She had made one close friend in this new country, which was to her still so strange, so alien; so careless and pleasure-seeking in its social life, so keenly self-seeking in its business methods, and withal so vivid and picturesque and stirring. This friend, brilliant in political and literary circles, and connected with one of the oldest families in the Colony, was of Dutch extraction. She had married an Englishman, named Smythe; an alliance that had uprooted an old and bitter racial prejudice, not only on her side, but on her husband's. Smythe, the erstwhile rabid anti-Boer, had been heard warmly supporting universal tolerance. "After all," he would blandly assert, "it is only one world, and one mother for the whole of us. There are bound to be factions in a very large family. But one needn't carry things to extremes." His theory, however, did not include the natives. "A nigger's a nigger," he answered, when approached on this point. "He's not a human being; he's a link,--the one that wasn't lost. If any man chooses to call him a brother he's at liberty to do so. Personally, I'd as soon fraternise with a chimpanzee." There was one Dutchman, however, whom the tolerant Smythe could not swallow, and that was his wife's cousin, Van Bleit. It seemed as though all his former dislike for the entire race had been concentrated into hatred of this one man. He made no attempt to conquer this aversion, because he knew it was something beyond his control, but he did his best to hide it from his wife, whose fondness for, and admiration of, her cousin was a never-ending source of wonder to him. Van Bleit had a confident, masterful manner that won him an easy way to the hearts of certain women. By nature he was a bully: a few of the women who had fallen prey to the roystering charm of his personality had found this out. But they invariably made the discovery too late; Van Bleit squeezed his victims dry before he revealed his less amiable side. It was usually in making the discovery that they had been drained that they discovered the other thing. If Van Bleit knew how to overcome feminine reluctance with a masterful manner, he also knew how to shout down feminine recrimination. In cases where shouting alone would not avail, he showed no hesitation whatever in having resource to physical force. The woman who pitted her strength against his came off worse than the victim who suffered in silence, knowing her case to be beyond hope of redress.