(The stars and fireflies—high and low),
And all the spangled world is wise
With knowledge that I almost know ...
“I’ll have to return to the search,” said the gardener.
“What for?” asked Courtesy, who always liked everything explained.
“For the suffragette,” he replied. “I’m tired of being respectable and in doubt.”
Luckily the priest had changed his table since Courtesy had changed her company. He sat at the far end of the verandah, with his back to every one. His righteousness had subsided to some extent since the earthquake, but he still looked on the gardener as a hopelessly lost lamb. Such a shepherd as the priest may yearn towards the lost lamb, but would rather not sit at the same table with it.
“If you start that silly game again, gardener,” said Courtesy, “you’ll have to throw over Mr. Twing’s job. Why can’t you leave the girl alone? She can’t have been killed, because there are no white people left unidentified. Why can’t you stick to one thing?”
“I have no glue in me,” replied the gardener. “I’m glad of it; there could be nothing duller than sticking to one thing. Besides, there’s nothing left to stick to. There was only half an hour’s work to do yesterday, although I spent three hours over it.”
Mrs. Rust shot a fountain of tobacco smoke into the air as a sign that she intended to speak. The priest liked Mrs. Rust, because his own tolerance of her vagaries made him feel so broad-minded. He liked to smile at her roguishly when she took a small whisky and soda; he liked to hand her the matches when she smoked; he liked to write to his sister at home: “One comes in contact with a worldly set out here, but if one is careful to keep one’s mind open, one finds points of contact undreamt of at home in one’s own more thoughtful set.” If the gardener had been a drunkard instead of being in love, the priest would have liked him better. But the gardener posed as being a non-drinker and a non-smoker on principle. Really the taste of spirits or of tobacco smoke made him feel sick.