Antony Gray,—Gardener - LM

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at all events, to be matters of fate. And if you can obtain knowledge of a man through actual contact with his personality, you do not trouble to draw conclusions from his method of donning his clothes. You may speculate in this fashion with regard to strangers, or mere acquaintances. You have a surer, and infinitely more interesting, fashion with your friends.

      Life around them moved on in the leisurely, almost indolent manner in which it does move on board a passenger ship. The younger members played quoits, cricket on the lower deck, and inaugurated concerts, supported by a gramaphone, the property of the chief officer, and banjo solos by the captain. The older members read magazines, played bridge, or knitted woollen articles, according to the promptings of their sex and their various natures, and formed audiences at the aforementioned concerts.

      Antony and the Duchessa di Donatello alone seemed somewhat aloof from them. They formed part of the concert audiences, it is true; but they neither played bridge, quoits, nor cricket, nor knitted woollen articles, nor read magazines. The Duchessa employed her time with a piece of fine lace work, when she was not merely luxuriating in the sunshine, or conversing with Antony. Antony either conversed with the Duchessa, or sat in his deck chair, smoking and thinking about her. There was certainly a distinct sameness about the young man’s occupation, which, however, he found not in the smallest degree boring. On the contrary, it was all-absorbing and fascinating. The very hours of the day were timed by the Duchessa’s movements, rather than by the mere minute portions of steel attached to the face of a commonplace watch. Thus:—

      Dawn. He realizes the Duchessa’s existence when he wakes. (His dreams had been coloured by her, but that’s beside the mark.)

      Daybreak. The Duchessa ascends on deck and smiles at him.

      Breakfast time. The Duchessa sits opposite to him.

      The sunny morning hours. The Duchessa sews fine lace; she talks, she smiles—the smile that radiates through the sadness of her eyes.

      And so on, throughout the day, till the evening gloaming brings a hint of further intimacy into their conversation, and night falls as she wishes him pleasant dreams before descending to her cabin.

      He dwelt then, for the moment, solely in her friendship, but vaguely the half articulate thought of the future began to stir within him, pulsing with a secret possibility of joy he barely dared to contemplate.

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      It was about ten o’clock of a sunny morning that the Fort Salisbury cast anchor off Teneriffe, preparatory to undergoing the process known as coaling.

      Antony, from her decks, gazed towards the shore and the buildings lying in the sunlight. Minute doll-like figures were busy on the land; mules, with various burdens, were ascending the steep street. Boats were already putting out to the ship, to carry ashore such passengers as desired to spend a few hours on land.

      The whole scene was one of movement, light, and colour. The sea, sky, and earth were singing the Benedicite, and Antony’s heart echoed the blessings. It was all so astonishingly good and pleasant—the clean, fresh morning, the blue blue of the sky, the green blue of the water, and the possibilities of the unknown mountain land lying before him.

      There is an extraordinary fascination in exploring an unknown land, even if the exploration is to be of somewhat limited duration. The ship by which Antony had travelled to the Cape, had sailed straight out; it had passed the peak of Teneriffe at a distance. Antony had looked at it as it rose from the sea, like a great purple amethyst half veiled in cloud. He had wondered then, idly enough, whether it would ever be his lot to set foot upon its shores. Never, in his wildest dreams, had he imagined under what actual circumstances that lot would be his. How could he have guessed at what the fates were holding in store for him? They had held their secret close, giving him no smallest inkling of it. If we dream of paradise, our dream is modelled on the greatest happiness we have known; therefore, since our happiness is, doubtless, but a rushlight as compared to the sunshine of paradise, our dreams must necessarily fall exceedingly far short of the reality. Hitherto Antony’s happiness had been largely monochrome, flecked with tiny specks of radiance. He might indeed have dreamed of something a trifle brighter, but how was it possible for him to have formed from them the smallest conception of the happiness that was awaiting him?

      “It is really perfect,” said a voice behind him, echoing his thoughts.

      Antony turned.

      The Duchessa had come on deck, spurred and gauntleted for their adventure—in other words, attired in a soft, black dress, a shady black hat on her head, crinkly black gloves, which reached to the elbow, on her hands, and carrying a blue sunshade.

      “It is really perfect,” she repeated, gazing towards the mountainous land before them, the doll-like figures on the shore, the boats cleaving the sparkling waters.

      “Absolutely,” declared Antony, his eyes wrinkling at the corners in sheer delight. “The gods have favoured us.”

      “Is there a boat ready?” she demanded, eager as a child to start on the adventure.

      “A boat,” said Antony, looking over the ship’s side, “will be with us in a couple of moments I should say, to judge by the strength of the rower’s arms. He has been racing the other fellows, and will be first at his goal.”

      “Then come,” she said. “Let us be first too. I don’t want to lose a minute.”

      Antony followed in her wake. Her sentiments most assuredly were his. It was not a day of which to squander one iota.

      Ten minutes later they were on their way to the shore. Behind them the Fort Salisbury loomed up large and black from the limpid water; before them lay the land of possibilities.

      The other passengers in the boat kept up a running fire of comments. A stout gentleman in a sun-helmet, which he considered de rigeur as long as he was anywhere at all near the regions of Africa, gazed towards the shore through a pair of field-glasses. At intervals he made known such objects of interest as he observed, in loud husky asides to his wife, a small meek woman, who clung to him, metaphorically speaking, as the ivy to the oak. Her vision being unaided by field-glasses, she was unable to follow his observations with the degree of intelligence he demanded.

      “I don’t think I quite—” she remarked anxiously now and again, blinking in the same direction as her spouse.

      “To the left, my dear, among the trees,” he would reply. Or, “Half-way up the street. Now don’t you see?” Or, removing the field-glasses for a moment to observe the direction of her anxious blinking, “Why, bless my soul, you aren’t looking the right way at all. Get it in a line with that chimney over there, and the yellow house. The yellow house. You’re looking straight at the pink one. Bless my soul, tut, tut.” And so forth.

      A small boy, leaning far over the side of the boat, gazed rapturously into the water, announcing in shrill tones that he could see to the very bottom, an anxious elder sister grasping the back of his jersey meanwhile. A girl with a pigtail jumped about in a manner calculated to bring an abrupt and watery conclusion to the passage, till forcibly restrained by her melancholy-looking father. A young man announced that it was going to be, “Deuced hot on shore, what?” And a gushing young thing of some forty summers appealed to everyone at intervals to know the hour to the very second it would be necessary to return, since it really would be a sin to keep the ship waiting. While the remarks from an elderly and cynical gentleman, that, in the event of unpunctuality on her part, it would be more probable that she would find herself waiting indefinitely at Teneriffe, caused her to giggle hysterically, and label him a naughty man.

      “It

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