Blue Aloes | Page 9

her. Any work was new to her, and governessing in Africa
is as different to governessing in England (which is bad enough) as
plowing cultivated land is to opening up virgin soil. But life had
unexpectedly laid the burden of work upon Christine Chaine, and
having put her hand to the plow, she did not mean to turn back. Only,
for once, she was glad when nightfall brought the hour when she could
leave her charges for a while in someone else's care.
Once the children were safely in bed, it was Meekie's task to sit beside
them until Christine had dined and rested, and chose to come to bed.
Meekie belonged to the kraal people, but she had white blood in her,
like so many natives, and spoke very good English.
That all the men on the farm should turn up to dinner that evening did
not seem to Christine so much a cause for surprise as for contempt. In
her short but not too happy experience of life, she had, like a certain
great American philosopher, discovered that the game of life is not

always "played square" when there is a woman in it. Of course, it was
comprehensible that all men liked a good dinner, especially when it
was not marred by hymns and long prayers, fervent to the point of
fanaticism. Equally, of course, the pretty hostess, with a charming word
of welcome for everyone, was an attraction in herself. But, somehow, it
sickened the clear heart of Christine Chaine to see this jubilant
gathering round a dinner table that was usually deserted, and from
which the host had just departed, a sick and broken man. She thought
the proceedings more worthy of a lot of heartless schoolboys delighting
in a master's absence than of decent, honest men.
And whatever she thought of the Hollanders and colonials, whose
traditions were unknown to her, it was certain that her scorn was
redoubled for the one man she knew to be of her own class and land.
Yet there he sat at the elbow of his hostess, calm and smiling, no whit
removed from his usual self-contained and arrogant self. Christine gave
him one long look that seemed to turn her violet eyes black; then she
looked no more his way. She could not have told why she hated this
action in him so bitterly. Perhaps she felt that he was worthy of higher
things, but, if questioned, she would probably have laid it at the door of
caste and country. All that she knew, for a poignant moment, was an
intense longing to strike the smile from his lips with anything to
hand--a wine-glass, a bowl, a knife.
Mercifully, the moment passed, and all that most of them saw was a
young girl who had come late to dinner--a girl with a rather radiant skin,
purply black hair that branched away from her face as though with a
life of its own, and violet eyes that, after one swordlike glance all round,
were hidden under a line of heavy lashes. The black-velvet dinner
gown she wore, simple to austerity, had just a faint rim of tulle at the
edges against her skin. Only an artist or connoisseur would have
observed the milkiness of that skin and the perfect lines under the
sombre velvet. Small wonder that most eyes turned to the lady who
tonight took the place of ceremony at the table, and who, as always,
was arrayed in the delicate laces and pinkish tints that seemed to call to
notice the gold of the hair, the rose of her cheek, and the golden-brown

shadows of her eyes.
The little cloud of sadness and loss that hovered over her, yet never
descended, was like the rain-cloud that sometimes threatens a June day.
It seemed everyone's business to drive that cloud away, and everyone
but Christine applied themselves nobly to the task. At the end of the
long dinner, all were so properly employed in this manner that
apparently no one noticed the departure of the silent, scornful-lipped
governess, and she was able to make her exit without notice or
remonstrance.
For a little while she walked up and down in the garden under the rays
of a new and early-retiring slip of moon. Then, with a pain at her heart
that she had hoped it was for ever out of the power of life to deal her,
she retired to the nursery, relieved the coloured nurse from her watch,
and went quietly to bed.
For fully an hour afterward she heard the echo of laughter and voices in
the front veranda--sometimes the chink of glasses. Later, Mrs. van
Cannan sang and played waltz-music to them in the drawing-room. At
last the men departed, one by one. Mrs. van Cannan