She remembered a verse of Percival Gibbon's about the veld:
There's a balm for crippled spirits In the open view Running from your very footsteps Out into the blue, Like a wagon track to heaven Straight 'twixt God and you.
Both Sarle and Nichols knew that track, she was sure. They were oddly alike, these two veld men, with their gentle ways, their brown muscular hands, and their eyes full of distance. A very different type to the sleek and handsome Bellew, who sat so composed under the many blighting glances cast his way.
"They know about the guile of creatures, but he has made an art of beguiling human beings," thought April, and all the vexation of the day came surging over her, almost spoiling her dinner and the pleasure of the evening. Almost--not quite! When you are "young and very sweet, with the jasmine in your hair," and have only to raise your eyes to see desire of you sitting unashamed in the eyes of the man you love, nothing can quite spoil your gladness of living. All the same, she stuck to the card-room the whole evening, and her resolution to give Sarle no chance of saying anything he might regret. He must have realized it after a time, when she had once or twice eluded his little plots to get her on deck, but he gave no sign. He was a hunter, and could bide his time with patience and serenity.
It was not in her plan that when they parted it should be just where the shadows of a funnel fell, nor that he should leave a swift kiss, in the palm of the hand she tendered him in bidding good-night; yet both of these things came to pass.
The stewardess who brought her an early cup of tea handed her a letter with the remark:
"It was under your door, m'lady. And please would you like your big trunks from the hold brought here, or will you pack in the baggage-room?"
"Oh, here, I think, stewardess. It will be much more convenient."
"Of course it will," agreed the good woman. "But, there! how the baggage men do grumble at having to lug up big trunks like yours and Mr. Bellew's!"
"I am very sorry," said April "but I'm afraid I can't help it." She had reflected swiftly that as she and Diana had so many possessions to exchange before packing, it could only be done in the privacy of he cabin. She was very tired after a "white night" all too crowded with the black butterflies of unhappy thought, and when she looked at the superscription on the envelope and saw that it was in Diana's writing she sighed. All the worries of the coming day rose up before her like a menacing wall with broken glass on the top.