The Top of the World Part 17

said Burke.

She nodded, laughing. "Yes, and cook joints and mend clothes, too.

Who does your mending? Mary Ann?"

"I do my own," said Burke. "I cook, too, when Mary Ann takes leave of absence. But I have a Kaffir house boy, Joe, for the odd jobs.

And there's a girl, too, uglier than Mary Ann, a relation of hers--called Rose, short for Fair Rosamond. Haven't you seen Rose yet?"

Sylvia's laugh brought a smile to his face. It was a very infectious laugh. Though she sobered almost instantly, it left a ripple of mirth behind on the surface of their conversation. He carried the tray away again when the meal was over, firmly refusing her offer to wash up.

"Mary Ann can do it in the morning," he said.

"Where is she now?" asked Sylvia.

He sat down beside her, and took out his pipe. "They are over in their own huts. They don't sleep in the house."

"Does no one sleep in the house?" she asked quickly.

"I do," said Burke.

A sudden silence fell. The dusk had deepened into a starlit darkness, but there was a white glow behind the hills that seemed to wax with every instant that pa.s.sed. Very soon the whole _veldt_ would be flooded with moonlight.

In a very small voice Sylvia spoke at length.

"Mr. Ranger!"

It was the first time she had addressed him by name. He turned directly towards her. "Call me Burke!" he said.

It was almost a command. She faced him as directly as he faced her. "Burke--if you wish it!" she said. "I want to talk things over with you, to thank you for your very great goodness to me, and--and to make plans for the future."

"One moment!" he said. "You have given up all thought of marrying Guy?"

She hesitated. "I suppose so," she said slowly.

"Don't you know your own mind?" he said.

Still she hesitated. "If--if he should come back----"

"He will come back," said Burke.

She started. "He will?"

"Yes, he will." His voice held grim confidence, and somehow it sounded merciless also to her ears. "He'll turn up again some day.

He always does. I'm about the only man in South Africa who wouldn't kick him out within six months. He knows that. That's why he'll come back."

"You are--good to him," said Sylvia, her voice very low.

"No, I'm not; not specially. He knows what I think of him anyhow."

Burke spoke slowly. "I've done what I could for him, but he's one of my failures. You've got to grasp the fact that he's a rotter.

Have you grasped that yet?"

"I'm beginning to," Sylvia said, under her breath.

"Then you can't--possibly--many him," said Burke.

She lowered her eyes before the keenness of his look. She wished the light in the east were not growing so rapidly.

"The question is, What am I going to do?" she said.

Burke was silent for a moment. Then with a slight gesture that might have denoted embarra.s.sment he said, "You don't want to stay here, I suppose?"

She looked up again quickly. "Here--on this farm, do you mean?"

"Yes." He spoke brusquely, but there was a certain eagerness in his att.i.tude as he leaned towards her.

A throb of grat.i.tude went through her. She put out her hand to him very winningly. "What a pity I'm not a boy!" she said, genuine regret in her voice.

He took her hand and kept it. "Is that going to make any difference?" he said.

She looked at him questioningly. It was difficult to read his face in the gloom. "All the difference, I am afraid," she said. "You are very generous--a real good comrade. If I were a boy, there's nothing I'd love better. But, being a woman, I can't live here alone with you, can I? Not even in South Africa!"

"Why not?" he said.

His hand grasped hers firmly; she grasped his in return. "You heard what your Boer friend called me," she said. "He wouldn't understand anything else."

"I told him to call you that," said Burke.

"You--told him!" She gave a great start. His words amazed her.

"Yes." There was a dogged quality in his answer. "I had to protect you somehow. He had seen us together at Ritzen. I said you were my wife."

Sylvia gasped in speechless astonishment.

He went on ruthlessly. "It was the only thing to do. They're not a particularly moral crowd here, and, as you say, they wouldn't understand anything else--decent. Do you object to the idea? Do you object very strongly?"

There was something masterful in the persistence with which he pressed the question. Sylvia had a feeling as of being held down and compelled to drink some strangely paralyzing draught.

She made a slight, half-scared movement and in a moment his hand released hers.

"You do object!" he said.

She clasped her hands tightly together. "Please don't say--or think--that! It is such a sudden idea, and--it's rather a wild one, isn't it?" Her breath came quickly. "If--if I agreed--and let the pretence go on--people would be sure to find out sooner or later. Wouldn't they?"

"I am not suggesting any pretence," he said.

"What do you mean then?" Sylvia said, compelling herself to speak steadily.

"I am asking you to marry me," he said, with equal steadiness.

"Really, do you mean? You are actually in earnest?" Her voice had a sharp quiver in it. She was trembling suddenly. "Please be quite plain with me!" she said. "Remember, I don't know you very well. I have got to get used to the ways out here."