“But I 've read that men go out to shoot springboks.”
“I'm afraid they do,” said Herold.
“Men deliberately kill these beautiful, harmless things, with their melting eyes?” Her own filled with moisture. “Oh, Walter! How can men be so vile?” She knelt on the ground, and spoke to one, which poked its sensitive nose through the railing. “Oh, you dear! Oh, you perfectly lovely dear!”
Then she rose and took Herold by the arm, and a little shiver ran through her shoulders. “I suppose men kill everything. I 've found out they even kill one another. Would you or John kill creatures that did you no harm?”
She looked at him straight, with the searching candour of a spotless soul.
“I've shot birds which were afterwards eaten,” he replied uncomfortably. “You see, dear, you eat partridges and pheasants, don't you? Well, they have to be killed, just like sheep or oxen. Often in South Africa men's lives depend on the supply of springbok meat they can obtain.”
“And does John shoot little birds?”
“John has n't had the opportunity of going about to shooting parties. All his life he has had to work too hard.”
“I'm glad,” said Stella, curtly, and for a while she walked on in silence, and poor Herold felt like an unhanged wallower in innocent gore.
At last she said, “Are n't there any lions and tigers?”