Blue Aloes | Page 9

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 was heard calling sharply for her night lemonade and someone to unlace her frock. Next, the servants shuffled softly homeward through the dusk. The old Cape cook, who had quarters somewhere near the kitchen, went the rounds, locking up. The clang of the iron bar falling into its bracket across the great front door echoed through the house. Then all was still.
In the sinister, brooding peace of the desert that ensued, the night noises presently began to make themselves heard.
A cricket somewhere in the house set up a sprightly cheeping. Far, far away, an animal wailed, and a jackal distressfully called to its mate. Then something laughed terribly--rocking, hollow laughter--it might have been a hyena.
Christine Chaine was a Catholic. She crossed herself in the darkness and softly