Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/77

 He heard Naomi saying, "And then we came to the coast—and—and that's all there is to it."

"But what about the Englishwoman?" his mother was asking.

"Oh, she went away north again—right away—I must say we were glad to be rid of her. I didn't care for her at all—or Swanson either. She was hard and cruel—she didn't like us and treated us like fools, like the dirt under her feet, all except Philip. I think she—well, she liked him very much."

At the end her voice dropped a little and took on a faint edge of malice. It was a trick Philip had only noticed lately, for the first time during the long voyage from Capetown. It hung, quivering with implications, until Philip burst out:

"Well, if it hadn't been for her we'd all be dead now. I don't know about you, but I'm glad I'm alive. Maybe you'd rather be dead."

Naomi made no answer. She only bowed her head a little as if he had struck her, and Uncle Elmer said, "What about Swanson? What's happened to him?"

Naomi's head, heavy with its mass of sandy hair, raised again. "Oh," she said, "he went back to Megambo. He didn't want to desert the post. He thought all the natives were depending on him."

"Alone?"

"Yes, all alone."

For a moment the silence hung heavy and unpleasant; Philip, miserable and tortured, sat with his head bowed, staring at the Brussels carpet. It was his mother who spoke.

"I must say it was courageous of him. When I saw