"Lucy is not well; anæmic, Dr. Wiese says. I should send her home, only she refuses to go without me and I can’t leave till next year. Dr. Wiese does not insist on her going before then. He is trying a new tonic which seems to be blood-making; it ought to be, because—though I do not tell Lucy—it is made of blood—one of these new German inventions. Wiese says if we would only do like the Masai and the Iraku: tap the veins of our cattle and drink the hot blood—" "Ugh! don’t let’s talk about it; it makes me sick. I’m almost a vegetarian, you know. Couldn’t we go into your study? It is delicious here on the verandah, but I don’t want to be overheard." "Certainly: come this way." "What _wonderful_ petunias, yours are! I never saw such glowing colours. Your whole garden is a joy to the eye and a credit to the Concession...." "You’re _right_. But the credit lies with Riemer, the plantation manager; he gives it an eye. The Germans are wonderful horticulturists. I don’t think we sufficiently appreciate that fact at home. They are as good as the Dutch. Now then, here we are in my sanctum—rather untidy, I fear.... Take this chair..." "No, it is too reclining. I _do_ like an upright straight-backed chair when I want to speak out. My daughters say I’m like a character in one of Dickens’s books, who could never loll. They’re wonderful readers and remember everything they’ve read...." "Well now, what’s the trouble?" "It’s—it’s—this—horrid—_sexual_ question I’ve come about. You know what Ann Anderson is—I prefer to call her Ann Jamblin—I don’t like the two ’An’s’ together. Ann has a wonderful power for good, an energy in righteousness, and is as nearly sinless as any woman can be. But she’s also got _such_ an insight into other people’s sinfulness that she spends much of her time denouncing their wrong-doing—too much, I think. I tell her she’s out here to convert the blacks, and for the time being had better leave the whites alone. But she pays no heed to me—says her mission is to all men. She simply won’t let the Germans alone. We had terrible rows sometimes when you were away, though your sister did what she could to smooth things over. I admit some of them are utterly wicked. There is that monster Stolzenberg—whom the Masai call ’The Terror’—_Olduria_—. After he came to the Lake with his Ruga-ruga last October and shot all the flamingoes...." "WHAT?" roared Roger, leaping to his feet, and then wincing... "I never heard this before...!"