Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/120

companionable, and that, to a man of the world who wanted rest, and the soothing, not the exciting influence of das ewige weibliche, was simply a necessary of life.

“Oh, I have been home on sick leave, but they wouldn’t let me stay in England for the winter. England was too cold, and India was too hot, and I couldn’t stand health-resorts. Some of my people tried to get me to the south of France, but there were too many London people there. I always flee from nice people as from a pestilence; so I fled.”

“Wasn’t that rather a pity?”

“For the nice people? Perhaps. However, I wanted a place like this to be idle in. I like this new country and the easy open-air colonial life. It suits me all to pieces! I think I shall put in the winter here—your winter—and go back to India in the spring like a giant refreshed.”

“Yes, I do think this is a wonderful climate, and it has quite set me up. But I shouldn’t have guessed you required much setting up—you don’t look like it.”

“Oh, you should have seen me before the voyage! I was a scarecrow. And when I got home to England it was not all pleasure. My poor old father was dead. I never seemed to realize it before I got home and found his place