F.E. Mills Young (continued 4)

“They are a nation in the making,” Matheson rejoined, thinking of Nel’s words. “They are going to be a power in the country.”

“Why not? There’s room for all of us under the one flag.”

Matheson was silent for a while, thinking. Presently he said:

“There’s ill work—underhand work going on. I’ve come in touch with it. There’s a German I know, who passes for an Englishman, who is deliberately fostering the spirit of rebellion among the Boers.”

“I dare say. The Germans played dirty tricks with the Boers during the late war. But if it came to a head,” Macfarlane answered comfortably, “it would be only a half-hearted rebellion. That spirit isn’t general.”

“No. But it has crossed my mind to wonder whether there is something behind this—something we aren’t expecting. Europe seems settled and peaceably inclined, but... Suppose there should be something brewing?”

Macfarlane sat up and looked at him queerly.

“It’s odd you should say that,” he remarked. “It was only last week Aplin was commenting on the German exodus from Port Elizabeth. For the past two years they have been leaving for Europe, all the influential Germans. They have any amount of German firms there, and the beggars are all clearing out.” He laughed suddenly. “Oh, rats!” he cried. “You are making me fanciful. I should advise you to quit staying on Dutch farms. You stick to engineering, my boy, and give over philosophising on love and war.”

“I’m going to talk with Aplin about this,” Matheson said. “I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

“Oh! he’ll play up to you all right. There’s a German round his way who puts his back up with his incessant peace talk. He has ideas for a federation of nations to enforce peace on the world. That idea, according to Aplin, is aggressive; no principle can be peaceful that needs to be enforced.”

“One can argue down anything with that kind of sophistry,” Matheson contended. “But there is something in the idea.”

“Yes—if the beggar’s sincere. But something of that nature appeared in a magazine a little while back. For myself, I’d like to know where it originated. I’m not much of a believer in any German made article. The German may talk brotherly love; but he never has loved his neighbour, and he never will. Look at their Colonies. None but Germans can live under their flag. And then look at Cape Town—bar America, it is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. So much for that!” he said, and lighted himself another cigarette. “I discredit equally their peace palaver and your predicted rebellion. If rebellion does come, we’ve got a man at the head of affairs—and he’s a Dutchman, mind you—who will be equal to dealing with it.”

“He knows how to deal with strikers anyhow,” Matheson said, and laughed.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Whether as a result of the talk with Macfarlane, or the expiration of Aplin’s leave and his departure for Algoa Bay, Matheson’s visits to the Rondebosch household fell off in regularity. He went out for tennis when the mood inclined him, and on occasions still met the two girls at the café in the luncheon recess and ate ices with them. It was a somewhat remarkable coincidence that they were so often in the vicinity of the café he frequented at the same hour as himself; it was always an accident, and so unexpected.

He came in time to look for them, and evolved a formula in response to their surprised exclamations. There were even times when he experienced a faint disappointment if they failed to appear. There were other times when, disinclined for their chatter, he dropped into a less fashionable café nearer his work and took his iced coffee in solitary enjoyment. They detected him immediately upon his new discovery diving into the small café, and followed him, and were “so surprised” when they met within to see that he too patronised this nice quiet little place.

“It’s so restful,” said Rosie audibly, as they seated themselves at his suggestion at the same table. “And really the things they give you are quite good. How did you come to find it out?”

“It’s handy for me, you see,” he explained. “I can’t always get off at this hour, and often I have only ten minutes. When time is limited I bolt in here.”

He did not consider it necessary to admit that it was only the second time he had visited the café.

“I like to try the different places,” he added, with a view to future evasion.

“The girls’ dresses are pretty,” observed May, looking after the neat Puritan figure of the waitress who had served them. “They suggest the chorus in a revue.”

“I dare say Mr Matheson considers that one of the attractions of the place,” Rosie threw in with a touch of malice.

Matheson, who had not as a matter of fact taken particular note of the waitresses, glanced after a tall blonde girl who passed their table carrying a trayful of American drinks, and laughed.

“I think they look jolly fine,” he said.

May looked about her, nibbling an ice wafer.

“I wouldn’t mind being a waitress in a café. They don’t have half a bad time,” she averred.

“May!” Her sister appeared horrified. “The things men say to them... And imagine taking tips!”

“I’d like the tips all right,” May declared, and caught Matheson’s eye and smiled. “And it’s just fascinating squirting drinks out of those syphons. It makes one cool to watch. Besides, I’d like going about in fancy dress all day, and wearing a dinky little cap. How do you think I’d lode in one of those Puritan caps, Mr Matheson?”

