_Sibyl_: "Yes, but what could we do on that? Poor papa could afford to give me nothing more than my trousseau.... Even on seven hundred a year, _if_ you get a Consulate, we couldn’t manage two households, and I’m perfectly certain I couldn’t stand the African climate long, and I should have to come home. I _don’t_ like roughing it, I should _dislike_ hot countries; and I _hate_ black people.... No, Roger ... dear ... be sensible... If you want to carve out a great career in Africa or India you don’t want to be hampered with a wife for several years to come; and then ... I’ll—I’ll find some really _nice_ girl to marry you, somebody with a little money. And Silchester might help you enormously. They’ll probably take him into the new Government—aren’t you glad that _horrid_ old Gladstone’s _gone_?—He’ll be at the Colonial Office or somewhere like that and I know he’d do anything I asked him, once we were married. If you still want to go back to Africa he shall get you made a Consul or a Governor or whatever it is you want...." But Roger was not going to listen to anything so cold-blooded, even though all the time an undercurrent of thought was glancing at the advantages that might accrue from Sibyl’s _mariage de convenance_. He’d be _hanged_ if he’d take anything from Lord Silchester.... He was entitled to some such appointment, anyway, after all he had done. But there, he had lost all interest in life and if he went to the bad, Sibyl would be to blame. All his interest in an African career had been bound up with Sibyl’s sharing it. With her at his side he felt equal to anything. He would conquer all Equatorial Africa, strike at the Mahdi from the south, find Emin Pasha, lay all Equatoria at the feet of Queen Victoria, and in no time Sibyl would be Lady Brentham—— "Yes," interjected Sibyl, "and lose my complexion and be old before my time, riding after you through the jungle, or living stupidly like a grass widow at home...." Yet as he jerked out his tirade rather theatrically she noted him with an approving eye. His anger and extravagance brought out a certain boyishness and, made him, with the freedom of the jungle about him, still additionally attractive physically.... He certainly was good-looking and in the prime of manhood ... she sighed ... the remembrance of Lord Silchester’s pale, somewhat flabby face, his slightly pedantic manner, his carefulness about his health.... He rode—yes—they had already had decorous rides together, but she imagined before the ride his cob had had some of the freshness taken out of him by the groom....