson—a white woman. There 's been a bit of a row about it."
"Oh," said Margaret, understanding Mrs. Jakes' smile. "I didn't see the paper last week."
She looked at Mrs. Jakes with interest. Evidently the little woman saw the matter of Kamis, and Margaret's familiar acquaintance with him, as a secret with which she could be cowed, a piece of dark knowledge that would be held against her as a weapon of final resort. The fact did more than all Kamis' warnings and Boy Bailey's threats to enlighten her as to the African view of a white woman who had relations, any relations but those of employer and servant, with a black man. Not only would a woman in such a case expose herself to the brutal scandal that flourishes in the atmosphere of bars where Boy Baileys frame the conventions that society endorses, but she would be damned in the eyes of all the Mrs. Jakes in the country. They would tar and feather her with their contumely and bury her beneath their disgust.
She returned Mrs. Jakes' smile till that lady looked away with a long-drawn sniff of defiance.
"But why a row?" asked Margaret. "If she was satisfied, what was there to make a row about?"
She really wanted to hear what two sane and average men would adduce in support of Mrs. Jakes' views.
Old Mr. Samson shook his head rebukingly.