"Well, Henry, that's more than I could say. Here, wait till I catch that porter's eye. He's taking my cabin trunk to the wrong heap. About what was in my head between here and the Coast, I'll not say, but once out there, I'll tell you frankly I gave little enough thought to anything except Coast interests. The first place I went ashore at after Sierra Leone was our own factory at Smooth, and they'd had a fight there which only ended up when our whistle blew. The clearing between the factory buildings and the forest was full of dead men. I found out that no fewer than 800 Okky savages had attacked the place, and they were all held off by one of our clerks with a couple of Winchesters, and a half-caste girl who loaded for him. It sounds like a tale out of a book, and you needn't believe it unless you like; I don't think I should believe it unless I had seen things for myself, but I did see the men who had been actually shot when they tried to rush the place, and I can guarantee the truth of the story." "Don't tell me there's a romance between you and your clerk." "There wasn't room for one. He was engaged to the heroine already, and was as consistently rude to me as he knew how. But I don't mind telling you he was a magnificent fellow. He was a gentleman, too, which is rather a rare thing to find on the Coast. But you're letting me do all the talk. You haven't told me about yourself. What have you been doing?" "The usual work of a busy solicitor; getting new clients, and sticking to the old ones. I can report good, steady success, Kitty. We can start pretty comfortably." A Customs searcher put his usual questions, and Kate smiled on him and said she had nothing to declare. He scrawled a chalk hieroglyphic on all her property without opening a single piece. "There, look, Henry, stop that porter. He's taking a case of mine to the wrong cab. Thanks, I wouldn't have lost that case for a king's ransom." "Butterflies?" "No, a native war horn in ivory." "Oh, they're fairly common." "Yes, but a friend gave me this, and I want to keep it. There, I think that's the lot. Good-by, Henry. You'll come and see me at Princes' Park when I'm settled down again?" "But, Kitty, can't I drive out with you now? I'd so looked forward to driving back with you. There's plenty of room in the cab." "No," said Kate, "I'd rather you went home now, and thought over again what I'm like now that I've come back to England with a West Coast flavor. I know you'll disapprove of me as a possible wife, but I do hope you'll see your way of keeping me on the list of your friends. Nobody knows you ever suggested anything more, unless you have told them, and I don't see why they should know. But I'm more than ever convinced that I'm not the girl to make you the wife you deserve. Don't answer me now, there's a nice boy. Just go to the club and have a good dinner, and ring me up some time this evening and say you thoroughly agree with me."