“I think you would look sufficiently attractive to be sure of your tips,” he answered.

“Flatterer!” she exclaimed, and laughed. “I shouldn’t look puritanical anyhow.”

“No,” he rejoined. “I don’t believe you could.”

“That sort of thing is all very well at a charity bazaar,” Rosie affirmed. “Even then, I prefer selling flowers.”

“And charging extra for pinning them in the lucky purchaser’s buttonhole?” he suggested.

“Come and find out whether I do that at the next bazaar,” she said.

“She always does well at the flower stall,” May commented. “That’s why they ask her to serve. I don’t see much difference between charging extra for pinning in a buttonhole and taking tips.”

“It’s both a form of blackmail,” Matheson asserted.

“You don’t believe in tipping then?”

“Oh! I believe in it—it’s too evident to be questioned; and custom, like the right of way through a person’s property, legalises most things.”

“People are so much more civil when one tips them,” Rosie observed.

“If they return civility, that’s value for one’s money all right. But the civility depends largely on the amount of the tip,” he said.

The inference they drew from his remarks was that he inclined to meanness, and they both, under cover of searching for gloves and vanity bags, took a surreptitious interest in the proceedings that followed upon the presentation of the account which the neat Puritan waitress unobtrusively placed beside his plate, and then, even more unobtrusively, withdrew to a distance as though a tip were the last thing in the world she expected to receive or desired. He took up the check, glanced at the amount, placed sixpence on the table as unobtrusively as the Puritan girl had delivered his account, and was approaching the desk behind his gay companions when he felt a touch on his sleeve.

“Your change, if you please.”

In the hand which had touched his arm, lying upon the open palm, was the sixpence he had left on the table. He felt awkward as his glance fell to it; it was difficult he found to explain.

“That’s all right,” he was beginning over his shoulder, and broke off embarrassed before the persistence of that outstretched determined little hand so obviously refusing his munificence.

“Thanks,” he added hurriedly, and faced round. “I must have dropped it.”

He looked at her as he took the coin, a little curious about her. He hadn’t noticed her when she served his party; he had been preoccupied, and she had kept in the background somehow. It flashed across his mind to wonder whether she had overheard any part of their talk, and resented his remarks about tipping. Then his eyes met hers, and the coin which he was in the act of taking slipped from his fingers and rolled away out of sight.

“You!” he cried. His eager hand shot out and grasped the small one which had returned his money. “I have been trying to discover you for months. I thought I had lost you... And you’ve been here, close at hand, all the while!”

A faint colour warmed the face that had lost much of its brownness, the dawn of a smile broke in the earnest eyes he had last seen raised to his in the moonlight in the shadowy road beneath the oleanders—a hint of a smile which failed to reach her lips.

“I thought you had forgotten,” Brenda said.

He remembered that for a time he had forgotten. It seemed incredible now, with the small warm hand in his, and the sense of comradeship which the nearness of her, the friendly light in her eyes, conveyed, that ever it had been a matter of indifference to him whether he saw her again. There was not a shadow of doubt as to his pleasure at the moment.

She drew her hand away.

“The management may be watching me,” she said.

“Oh bother! There is always some one watching you,” he returned. “No matter! We will have our talk out where no one can watch us save the stars. It’s jolly that you’re here... I’m not going to lose sight of you again.”

He arranged to meet her that evening and parted from her feeling extraordinarily dated. He looked back when he had paid his score and was passing out to smile across the room at her. Then he pushed the swing door and emerged upon the pavement to discover his late companions, rather silent and faintly displeased, waiting by the kerb for him.

“Well, we can never go in there again!” Rosie said, in tones charged with inner meaning.

It was so obvious that she wanted him to inquire the reason for this taboo that he did not ask it; instead he remarked cheerfully:

“That’s the biggest surprise I’ve had—and about the pleasantest. I never expected to run across Miss Upton like that.”

“We didn’t imagine you knew her,” May said. “When she served us I saw who it was, but of course one couldn’t speak to her. She ought not to stay in Cape Town.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Oh! there’s nothing exactly against her—except of course, the connexion. Her father embezzled money and went to prison. He was in dad’s firm. We knew her quite well at one time. But it was an awful disgrace; one couldn’t go on knowing them. You must acknowledge it is impossible for us. Mother wouldn’t like us to talk to her.”

“No,” he said; “I don’t suppose she would.”

