Forging the Blades Part 14

"What did Verna shoot?"

Both started at the voice behind them, and turned their heads. The girl stood erect, smiling, in every way winsome and attractive.

"You shouldn't talk so loud, father dear. You're giving away our secrets to any pa.s.ser-by. It doesn't matter about Mr Denham, of course, because he's in them: an accomplice, an accessary, both before and after the fact--isn't that the correct expression?"

Denham was set wondering. "An accessary, both before and after the fact," he repeated to himself. And this was the girl who had described herself as "utterly uneducated."

"I'm going for a stroll," she went on. "Will you come, father?"

"I think not, dear. I promised to meet one or two of them at the club about now."

"All right."

Denham started up, with an abruptness somewhat unusual in him.

"Might I accompany you, Miss Halse?" he said, as she was turning away.

"I shall be delighted," she answered, flas.h.i.+ng a smile at him, "We'll go down through the bush--they've cut out some paths through it, and it's lovely down there. We can come out again just below the Nongqai barracks. That'll make just a nice round. So long, father."

Ben Halse sat back in his chair, watching them down the garden path.

"They look well together. A fine pair, by Jove!" Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and again he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed to himself with emphasis, "A fine pair, by Jove!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

DEVELOPMENTS.

The dictum of Ben Halse with regard to his daughter and their new friend was unconsciously echoed by more than one pa.s.ser-by, as the two strolled leisurely along the broad road which const.i.tuted the main "street" of the towns.h.i.+p, between its lines of foliage, Verna nodding to an acquaintance here and there. Denham was rather an out-of-the-way kind of stranger to drop suddenly into their midst, and again, he seemed to be "in" with the Halses. Could he be an English relation of theirs?

they wondered, for there was an unmistakable "out from home" stamp upon him.

"Do you know, you are rather a puzzle to me, Miss Halse," he suddenly broke out, with regard to nothing in particular.

"Am I? In what way?"

They had reached one of the winding forest roads which had been artificially cleared, and thus made into delightful drives or walks.

High overhead the tall tree-tops met, and in the shade beneath, the gaze, turning to either side, met nothing but actual "forest primeval."

"Why, in this way," he answered, "Your own surroundings at home, from your account of it and your father's, must be uncommonly like this; yet when you _get_ here, among a lot of other people, and houses and gardens and tennis, and all that sort of thing, the first thing you do is to start off for a lonely walk in the forest."

"Lonely walk? But I don't feel lonely. You--are fairly good company."

And she flashed at him an uncommonly captivating smile.

"I? Oh, I am an accident. You would have gone anyhow, with or without me."

With the words something struck him. Was he such an "accident" after all? Denham was not a conceited man, but he was no fool. He was a man of the world, and was perfectly well aware that from a "worldly goods"

point of view he would be regarded as a "catch" by most women. Yet somehow, even if the fact of his being here was not accidental, the idea did not displease him--anything but. And he had known his present companion exactly three hours and a half.

"I suppose I should," she answered. "As for the 'other people,' I don't know that I care much about anybody. They're a very good sort, and we're civil to each other when we meet, and so on. But that's about all. I've been so much alone, you see."

"You remind me of the standing joke about the London 'bus driver--when he gets a day off he spends it riding about on top of another 'bus as a 'fare,' likewise the actor, under similar circ.u.mstances, goes to other theatres."

Verna laughed. "Yes, I suppose I'm like that, too. But, do you know, I'm rather energetic--must always be moving."

"So I should judge. It's lovely here, but these dense growths of vegetation, especially down in a hollow like this, always strike me as miasmatic."

Verna looked surprised.

"But this is the first time you have been into--in this country, at any rate."

He smiled. He could have told a different story.

"I have been in South America, and the forest belts here are a joke to that. But tell me now about the shooting of the record koodoo. Your father wasn't joking when he said it was your work?"

"No, it's true." Then she stopped. A sudden idea had struck her. She did not want to pose as an Amazon before this acquaintance of just three hours and three-quarters. She wished her father had said nothing about it.

"Well done. Why, you're a regular Diana," said Denham enthusiastically.

"A regular what? I told you I was utterly uneducated."

"So you did, and I didn't believe you, nor do I now. Ladies are not expected to be up in the cla.s.sics, except the 'advanced' ones, and they're none the better for it. Well, the party I mentioned was a mythical female given to shooting stags with a bow and arrows that wouldn't damage a mouse--at least that's how she's represented in sculpture and painting. Likewise with an incidental cur or two thrown in."

Verna laughed merrily.

"Oh, is that it?" she said. "Well, I told you I was an ignoramus."

"Yes; but tell me now about the shooting of the record head."

She told him, told the story graphically and well, but so far as her own part in it was concerned rather diffidently.

Denham was interested with a vengeance, and in his own mind could not but draw contrasts. This girl, walking beside him in her neat, tasteful attire, why, they might have been walking on an English country road or in an English park! She would have fitted in equally well there. She might have been giving him an account of some dance or theatrical performance, yet just as naturally did she narrate the midnight poaching expedition and the shooting of the large animal by the light of the moon--by herself. The naturalness of her, too, struck him with astonishment: the utter self-possession, living, as she did, a secluded life.

"What are you thinking about?" she said, for he had relapsed into unconscious silence.

"About you," he answered.

"About me? I expect I can guess what you were thinking."

"Try."

"Very well. You were thinking: Here's a boisterous, sporting female, who rides and shoots like a man, and who fires pistol shots at natives when they offend her; and who probably smokes and swears and drinks, into the bargain."

"Go on. Anything else?"

"No; that's enough to go on with."

"All right. I was thinking nothing of the kind. I was thinking of your pluck, for one thing, and your naturalness for another. I was also thinking that we were having an awfully jolly walk."