"It's simply that—Kafirs are Kafirs," he said dully. Mrs. Jakes interposed a warm, "Certainly," and further disordered him. He gave her a long and gloomy look and tried to go on. "When they are—further advanced, that will be the time to—to think about inter-marriage, and all that. Now—well, you can see what they are."
He wiped his forehead nervously with his handkerchief, and Ford entered the conversation.
"Jakes has got it," he said. "Intermarriage may come—perhaps; but at present every marriage of a white person with a Kafir means a loss. It's a sacrifice of a civilized unit. D' you see, Miss Harding? You 've got to reckon not only what that woman in Capetown does but what she doesn't do as well. She might have been the mother of men and women. Well, now she 'll bear children to be outcasts. She ought to have waited a couple of hundred years."
"Perhaps she was in a hurry," answered Margaret. "But there 's the other question—what if she hadn't married?"
"Oh," said Ford. "In point of reason and all that, she 'd have been right enough. But people are n't reasonable. Look at Samson—and look at me."
"You mean—you 've 'no use' for her?"
"It's prejudice," he answered. "It's anything you like. But the plain fact is, I 'd probably admire such a woman if I met her in a book; but as flesh and blood, I decline the introduction. Does that shock you?"
Margaret smiled rather wryly. "Yes," she said. "It does, rather."
He turned towards her, humorous and whimsical, but at that moment Dr. Jakes made a movement doorward and Mrs. Jakes began her usual brisk fire of small-talk to cover his retreat.
"I only wish there was some way we could get the papers regularly—such a lot of things seem to be happening just now," she prattled. "Some of the papers have cables from England and they are most interesting. That Cape Times you lent me, Mr. Samson—it had the names of the people at the Drawing-Room. Do you know, I 've often been to see the carriages drive up, and it 's just like reading about old friends. There was one old lady, rather fat, with a mole on her chin, who always went, and once we saw her drinking out of a flask in the carriage. My cousin William—William Penfold—nicknamed her the Duchess de Grundy, and when we asked a policeman about her, it turned out she really was a Duchess. Was n't that strange?"