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by a further thousand acres of lush pasture land.
    Twice she drove with Blake over the earth tracks round the plantation, and one morning he allowed her in the shed where the weekly yield from all quarters was handled. The boys chanted as they wrapped and packed, their demeanour lazy, their hands nimble and rhythmic. On a Friday afternoon she sat astride Ginger under an umbrella tree and watched the exuberant pay queue which wound away from the white cement office where the foreman presided. Activity at Bondolo was continuous and full of interest. Only the heat deterred Venetia from staying outdoors as long as Blake did.
    She drifted into a routine. After breakfast, housekeeping: the day’s meals to be ordered, the grocery list, flowers and the dusting of the more precious objects. Then she would ride to the river and along the verges of the sugarcane. A dip in the pool which lay behind the tennis-court, followed by a solitary cold lunch on the veranda or a more epicurean repast with Blake in the dining-room.
    At his insistence she rested in her bedroom from two o’clock till Mosi brought tea. If they played tennis it was always in the cooler hour before dusk, and when the light failed Blake bathed. Only on Sundays did they swim together, a quick couple of lengths before breakfast. He didn’t offer advice about swimming and diving, as he had at Umsanga.
    On a morning when Blake had ridden down-river to the timber and taken a picnic lunch along, Margery Clarke drove up in Cedric’s old tourer. Her cropped fair hair was windblown and she wore a sun-dress which had suffered many launderings and had unashamed patches at the armholes. Difficult to realize that Margery was thirty-three and twelve years married. She had a set way with her, but her figure was young and wiry.
    Venetia saw her from the dining-room window and came down to the garden.
    “All alone?” called Margery in her funny, unmusical voice. “I’m going into Ellisburg. Care to come?'”
    Venetia hesitated. The invitation appealed, but as usual nowadays her mind worked round it, she seemed to spend most of her mental energy upon means to avoid trouble. “How long will it take?”
    “About four hours. We could lunch at the hotel and be back by three.”
    “Sure I won’t be in the way?”
    “Good lord, would I have racketed over two miles of mud road to ask you, if that were likely? Come on, jump in and let’s away.”
    “I’ll get a hat and tell the boy to cut out lunch.”
    It was not till they were out on the road, leaving Bondolo behind, that Venetia acknowledged the cautious thrill in her veins which preceded a heartwhole sense of release. The air through the window was bland as milk, the trees soughed a symphony, the sky was a flawless roof of African blue, and birds winged across it like haphazard notes of music. Naked piccanins scuffling in a shallow stream brought a bubble of laughter to her throat.
    “That was nice,” remarked Margery. “You should do it more often.”
    “Do what?”
    “Laugh like that—as if life were not so bad after all. But marriage is dreadfully earnest at the beginning, isn’t it? Perhaps we women are too tense about it. Men carry off the upheaval in their lives much better than we do.”
    “The working half of their existence goes on much as before—I suppose that’s the reason. We’re not so lucky.”
    Venetia took of f her hat and shook out her hair. She had no wish to debate the ramifications of marriage.
    Ellisburg was a large, clean town of white buildings and red roofs, the main streets wide and lined with Canary palms and ornamental trees which bloomed profusely. The shopping centre, with cement porticos to provide shade for the window-gazer, had an air of peaceful prosperity, and the people who sauntered the pavements were dressed with taste and good sense. Here and there a man wiped his brow, but the women contrived a surprising impeccability.
    Margery did her shopping, then led the way into