TWO UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

Early in the afternoon Carew rode to the mission station to tell Ailsa Grenville and her husband of the expected visitors, and of how he was likely to depart in the morning for M’rekwas and be away about a fortnight.

Ailsa Grenville smiled at him archly when he told her. “Why do you run away when, for once in a way, you have the chance of a little companionship? It would do you more good to stay.”

“I think not; and besides,” he added, hastily, “I am going on business.”

“A convenient sort of business, I fancy. Why not wait and see them first?”

“Well, I could hardly go away immediately after their arrival, when Mr. Pym probably knows of the letter despatched to me from headquarters. It is far simpler to send a runner back with excuses.”

“But why go at all?” in a persuasive voice.

Carew walked to the door and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot; and Ailsa knew by his face that, though he did not resent her questioning, he would take no notice of it. And it made her a little sad, for of all the men she knew, next to Billy, her husband, she admired Carew, and she regretted deeply his insistent determination to stand aloof from mankind generally behind the barriers he had built up.

Then Billy himself came in: khaki-clad, vigorous, and gay as ever; and when he heard the news he was less reticent, and exclaimed outright, “But what do you want to go away for? Why, it will be quite a treat for you to have ladies there; and who knows, one of the heiresses may be very charming charming enough even for your fastidious taste!”

“I prefer the company of the veldt,” was all he said, without relaxing the fixity of his face; “ladies are more in Stanley’s line.”

“The Kid must be awfully pleased,” Ailsa said, smiling. “I’m sure he isn’t going away.”

Carew, lying back in a big chair, was leisurely lighting his pipe, and he did not reply. All his attitude showed only cold indifference, and it would have been difficult to believe that, even in his heart, he had taken the trouble to be resentful. Ailsa, watching, felt a little impatient with him. She wanted to break through the shell in which he chose to hide that self which her instinct told her was so different to his outward seeming. What had become of the gay Londoner, who drove the smartest four-in-hand in the park, and rode the fastest horse to hounds? She longed to write home and ask her people of his story, but bitter things had been said when she elected to go into exile with her husband, and there had been almost no correspondence since. And Billy had been away in South Africa at the time of the crash and heard nothing about it. All he could tell her was that Carew of the Blues had been known as one of the gayest of the gay fifteen years or so ago, and that suddenly he had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth; and that Carew of the B.S.A.P. was the same man, only different, and he must be over forty years of age. So she had to content herself as well as she could, and be glad that, at any rate, while he remained in the Victoria district, they could have his companionship, though he chose to keep his own counsel as to why he was there.

At first she had been rather afraid of him, and felt shy and awkward when he came to see them; but Billy’s attitude of jovial good fellowship, in no way repulsed by the other’s cold reserve, had helped to reassure her, and now they both appeared unconscious of any lack of warmth in their visitor. If he liked to be silent he could, and if he seemed in a taciturn mood they took no notice.

When he called for his horse to return he said good-bye to her before mounting, and spoke of not coming again for a fortnight, and she watched him ride away regretfully. Evidently he did not mean to be sociable, even to the lady travellers, and it was no use hoping anything for him.

In the meantime, the first ambulance, containing Meryl and Diana, arrived at the ruins. Mr. Pym was detained in Edwardstown with his engineer, and might not join them until the next day, but the girls begged him to let them go on, longing to be out in the open again, away from hotels and bungalows.

So a police-boy from the town camp was sent on to escort them, and the Zimbabwe camp notified by runner of their approach. Stanley opened the letter in the absence of his chief, and much to his own delectation, was waiting alone to receive them upon the chosen camping-ground on their arrival. Diana saw him first, and remarked joyfully that he was white.

“Hooroosh!...” said she, “there’s a man as well as ruins.” And a little later, “I’m afraid he’s only a boy, but he looks a nice boy, and there are occasions when the ‘half a loaf’ proverb applies to ‘half a man.’”

Then he helped her out of the ambulance after receiving them with a grave salute, and regretted that, in the absence of Major Carew, there was no one but himself to receive them. He was evidently a trifle shy and embarrassed, stammering a little as he offered his services to superintend the pitching of their camp, with eyes that would wander from the elder cousin to Diana’s small, impish, alluring face.

“Have some tea with us first,” said she. “We’ve already acquired a few Rhodesian vices, such as an unlimited capacity for tea-drinking, and Gelungwa can make quite a decent apology for the beverage which cheers but not inebriates.”

They sat down, and laughed and chatted together until the kettle boiled, and before the tea was finished The Kid had fallen in love with both, and was congratulating himself that Carew had taken that afternoon ride. Then the girls said they would ramble while their tent was pitched, but disagreed as to which direction they would take first. Meryl had left her little guide-book with her father, and wanted to postpone the temple until she had it. Diana said it was too hot to attempt the Acropolis Hill. In the end they separated. Meryl strolled towards the Acropolis and Diana sought the cool shadiness of the temple.

