The words sounded like a simple, frank statement; but somehow they robbed Gay of some of the perfection of her young and charming ensemble, and made her one of a crowd in which her distinction was lost. Druro felt this vaguely without being able to tell exactly how it happened. He knew nothing of the subtleties of a woman's mind. He had thought that Gay looked rather splendidly young and sweet, and, because of it, a fresh pang shot through him at the remembrance of her scornful dismissal of him the night before. But, with Mrs. Hading's words, the impression passed, and he got a quick vision of Gay as just an ordinary girl who had been extremely rude to him. This helped him to meet with equanimity the calm, clear glance she sent through him.
"Don't you know the little riding girl?" asked Mrs. Hading softly, but something in Druro's surprised expression made her cover the question with a faintly admiring remark: "She's quite good-looking, I think. Who is she?"
"The daughter of an old friend of mine--a Colonel Liscannon," said Druro, speaking in a low voice and rapidly. He would have preferred not to discuss Gay at all, but his natural generosity impelled him to accord her such dignity and place as belonged to her and not to leave her where Mrs. Hading's words seemed to place her--just the other side of some fine, invisible line.
"Ah, one of the early pioneers? They were all by way of being captains and colonels, weren't they?" murmured Marice Hading, still weaving fine, invisible threads.
Druro frowned slightly. "Colonel Liscannon is an old service-man----"
"May I beg for one of those delicious cigarettes you were smoking after lunch?" she said languidly. "And do tell where to get some like them. I find it so difficult to get anything at all smokable up here, except from your clubs."
Thus, Colonel Liscannon and his daughter were gracefully consigned to the limbo of subjects not sufficiently interesting to hold the attention of Mrs. Hading. If she could not, by reason of Druro's natural chivalry, put Gay just over the wrong side of some subtle social line she had drawn, she could, at least, thrust her out of the conversation altogether and out of Druro's mind. This was always a pastime she found fascinating--pushing someone out of a man's mind and taking the empty place herself--and one at which long practice had made her nearly perfect. So it is not astonishing that she succeeded so well with Druro that, when Gay left her friends and slipped out to her waiting horse, he did not even notice her going. He was busy trying to persuade Mrs. Hading to come for a spin around the Wankelo kopje in his car, and he was not unsuccessful. Only, they went further than the kopje. About six miles out they got a glimpse of a solitary rider ahead, going like the wind. A cloud of soft, ashen dust rising from under the horse's heels floated back and settled like the gentle dew from heaven upon the car and its occupants. Druro was on the point of slackening speed, but Mrs. Hading's pencilled brows met in a line above her eyes, and one of her little white teeth showed in her underlip.