On The Firing Line [21]
Is there any especially peaceful subject you would like to discuss?"
"Yes. Please explain your name."
She looked up at him with sudden literalness.
"It is for my grandmother. For four hundred years there has been an Ethel Dent in every generation."
"I meant the other."
"Oh, Cooee?" She laughed. "It dates from our first coming out here, when we were children. My old Kaffir nurse--I was only five, that first trip--used to call me so, and every one took it up. We went back to England, after a few weeks, and the name was dropped; but my uncle stayed out here, and he and my cousin always kept the old word."
Weldon stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"I rather like it, do you know?" he said.
"Surely, you don't think it fits me?"
His eyes moved from her shining hair to the hem of her elaborate white gown. Then he smiled and shook his head.
"Not to-day, perhaps. But the Miss Dent of the Dunottar Castle--"
She interrupted him a little abruptly.
"Does that mean I am two-sided?"
"No; only complex."
She smiled in gracious response.
"You did that very well, Mr. Weldon," she said, with a slight accent of superiority which galled him. Then, before he could reply, she changed the subject, speaking with a lowered voice. "And what of the Captain?"
It suited his mood not to understand her.
"In what way?"
"Every way. What do you think of him?"
Then she drew back, abashed by the fervor of the answer, as he said slowly,--
"That the Creator made him, and then broke the pattern."
The little pause which followed caught the alert attention of the hostess, and convinced her that it was time to shift the groups to another combination. A swift gesture summoned Weldon to the table, while Frazer dropped into his vacant chair. Ethel met the Captain with only a half-concealed eagerness. This was not the first time that a consciously trivial word of hers had been crushed out of life by Weldon's serious dignity. She was never quite able to understand his mood upon such occasions. The man was no prig. At times, he was as merry as a boy. At other times, he showed an inflexible seriousness which left her with the vague feeling of being somehow or other in the wrong. The result was a mood of pique, rather than of antagonism. Up to that time, Ethel Dent had known only unreserved approval. Weldon's occasional gravity, to her mind, suggested certain reservations. By way of overcoming these reservations, she focussed her whole attention upon Captain Leo Frazer. Across the table, Weldon, in the intervals of his talk with his hostess, could hear the low murmur of their absorbed conversation.
It had been at Ethel's suggestion that the tea-table had been set, that hot afternoon, under the trees in the heart of the garden. Just at the crossing of two broad walks, a vine-roofed kiosk gave shelter from the late sunshine, while its bamboo screens were half raised to show the long perspective of garden walk and distant lawn. Save for the orange grove at the left and the ash-colored leaves of the silver wattle above them, Weldon could almost have fancied himself in England. The lawn with its conventional tennis court was essentially English; English, too, the tray with its fixtures. There, however, the resemblance stopped. The ebony handmaiden who brought out the tray was never found in private life outside the limits of South Africa. When she sought foreign countries, it was merely as a denizen of a midway plaisance.
"Yes, and their names are their most distinctive feature," Alice assented to Weldon's comment.
"More than their mouths?" he asked, with a flippant recollection of Kruger Roberts engrossed in his jam tin.
"At least as much so," she responded, laughing. "You notice that I called our maid Syb. She told me, when she came, that her old master named her Sybarite. I understood it, the next day, when I found her snoring on the drawing-room sofa."
During the time of her answer, Weldon took his opportunity to look steadily at his young hostess. Up to the moment of the shifting of the groups, he had
"Yes. Please explain your name."
She looked up at him with sudden literalness.
"It is for my grandmother. For four hundred years there has been an Ethel Dent in every generation."
"I meant the other."
"Oh, Cooee?" She laughed. "It dates from our first coming out here, when we were children. My old Kaffir nurse--I was only five, that first trip--used to call me so, and every one took it up. We went back to England, after a few weeks, and the name was dropped; but my uncle stayed out here, and he and my cousin always kept the old word."
Weldon stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"I rather like it, do you know?" he said.
"Surely, you don't think it fits me?"
His eyes moved from her shining hair to the hem of her elaborate white gown. Then he smiled and shook his head.
"Not to-day, perhaps. But the Miss Dent of the Dunottar Castle--"
She interrupted him a little abruptly.
"Does that mean I am two-sided?"
"No; only complex."
She smiled in gracious response.
"You did that very well, Mr. Weldon," she said, with a slight accent of superiority which galled him. Then, before he could reply, she changed the subject, speaking with a lowered voice. "And what of the Captain?"
It suited his mood not to understand her.
"In what way?"
"Every way. What do you think of him?"
Then she drew back, abashed by the fervor of the answer, as he said slowly,--
"That the Creator made him, and then broke the pattern."
The little pause which followed caught the alert attention of the hostess, and convinced her that it was time to shift the groups to another combination. A swift gesture summoned Weldon to the table, while Frazer dropped into his vacant chair. Ethel met the Captain with only a half-concealed eagerness. This was not the first time that a consciously trivial word of hers had been crushed out of life by Weldon's serious dignity. She was never quite able to understand his mood upon such occasions. The man was no prig. At times, he was as merry as a boy. At other times, he showed an inflexible seriousness which left her with the vague feeling of being somehow or other in the wrong. The result was a mood of pique, rather than of antagonism. Up to that time, Ethel Dent had known only unreserved approval. Weldon's occasional gravity, to her mind, suggested certain reservations. By way of overcoming these reservations, she focussed her whole attention upon Captain Leo Frazer. Across the table, Weldon, in the intervals of his talk with his hostess, could hear the low murmur of their absorbed conversation.
It had been at Ethel's suggestion that the tea-table had been set, that hot afternoon, under the trees in the heart of the garden. Just at the crossing of two broad walks, a vine-roofed kiosk gave shelter from the late sunshine, while its bamboo screens were half raised to show the long perspective of garden walk and distant lawn. Save for the orange grove at the left and the ash-colored leaves of the silver wattle above them, Weldon could almost have fancied himself in England. The lawn with its conventional tennis court was essentially English; English, too, the tray with its fixtures. There, however, the resemblance stopped. The ebony handmaiden who brought out the tray was never found in private life outside the limits of South Africa. When she sought foreign countries, it was merely as a denizen of a midway plaisance.
"Yes, and their names are their most distinctive feature," Alice assented to Weldon's comment.
"More than their mouths?" he asked, with a flippant recollection of Kruger Roberts engrossed in his jam tin.
"At least as much so," she responded, laughing. "You notice that I called our maid Syb. She told me, when she came, that her old master named her Sybarite. I understood it, the next day, when I found her snoring on the drawing-room sofa."
During the time of her answer, Weldon took his opportunity to look steadily at his young hostess. Up to the moment of the shifting of the groups, he had