About the same time Carew started his homeward ride, and when he reached the base of the Acropolis Hill he gave his horse to the runner who had gone with him to carry some books for Ailsa Grenville, and climbed a little way into the hill to remark a point of investigation he had been discussing with Grenville; and, quite suddenly, round a sharp piece of masonry, he came upon Meryl Pym. She wore a large, shady hat, and she was standing quite still, gazing across the country. For a moment Carew stood quite still also. It was odd that she had not heard his steps upon the rough footpath, but apparently she was too absorbed to hear anything at all. He was exceedingly relieved and drew aside stealthily, prepared to return quickly the way he had come. But before he started he glanced once more, for something in her quiet pose struck oddly upon his heart. She looked very slim and graceful and girlish in a simple washing frock of some soft grey material, with little Quakerish cuffs and collar, and the big, shady hat tied on with a ribbon. And all in a moment he was transported years before, and there was a Devonshire wood, and a slim lassie, and little Quakerish cuffs and collar, and eyes that watched and waited watched and waited for him.

And then....

No, not even in thought would he dwell again upon what followed. It was a weakness he had fought down. A weakness that even now, given rein, could unman him. The quick light vanished from his eyes, the mouth grew stern again, and he turned to descend.

At the same moment Meryl turned also and came towards his hiding-place. He had just time to step further back and take shelter behind a low, bushy tree, which would hardly reveal his khaki, before she passed. And just in front of him she raised her head and glanced upwards, so that he saw her eyes, and for a moment his pulses seemed to stop beating. If her pose had reminded him of someone it was as nothing compared to her face with that upward glance. The delicate contour, the fine features, the wistful, dreamy, quiet eyes. Were they blue, or were they grey?... How came they with long, dark, curling lashes when her hair was a dusky, light shade, with soft waves and gleams of sunlight? In his hiding-place he stood very still and very rigid. For a moment he might have been part of the rock behind him. Then she passed on up the steep ascent, and he came out and retraced his steps, feeling a little dazed.

Who could she be?... But, of course, the party must have arrived unexpectedly: had not remained in Edwardstown as they intended. And she was one of the heiresses one of the flaunting, gaping, vulgar, dressed-up young women he had been secretly so resentful over. And, of course, she was none of these. Then suddenly he almost laughed; almost laughed aloud. For she was worse far, far worse. The gushing, loud-voiced heiress he might have coped with. His frigidity froze most people if he chose; and avoidance was not difficult. But what could he do with Joan his love, his dead love Joan looking at him out of this girl’s beautiful eyes, touching him with this girl’s slender hands, speaking to him from this stranger’s lips? It was impossible impossible; all the careful training of that fifteen years in exile would be undone. His very life would be undermined again. For the moment it seemed incredible, preposterous. He felt stunned by it.

Then his rigid self-control came to his aid, and his face grew stern and hard.

The preposterous thing was that he should let a chance resemblance hit him so; should even admit the possibility of being undone after all his careful self-training. No, a thousand times no; he was not such a weak fool as that. The strength he had won was his still. He had only to go on being resolute and cold and the past would lie down again, and once more go quietly to sleep.

He defied it to overcome him now. By every agonised pang, by every hour of unfathomable bitterness, by every solitary year of self-chosen exile, he insisted that he must prevail. He strode on, scarcely seeing anything about him, and his face grew sterner and sterner. Then he came within sight of the camping-place, and saw the white tent, and Stanley giving directions, while Moore and some black boys unpacked things from the ambulance.

And he thought he would get more complete control of himself before he joined them; take this thing fairly by the throat and throttle it, that he might regain his peace of mind absolutely before the second encounter with the owner of the face and form that seemed for a moment to have made an upheaval in his life. So he turned aside and made for the temple, feeling glad and relieved at the consciousness that the mood was passing, and reassured that, being no more taken by surprise, he would successfully master it. Probably he could still go away on the morrow, and once away, Rhodesia would take him to her heart again. He knew it full well. Every day now the country was giving back to him of what he had given to her; lulling him, soothing him, revivifying him with her freshness and her charm.

But his mind was very occupied still and his vision clouded as he passed into the cool shade of the temple, and he did not see a small, dainty person with an impish face perched high on a broken wall, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and a queer, fitful, half-serious, half-bored expression in her dark eyes. Instead, seeing no one and thinking himself alone, he sat down on a low wall quite near to her and stared gloomily at the ground. Diana, not a little amused, surveyed him at her leisure. “What in the world,” she wondered, “was this smart, soldierly looking man, correctly booted and spurred, sitting down there for in the ruins?...”

