step-father's estate on the Zambesi, where, a few months later, her
mother had died of the malaria. Unable to endure the place after
his wife's death, Senhor Santos had taken ship to Victoria, there
to seek fresh fortune with results as indifferent as my own. He
was now taking Miss Denison back to England, to make her home with
other relatives, before he himself returned to Africa (as he once
told me) to lay his bones beside those of his wife. I hardly know
which of the pair I see more plainly as I write - the young girl
with her soft eyes and her sunny hair, or the old gentleman with
the erect though wasted figure, the noble forehead, the steady eye,
the parchment skin, the white imperial, and the eternal cigarette
between his shrivelled lips.

No need to say that I came more in contact with the young girl.
She was not less charming in my eyes because she provoked me
greatly as I came to know her intimately. She had many irritating
faults. Like most young persons of intellect and inexperience, she
was hasty and intolerant in nearly all her judgments, and rather
given to being critical in a crude way. She was very musical,
playing the guitar and singing in a style that made our shipboard
concerts vastly superior to the average of their order; but I have
seen her shudder at the efforts of less gifted folks who were
also doing their best; and it was the same in other directions where
her superiority was less specific. The faults which are most
exasperating in another are, of course, one's own faults; and I
confess that I was very critical of Eva Denison's criticisms. Then
she had a little weakness for exaggeration, for unconscious egotism
in conversation, and I itched to tell her so. I felt so certain
that the girl had a fine character underneath, which would rise to
noble heights in stress or storm: all the more would I long now to