Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/483



HEN as the landaulet began to move away, the departing traveller, speaking his farewell from the window, looked forth upon two faces suffused with a jocose enjoyment so cordial that his own ready colour heightened embarrassingly. Dr. E. D. G. N. Medjila called godspeeds in four languages, and his pupil, with laughter brilliant in her eyes, shouted something all consonants, which made them both the merrier. The automobile began to gather speed; but the two odd, friendly figures remained where they were, calling after it and waving their hands. They were still there and still waving, dwindled by the distance, but strongly coloured against the gray ruins behind them, when the young man in the car looked back for the last time and waved once more in return before the curving road carried him from their sight.

"Incredible people!" he said; but withdrew the adjective since nothing was incredible upon this continent. Strangely, he liked them; unaccount-