The great temple at Zimbabwe has never been roofed. The ruins consist of a wonderful outer wall, from twenty-two to thirty-two feet high and in some places fifteen feet thick, of an elongated shape, and within this wall are remnants of other walls which formed separate small enclosures. There is also the sacred enclosure with the conical tower, and leading into it from the north entrance the wonderfully contrived passage, between two high walls, scarcely more than a shoulder’s breadth apart in one place. Amid the ruins trees have grown up, many of them higher than the outer wall, and these shade the glare of the sun, casting cool shadows and networks of sunlight upon the broken walls. And on the afternoon in question here and there were splashes of brilliant scarlet, where a Kaffir Boom tree flowered with a flaunting indifference to the passing of centuries and races.

Diana, with her whimsical, artistic temperament, was fully alive to the fascination and uniqueness of her surroundings, but being a little tired with the drive, she felt for the moment somewhat impatient with ruins generally, and just a shade depressed with a certain air of dead forlornness that hovered all around. Then into the midst of this dream of antiquity strode a stern, fierce-looking, very up-to-date sportsman, who sat, for no conceivable reason, on a broken wall and stared at the ground. For one moment her sense of the ludicrous made her almost laugh aloud. Then, with sudden, upleaping interest, she sat still as a mouse and watched him. Once she half smiled to herself. There was a man, then, as well as a boy! She was not going to be entirely stifled in ruins, after all! She went on with her cogitations, staring hard, her head a little to one side. A real man, too, with a lean, brown face, and a square, determined chin, and a nose quite Roman enough to suit any novelist, and dark hair a little thin on the top and a little grey at the temples. She could not be sure if he were a soldier or not, but evidently he had been riding, for he still carried a hunting-crop; and also, judging by his face and attitude, something was considerably on his mind.

Without the slightest movement she sat on and waited; and that was exceedingly characteristic of Diana. Where another girl would have felt embarrassed and made some sound to relieve the tension, she almost held her breath to retain it. The situation was unique. In a life that offered deplorably little of novelty and adventure she would not for worlds have thrown away such a chance. Meryl, on the other hand, would probably not have felt the tension; she would have quietly walked past him out at the entrance. Diana felt the atmosphere of the footlights and calmly waited.

And, of course, in the end, vaguely conscious of some disturbing, not quite accountable element, Carew looked up straight into her eyes.

Diana looked straight back and tried hard to keep her lips from twitching. She noticed pleasurably that he did not start; that he scarcely even showed surprise. Such a man, she felt, would not. Yet the very fact that for several seconds he remained perfectly still, staring at her, showed that he was quite satisfactorily astounded. Then he stood up, and waited a moment as if he expected her to speak. She thought he might have smiled. The hero on the stage, of course, would smile divinely and a blush like a tender dawn would overspread the heroine’s rose-leaf cheeks.

But he did not smile; to be honest, he looked excessively annoyed, and no tender blush of any sort could possibly have shown upon her sunburnt face.

Still, she did not intend to flinch, and if the mischievous smile lurking at the corners of her mouth died away, she still regarded him with a calmness equal to his own, and with the impishness quite emphatically still in her eyes. Then suddenly she felt as if there had been some invisible sword-play between them. Her instinct told her he resented her silent watching, and that his cool, collected front now and his silence were the expression of his resentment. It was not in the least like a fairy story, of course; here was the prince, surly, stony, and bearish, and the princess, red and brown with sunburn, on the point of being caught at a disadvantage. But there Diana’s native wits came to her aid, and she did a clever thing.

“Would you mind helping me down?” she asked, sweetly. “I climbed up here to get a good view of the interior, and when I try to descend the stones slip so, I am nervous. I did not like to disturb you before,” she finished, unabashed and unblushing, but carefully lowering her eyes a moment.

He stepped forward at once and reached his hand up to her, and she saw that his keen eyes were of that intense clear blue seen in so many strong, notable men, but that they looked at her in a cold, aloof manner which made her feel rather small and childish. “Surely,” she thought, “he is not genuinely angry just because I did not tell him I was there?” Aloud she said:

“Thank you,” and placed her hand quite calmly in the strong, inviting brown one upheld to her.

Then, taken with a fit of devilry out of growing exasperation, she added, “I’m not the daughter, I’m the niece.”

“Miss Pym, I presume,” he said, coldly, and bowed to her.

“Miss Diana Pym,” she replied, and slightly inclined her head.

“My name is Carew,” he told her, with bluntness.

“And are you ... er ... a scientist, evolving a theory about the ruins?”

“I am a policeman.” He said it brusquely, almost rudely, and Diana was taken with a sudden desperate inclination to laugh. All in a moment he reminded her forcibly of the uniformed autocrat holding up one lordly hand to stop the traffic. She moved towards the entrance, keeping her face averted. “The same sort of policeman as Mr. Stanley, I suppose?” she suggested, affably, but he seemed not to hear her, and a covert glance at his face was not reassuring. But the mere fact only spurred her on. If she was silent he might think he had overawed her. Goodness! how appalling! She quickened her step, and tossed her small head a little with a kind of challenging jerk.

“I rather like your ruin,” she said. “It’s quite a nice old heap of stones.”