"You don't? No wonder you've done no good prospecting. A prospector who refuses a drink after a hot afternoon's exertion! Why, you haven't learnt the rudiments of your craft yet. But you must want one, and so I'll fix it up for you. There, say when--is that right?" she went on brightly, holding out the glass. "Yes, I know what you are going to say--of course it is, if I mixed it. You ought to be ashamed to utter such a threadbare banality." He took the glass from her hand, but set it down untasted. The magnetism of her eyes had drawn him. It seemed to madden him, to sap his very reason, to stir every fibre in his body. "No," she said decidedly, deftly eluding the clasp in which he would fain have imprisoned her again, and extending a warning hand. "No, not again,--so soon," she added mentally. "Remember, I have not forgiven you for that outrageous piece of impertinence, and don't know that I shall either. I am wondering how you could have dared." If ever there was a past mistress in the art of fooling the other sex, assuredly Hermia Blachland might lay claim to that distinction. Standing there in the doorway, flashing back a bright, half-teasing, half-caressing look, which utterly belied the seeming sternness of her words, the effect she produced was such as to turn him _instanter_ into a most complete fool, because her thorough and subservient slave. Then she went out. We have said that one of the large circular huts within the enclosure served the purpose of a kitchen, and hither she proceeded with the exceedingly useful and unromantic object of getting supper ready. Yet, standing there in the midst of stuffy and uninviting surroundings, as she supervised the Mashuna boys and the frying of the antelope steaks, even that prosaic occupation was not entirely devoid of romance to-night; for somehow she found herself discharging it extra carefully, for was it not for him? "Now, Tickey, keep those goggle eyes of yours on what you're doing, instead of rolling them around on everything and everybody else," she warned, apostrophising the small boy whose entrance had been so inopportune a short time ago. "Yes, missis," replied the urchin, his round face splitting into a stripe of dazzling white as he grinned from ear to ear, whether at the recollection of what he had recently beheld, or out of sheer unthinking light-heartedness. Then he turned and made some remark in their own language to his companion, which caused that sooty imp to grin and chuckle too. "What's that you're grinning at, you little scamp?" said Hermia, sharply, with a meaning glance at a thin sjambok which hung on the wall, a cut or two from which was now and again necessary to keep these diminutive servitors up to the mark. "No be angry, missis. Tickey, he say, `Missis, she awful damn pretty.'" Hermia choked down a well-nigh uncontrollable explosion of laughter. "You mustn't use that word, Primrose," she said, trying to look stern. "It's a bad word."