She herself had no doubts. Her restless, adventurous hands grasped at anything fresh and strange. Of all the siren lands that had lured her girlhood, Africa's voice had rung the clearest. Women and the lower animals do not reason. Pictures present themselves before their minds, and they choose as the pictures entice or repel.
So as she re-read the travels of the great adventurers, she saw a sunlit vision of palms and orchids, savages as noble as princes, and as faithful as dogs, wild beasts to be hunted at pleasure, lands of mystery to be explored at will, fortunes to be won in the intervals as a diver gathers pearls. And at the end a triumphant return to the luxury of home with spoils that would lay London at her feet.
Her final storming of Archie's opposition was characteristic. She had driven him to his last line of defence—a plea of insufficient capital. Had Archie ever understood women, he would have known the danger of setting up one concrete objection. She put on her furs and an hour later returned with a handful of banknotes.
'Where did this come from?' he asked.
'My pearls,' was the reply.
"That is the way they always defeat us," said Ross.
CHAPTER IV
One day, towards the end of the dry season in Central Africa more than two years later, Norah was sitting on an empty packing-case under the shade of an acacia, watching the tiling of her house.
Archie had been two years building it. He was so thorough that he sometimes maddened her. Moreover, every brick and tile had to be moulded and burnt on the farm; anthill clay for mortar dug and carried; shells for lime pointing dredged from the river and burnt in kilns; timber felled, dragged and hand sawn; doors and windows made in the shop; bolts and iron work wrought in the forge; and natives taught to do all this.