"Oh, I have a better idea of direction than you give me credit for. I am not such a fool as I looked last night, you know; then I belonged to Spink and Company, and was sublet by them to old Heckle; now I belong to myself and South Africa. That makes a world of difference, you know."
"I see it does," replied Miss Linderham. "Won't you sit down?"
The girl herself sank into an armchair, while Stansford sat on a low table, swinging one foot to and fro, his wide-brimmed hat thrown back, and gazed at the girl until she reddened more than ever. Neither spoke for some moments.
"Do you know," said Stansford at last, "that when I look at you South
Africa seems a long distance away!"
"I thought it was a long distance away," said the girl, without looking up.
"Yes; but it's longer and more lonely when one looks at you. By Jove, if I thought I couldn't do better, I would be tempted to take that two thousand a year offer of yours and——"
"It wasn't an offer of mine," cried the girl hastily. "Perhaps the lady I was thinking of wouldn't have agreed to it, even if I had spoken to her about it."
"That is quite true; still, I think if she had seen me in this outfit she would have thought me worth the money."
"You think you can make more than two thousand a year out in South Africa? You have become very hopeful all in a moment. It seems to me that a man who thinks he can make two thousand a year is very foolish to let himself out at two guineas an evening."
"Do you know, Miss Linderham, that was just what I thought myself, and I told the respectable Spink so, too. I told him I had had an offer of two thousand a year in his own line of business. He said that no firm in London could afford the money. 'Why,' he cried, waxing angry, 'I could get a Duke for that.'"