“You didn’t know about her father, of course,” Rosie said.

“Oh! yes, I did. She told me herself—not the details, but the bald facts.”

“Really! I’m surprised at that. A man doesn’t need to be so particular, perhaps; but it wouldn’t do for us to be seen talking to her.”

“My friendship dates since her misfortunes,” he explained. “I can’t believe that I could have respected her more had I known her in her prosperous days. The fact that her father was imprisoned, apart from my sympathy with her on that account, doesn’t affect me. I can’t stay now, or I could talk to you for an hour on the immorality of injustice. I’ll come out to your place some day, and we’ll take it for a subject for debate.”

“The things you say!” Rosie exclaimed, divided between resentment and an earnest desire to prevent a breach.

They parted on less cordial terms than usual, feeling it necessary to maintain their displeasure. As May observed, Mr Matheson should be made aware that he must not obtrude his common acquaintances upon them.

“As long as he keeps his shop-girls in the background I suppose it’s all right,” she said.

“Men are funny animals,” was Rosie’s comment.

Matheson, with his thoughts revolving round his discovery and the Aplin girls’ revelations, went to Macfarlane for information. Macfarlane, having spent ten years in Cape Town, was fairly well qualified to give it. The most interesting events in the histories of many of the inhabitants were known to him, and the Upton affair was barely five years old.

He had forgotten the details of the case, he said. So far as he could remember it was just a sordid tale of common embezzlement. The man was weak—one of those people with a moral kink. There was no apparent reason why he should appropriate the firm’s money; he had a decent salary, and a decent wife who certainly never led him into extravagance. When he came out of prison he went under altogether, and the home was broken up. He had no idea what had become of the family. There was only one girl, and the boys were old enough now to be doing for themselves.

“I can tell you where Miss Upton is,” Matheson said, “because I happened to know her.”

He explained how and where he had met her that morning. Macfarlane was interested.

“It’s a come down,” he said, “and a beastly shame. That’s the worst of it when these sort of things happen, the family goes under with the man.”

“I don’t fancy there is much fear of Miss Upton going under,” Matheson returned, and became so earnest and eager in his championship as to provoke Macfarlane’s curiosity.

“She is so plucky and clever... one of the bravest and honestest little souls!”

“Well,” observed Macfarlane drily, “I haven’t seen her since she was an ugly little flapper with a predilection for snubbing people, and a partiality for animals. You’ll lose the chance of a marriage of convenience, my boy, if you let Rosie see you trotting her about.”

Matheson laughed.

“She and May were with me this morning, and both were rather scandalised at my friendship with a girl in a café,” he said.

“That’s finished anyhow,” Macfarlane asserted grimly. “You’ll never be asked to stretch your legs under the old man’s mahogany again, and you won’t swagger back from tennis any more with Rosie’s favours in your coat Considering your ambitions, which you confided to me recently, I think you are playing the fool with your prospects.”

“I’ve got to get there on my own,” Matheson answered. “I’ve no prejudice against my wife lending me a helping hand, but I don’t want to depend on her entirely for a leg up.”

“Just so!” Macfarlane observed. “At the same time it is as well not to give her a chance of holding you back.”

Which piece of advice served only as an irritant. The disparagement of one’s friends, or of one’s opinions, forces the sincere believer in either into a sturdy opposition.

It was a matter of extreme gratification to Matheson that he had found Brenda Upton again. Her family history concerned him very little. She was such a good comrade. He had not realised until he rediscovered her how much he stood in need of the friendship she could give him. Friendship with a woman who is sympathetic, and young enough to be attractive as well as companionable, fills the blanks in a man’s life.

He was not in love with Brenda; he realised that perfectly; but he was fond of her. If he retained from his intercourse with her none of the glowing memories he recalled in connexion with Honor, her society afforded him a quiet pleasure that was restful and satisfying. She suggested home to a man who knew no home, and peace to a restless spirit, like the calm of inland waters following a voyage in tempestuous seas. Honor had been a dream, a beautiful inspiration. This other girl possessed a charm of an altogether different quality. Already she was becoming for him a symbol of familiar and essential things.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Matheson dressed early for his meeting with Brenda, dressed with unusual care. A strange excitement held him. The renewal of this friendship meant more to him than its beginning had signified. He was proceeding towards his object with eyes open, proceeding deliberately with, he was aware, one ultimate end in view. His mind, despite its excitement, was quite steady of purpose. The complexities of life were resolving surely into a quite simple exposition of the human requirement. He had reached the stage when a man knows what it is he wants and is bent upon its attainment.

