“Well, have a drink!” said Sylvia lightly.  “I’m not a duchess in my own right or anything else, except Burke’s wife.  We’re running this farm together on the partner system.  I’m junior partner of course.  Burke tells me what to do, and I do it.”

“You’ll soon lose your complexion if you go out riding in this heat and dust,” said Mrs. Merston.

“Oh, I hope not,” Sylvia laughed again.  “If I do, I daresay I shan’t miss it much.  It’s rather fun to feel that sort of thing doesn’t matter.  Ah, here is Burke coming now!” She glanced up at the thudding of his horse’s hoofs.

Merston went out again into the blinding sunlight to greet his host, and Sylvia turned to the thin, pinched woman beside her.

“I expect you would like to come inside and take off your hat and wash.  It is hot, isn’t it?  Shall we go in and get respectable?”

She spoke with that winning friendliness of hers that few could resist.  Mrs. Merston’s lined face softened almost in spite of itself.  She got up.  But she could not refrain from flinging another acid remark as she did so.

“I really think if Englishmen must live in South Africa, they ought to be content with Boer wives.”

“Oh, should you like your husband to have married a Boer wife?” said Sylvia.

Mrs. Merston smiled grimly.  “You are evidently still in the fool’s paradise stage.  Make the most of it!  It won’t last long.  The men out here have other things to think about.”

“I should hope so,” said Sylvia energetically.  “And the women, too, I should think.  I should imagine that there is very little time for philandering out here.”

Mrs. Merston uttered a bitter laugh as she followed her in.  “There is very little time for anything, Mrs. Ranger.  It is drudgery from morning till night.”

“Oh, I haven’t found that yet,” said Sylvia.

She had led her visitor into the guest-room which she had occupied since her advent.  It was not quite such a bare apartment as it had been on that first night.  All her personal belongings were scattered about, and the severely masculine atmosphere had been completely driven forth.

“I’m afraid it isn’t very tidy in here,” she said.  “I generally see to things later.  I don’t care to turn the Kaffir girl loose among my things.”

Mrs. Merston looked around her.  “And where does your husband sleep?” she said.

“Across the passage.  His room is about the same size as this.  They are not very big, are they?”

“You are very lucky to have such a home,” said Mrs. Merston.  “Ours is nothing but a corrugated iron shed divided into two parts.”

“Really?” Sylvia opened her eyes.  “That doesn’t sound very nice certainly.  Haven’t you got a verandah even—­I beg its pardon, a stoep?”

“We have nothing at all that makes for comfort,” declared Mrs. Merston, with bitter emphasis.  “We live like pigs in a sty!”