CHAPTER VI
These made the most of their chance.
In the red, leather-bound volume of aphorisms which accompanied Dick in his wanderings, he found a remark of Balzac's which seemed to him full of promise:—
'Dans le monde de la realité,' that thinker had apparently concluded, 'comme dans le monde des fées, la femme appartient toujours à celui qui sait arriver à elle et la délivrer de la situation où elle languit.'
Here was the situation, here the woman languished, here was Dick ready for the part of Fairy Prince.
He reflected with satisfaction that while the heroine of fairy stories may very suitably be shepherdess, goose girl, beggar maid, the hero is inevitably a prince—never a cattle breeder. Did this not hint the triumph of Court over Farm, Athens over Bœotia, Capital over Colony?
If Dick was no prince, he was young, amusing, good-looking, rich enough to wander in comfort about Africa and bold enough to call such wandering 'exploration' (at any rate to the journalists at Southampton). The omens were favourable.
Dinner the first evening had been planned to suggest a tacit comparison between Norah's present lot and the world of civilised luxury whose gate his kiss would open.
He had shown Africa in damaging contrast with Europe. Now he applied himself to set the lover in high relief against the husband.