148 TROPIC DAYS 



her complexion, will always earn respect. Society may 

 not want you, but you would not want society; and it 

 will be very many years before society hampers life in 

 this part of the bush." 



Soosie thought for a few minutes, and then replied 

 with delicate discretion: "I can never marry Dan. 

 Sooner or later he would despise me. It might be all 

 right while I was young, but we we blacks get old 

 very soon. Fancy Dan having an old gin in his house; 

 for he won't be living in a one-roomed hut all his 

 life !" 



"You are spiteful against yourself, and that's not 

 like you, Soosie." 



"I have my feelings. How else may I restrain them?" 

 she petulantly exclaimed. "He must never think of 

 me. It might drive me to the mountain just to save 

 him from me." 



Dan, good fellow, was discreet. He decided to play 

 the laggard in love, realising that any show of impetu- 

 osity might frighten Soosie. It came to be understood 

 that in time she might see the wisdom of accepting him, 

 and I, knowing both, and to whom mixed marriages are 

 abhorrent, was convinced that no girl could have been 

 better qualified to fill the position of a bushman's wife. 

 Modest, clever, sympathetic, healthful, none of the 

 stains of the town had ever tarnished her mind. Her 

 voice was that of a well-schooled white girl, and all her 

 perceptions coincided. If the wander lust was to be 

 suppressed for ever, it seemed to me that Soosie must 

 marry, and marry young. 



While Soosie 's demeanour was still the cause of earnest 

 solicitude, a perplexing complication arose. An old 

 man of the camp whence she had been discarded began 

 to do his best to attract her attention. 



Gifts of birds '-nests, eggs, ferns, orchids in flower, a 



