She looked again in her mirror. The dog was still to be seen, although he was a good distance behind them now, his ears flapping in the breeze created by his headlong lurch in their direction. She lowered her head, looking again at the road ahead. The dog had entered her life little more than an hour ago, but this seemed to her to be a real abandonment, a cutting loose of a creature who had nobody else to turn to. The world was like that, of course, and sometimes it seemed particularly so in Africa, where there were so many who needed the support of others and had no others to give it. She sighed. They could not take on every ownerless dog—that was obviously impossible; Fanwell was a kind young man, and it was much to his credit that he had bothered to do something about the dog, but he was in no position to see that gesture through and had to be protected from the unsustainable consequences of kindness, as did others who allowed their hearts to prompt them. She thought it strange, though, that she, a woman, should be the one to tell a young man that he could not do what his heart wanted him to; were women not the ones who listened to their hearts, while young men thought only of…of the things that young men thought of? Or was that part of the unfair prejudice that men had to struggle against? Was it not the case that men could weep as readily as women? Was it not the case that men could be as gentle and as caring as any woman, if only they were given the chance to show these qualities? She thought of Fanwell, and she thought of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Both of these were kind, sensitive men who were as understanding of the feelings of others as any woman she knew; and who were every bit as gentle.