"Now, Justin," she said, as they watched the approach of the horseman. "I want to give you a word of warning. First of all, you are not to greet him as if he had just risen from the dead, and you wish to goodness he hadn't. Secondly, you are not to look at and talk to me in a sort of wistful and deathbed manner whenever you have occasion to look at and talk to me. Remember, he's mighty sharp; I don't know any one sharper. Come, brisk up, dear, and pull yourself together and be natural, or you'll give away the whole show." "That's the last sweet word I shall hear from you for a long time to come, I suppose," said Justin, somewhat comforted. "But you didn't really mean all you were saying a little while ago? You're not really sorry?" "Perhaps not," she answered softly. "Perhaps we shall have good times again. Only, be careful now. It all depends upon that." "Oh, then I'll be careful enough, with that to look forward to," he returned, quite cheered up now. Wherein her object was attained. To one of the two came a feeling of relief a moment after the new arrival had dismounted at the stockade, for his greeting was perfectly easy and natural and pleasant. "Well, Spence, you're out early," was all he said. Out early. Justin began to feel mean again. Should he say he had been there all night? But Hermia saved him the task of deciding by volunteering that information herself. She was not going to begin making mysteries. Well, there was no occasion to. Both forgot that the crucial moment was not entirely that of the greeting. The last hundred yards or so before dismounting had told Hilary Blachland all there was to tell. No--not quite all. "What have we got here?" said the returned master of the house, as, after a tub and a change of clothing, he sat at the head of his table. "Guinea-fowl?" raising the dish-cover. "Yes, Justin shot five for me yesterday," answered Hermia. "By the way, I am always calling him Justin. `Mr Spence' is absurdly formal in this out-of-the-way part, and he is really such a boy. Aren't I right, Hilary?" "Oh, certainly," was the reply, but the dry smile accompanying it might have meant anything. To himself the smiler was thinking, "So this is the latest, is it? What an actress she is, and that being so, I won't pay her the bad compliment of saying it's a pity she didn't go on the stage." Justin didn't relish that definition of him; however, he recollected there was everything to console him for the apparent slight. And it was part of the acting. In fact, he was even conscious of being in a position to crow over the other, if the other only knew it, and though he strove hard to dismiss the idea, yet the idea was there. "By the way, Blachland," he said, "how are things doing in Matabeleland? Niggers still cheeky?"