He was handsomer than ever; bronzed by Nigerian sun, all the superfluous flesh marched off him; every muscle in his frame taut and vigorous.  And at the same time a new self-confidence—­apparently quite unconscious, and the inevitable result of a strong and testing experience—­was enabling him to bring his powers to bear and into play, as he had never yet done.

She recalled, with some confusion, that she—­and Diana?—­had tacitly thought of him as good, but stupid.  On the contrary, was she, perhaps, in the presence of some one destined to do great things for his country? to lay hold—­without intending it, as it were, and by the left hand—­oh high distinction?  Were women, on the whole, bad judges of young men?  She recalled a saying of Dr. Roughsedge, that “mothers never know how clever their sons are.”  Perhaps the blindness extends to other eyes than mothers?

Meanwhile, she got from him all the news she could.  He had been, it seemed, concerned in the vast operation of bringing a new African Empire into being.  She listened, dazzled, while in the very simplest, baldest phrases he described the curbing of slave-raiders, the winning of populations, the grappling with the desert, the opening out of river highways, whereof in his seven months he had been the fascinated beholder.  As to his own exploits, he was ingeniously silent; but she knew them already.  A military expedition against two revolted and slave-raiding emirs, holding strong positions on the great river; a few officers borrowed from home to stiffen a local militia; hot fighting against great odds; half a million of men released from a reign of hell; tyranny broken, and the British pax extended over regions a third as large as India—­smiling prosperity within its pale, bestial devastation and cruelty without—­these things she knew, or had been able to imagine from the newspapers.  According to him, it had been all the doing of other men.  She knew better; but soon found it of no use to interrupt him.

Meanwhile she dared not ask him why he had come home.  The campaign, indeed, was over; but he had been offered, it appeared, an administrative appointment.

“And you mean to go back?”

“Perhaps.”  He colored and looked restlessly out of the window.

Mrs. Colwood understood the look, and felt it was, indeed, hard upon him that he must put up with her so long.  In reality, he too was conscious of new pleasure in an old acquaintance.  He had forgotten what a dear little thing she was:  how prettily round-faced, yet delicate—­ethereal—­in all her proportions, with the kindest eyes.  She too had grown—­by the mere contact with Diana’s fate.  Within her tiny frame the soul of her had risen to maternal heights, embracing and sustaining Diana.

He would have given the world to question her.  But after her first answer to his first inquiry he had fallen tongue-tied on the subject of Diana, and Nigeria had absorbed conversation.  She, on her side, wished him to know many things, but did not see how to begin upon them.