CHAPTER XIII
THE DEVOTION OF WANAHA
Nevil Steyne’s day’s labor, of whatever it consisted, was over. Wanaha had just lit the oil lamp which served her in her small home.
The man was stretched full length upon the bed, idly contemplating the dusky beauty who acknowledged his lordship, while she busied herself over her shining stove. His face wore a half smile, but his smile was in nowise connected with that which his eyes rested on.
Yet the sight he beheld was one to inspire pleasurable thoughts. For surely it falls to the lot of few men, however worthy, to inspire one woman with such a devotion as Wanaha yielded to him. Besides, she was a wonderful picture of beauty, colored it is true, but none the less fair for that. Her long black, braided hair, her delicate, high-bred face so delightfully gentle, and her great, soft black eyes which had almost, but not quite, lost that last latent glimmer of the old savage. Surely, she was worth the tenderest thought.
But Nevil’s thoughts were not with her, and his smile was inspired by his thoughts. The man’s mean, narrow face had nothing pleasant in it as he smiled. Some faces are like this. He was a degenerate 136 of the worst type; for he was a man who had slowly receded from a life of refinement, and mental retrogression finds painful expression on such a face. A ruffian from birth bears less outward trace, for his type is natural to him.
Wanaha always humored her husband’s moods, in which, perhaps, she made a grave error. She held silent until he chose to speak. And when she turned at last to arrange the supper table, he was so moved. The smile had died out of his thin face, and his pale blue eyes wore a look of anxious perplexity when he summoned her attention.
“Wana,” he said, as though rousing himself from a long worrying thought, “we must do something, my Wana. And—I hardly know what.”
The black eyes looked straight into the blue ones, and the latter shifted to the table on which the woman’s loving hands had carefully set the necessaries for supper.