"It's a small matter," said Mr. Samson. "I want you just to let us go on likin' and admirin' you, without afterthought or anything to spoil the effect. You're new out here, and of course you don't know and could n't know; you 're too fresh and too full of sweetness and innocence; but—well, it kind of jars to hear you standin' up for a woman like that woman in Capetown. You mean a lot to us, Miss Harding. We have n't got much here, you know; we had to leave what we had and run out here for our lives—run like bally rabbits when a terrier comes along. It 'ud be a kindness if you wouldn't—you know."
There was no mistaking the kindliness with which he smiled at her as he spoke. It was another warning, but conveyed differently from the others she had received. Mr. Samson managed to make his air of pleading for a matter of sentiment convincing.
"You—you 're awfully kind," she said.
"Not kind," he replied. "Oh no; it is n't that. It 's what I said. It 's us I 'm thinking of. You 've no idea of what you stand for. You 're home, and afternoons when one meets pretty girls who are all goin' to marry some bally cub, and restaurants full of nice women with jolly shoulders, and fields with tailor-made girls runnin' away from cows. You 're the whole show. But if you start educatin' us, though we 're an ignorant lot, we lose all that."
He looked at her with a trace of anxiety.
"It 's cheek, I know, puttin' it to you like this," he added. "But I 'm relyin' on your being a sportsman, Miss Harding."
"It is n't cheek," Margaret answered. "It's awfully good of you. I—I see what you mean, and I should be sorry if I—well, failed you."
He stood aside from the door at once, throwing it open as he did so.
"Sportsman to the bone," he said. "Bless your heart, did n't I know it. Though I could n't have blamed you if you 'd kicked at all this pow-wow from a venerable ruin old enough to be your grandfather."
Hand to mustache, crooked elbow cocked well up, brows down over bold eyes, the venerable ruin challenged the title he gave himself. Margaret found his simple and comely tricks of posture and expression touching; he played his little game of pose so harmlessly and faithfully. She stopped in front of him as she walked to the door.