Part 10 (1/2)

”Thank _you_ for your bright companions.h.i.+p,” he returned, and the regret he felt at parting crept into his voice.

He released her hand and stood back while the train moved slowly out of the station. The girl, leaning from the open window, saw the tall stooping figure on the platform, with face turned towards her, until she drew back suddenly and sat down in the corner seat, a feeling of great loneliness in her heart, and in her eyes the brightness of unshed tears.

She took up the book he had given her, and opened it, and read on the fly-leaf his name, written in small, unsteady characters,--Paul Hallam.

She sat with the book open in her lap, gazing at his name.

Book 2--CHAPTER TWELVE.

Esme Lester lived with a married sister at Port Elizabeth in a little house in Havelock Street. Her brother-in-law was junior partner in a store which was not a particularly flouris.h.i.+ng concern, and the family finances were generally at low ebb. There were two children, a boy and a girl, named respectively John and Mary. When the family were all at home the little house seemed full to overflowing.

Esme had a tiny bedroom at the back, overlooking a cemented yard. There was one beauty in this yard, a huge oleander tree, the dark green leaves of which and the cl.u.s.ters of sweet-scented pink blossoms reared themselves against her window and shaded and perfumed her little room.

If the oleander had been stricken by drought, or any other mischance had befallen it to cause it to die, the house would have been unbearable to the girl. As it was, the oleander made life possible, even when the children were troublesome, and when her sister and her husband quarrelled. They quarrelled frequently; over the children, over the housekeeping expenses, over the lack of money. Lack of money was the princ.i.p.al grievance.

Esme boarded with them, because it seemed more natural to stay with her own people than with strangers, and because her sister liked to have her. But she was not fond of her brother-in-law; and the constant disagreements worried her.

It seemed to her, when she entered the house after her pleasant holiday, that she had left all the peace and romance behind and returned to the drab reality of the common daily round. Her sister welcomed her with restrained pleasure, but the children hung about her in unqualified delight, bubbling over in childish fas.h.i.+on with excitement at her return.

”You are looking well,” her sister remarked. ”I wish I could take a holiday. Single girls don't realise how lucky they are until after they are married. Jim and I spent our honeymoon at the Zuurberg. I thought it dull.”

Esme reflected, while she regarded her sister with a puzzled scrutiny, that it was scarcely surprising her marriage had proved on the whole a disappointing affair. To feel dull on one's honeymoon is not a promising beginning.

”I thought it wonderful,” she said.

”You had a good time, I suppose. Were there many people there?”

”A fair number. But it's the place itself. It is lovely.”

Mrs Bainbridge looked unconvinced.

”People, not places, make a holiday enjoyable,” she said with a certain worldly wisdom which jarred on her hearer. ”Were there any men there?”

”A few--yes.”

Her sister laughed.

”You always get on with men,” she said. ”I wonder you don't marry.”

”But, according to your view, that would be a mistake.”

”Not if the man were well off. It is having to cheese-pare that makes the shoe pinch. Marriage has its compensations.” Her gaze rested reflectively on the children. ”One grumbles,” she said; ”but one wouldn't undo all of it.”

”_I'm_ never going to marry,” John, aged eight, announced with st.u.r.dy determination. ”I've seen too much of it.”

His mother laughed, and Esme caught him up and kissed him.

”That's for you, you stony-hearted little misogynist,” she said, as he struggled to elude her embrace.

”John's a silly kid,” Mary, his senior by two years, announced in the crus.h.i.+ng tones of a person who resents a slight to her s.e.x.

John freed himself from his aunt's detaining hold in order to vindicate his insulted manhood; and Esme left them to their scuffling and went upstairs to unpack.