He met Brenda at the tramway. She wore a dark, rather shabby, coat and skirt, and she was manifestly shy. They climbed to the top of the tram, and for the first half-mile of the journey neither of them found much to say. The tram was fairly full, and the proximity of strangers made talking difficult for people who had nothing of a conventional nature to say to one another.

When they got down at the terminus he tucked her hand within his arm and started to walk quickly, drawing a long breath of relief when they left the tram lines and the remaining passengers behind and faced the sea.

“Time rolls back,” he said. “This is just like it was in the summer.”

“Yes,” she agreed; “only the satisfying warmth of summer has gone.”

There was something pathetic in her way of saying this; it was as though she lamented not only the summer’s geniality, but the satisfying warmth of their comradeship. He gripped her hand tightly, and looked down into the serious face.

“What have you been doing since I left you here—so jealously guarded? I thought I had lost you altogether. I wrote, but my letter came back to me.”

“Did you write?” Her eyes met his with a light of gladness in them. “I thought—that was only talk.”

“Did you?” His manner was faintly reproachful. “I had no idea you would leave Mrs Graham so soon, or I’d have written before.”

Brenda suddenly smiled.

“Neither had I,” she said. “It was not exactly voluntary.”

“You don’t mean,” he began quickly, and stopped, regarding her perplexedly. “I’ve wondered,” he added somewhat lamely after a pause, “since getting my letter back, whether you had any trouble that night? It wasn’t, I hope, in any way due to our intercourse that you lost your post?”

She laughed, and he thought her mirth the sweetest and most infectious he had ever heard. He laughed with her.

“Oh Lord!” he said. “Don’t tell me it was that.”

“Mrs Graham waited up for me,” she confessed, “and the others got back first and admitted I hadn’t gone with them. She was—oh! so angry... There was a man who boarded there who was sorry for me; and he secured me my present position at the café. It helped at the time, but of course it’s a step down.”

“It’s a drop, yes,” he admitted. “I’m awfully sorry. You must climb again. Life is always; climbing.”

“It is easier to drop a step than to climb one,” she returned.

“That isn’t your philosophy really,” he insisted. “I know you have encouraged me in believing that the greater the difficulty the more exhilarating and better worth the effort is its surmounting. It’s up to you to practise what you preach.”

“Ah!” she said, and her voice sounded a little weary. “I must have been a horrid little prig when I talked to you like that.”

“You were never priggish,” he asserted. “But you keep a man up to the mark.”

They walked on for a while in silence, and still in silence made their way down to the shore, scrambling with difficulty over the slippery rocks. When they came upon a stretch of sand he called a halt. They seated themselves close together on the sand, and he took his coat and put it about both their shoulders.

“The nights turn in chilly,” he said. “Do you remember how hot it was when we sat here before?”

“Yes,” she replied, and drew closer to him. “Everything seems changed,” she said,—“even you—you, perhaps, most of all.”

“I know I am changed,” he allowed. “I’ve been through a good deal since I saw you...”

He could not, he discovered, tell her then the nature of the thing which had changed him. He had meant to, but when he tried to express himself he could not find the words.

“I’ve been through a good deal,” he repeated. He played with the cold damp sand, and his manner became more aloof, less intimate and confidential. “Life changes most of us.”

“Because life hurts,” she said.

He looked at her closely, recalling the bright girlishness of her when last they had talked together.

“You are depressed,” he said. “I am inclined to believe that becoming a Puritan doesn’t agree with you.”

She laughed a little tonelessly, and expressed the wish that she had been born a man.

“A man in my position wouldn’t be serving in a café,” she explained. “If I had a profession I would work at it, and not grumble.”

And then he made a clumsy remark which immediately on its utterance he would have recalled, had that been possible.

“You will have a home of your own some day. That’s a woman’s rightful profession.”

He felt her withdraw from him, and in the dragging silence that followed he realised his mistake. How could he tell what jangling chord his clumsy touch had set vibrating? Misfortune had played so busy a part in her life that love had had little chance.

“Where are you staying?” he asked presently—“with whom?”

“My mother came back to Cape Town to be with me,” she said. “We board in a little house not far from the Gardens.”

“Do you think I might come to see you there?” he asked.

“Of course. Mother would like to meet you. She knows all about you.”

She hesitated, and then said with some embarrassment:

“Before you call I ought perhaps to tell you more about ourselves...”

“That isn’t necessary,” he answered quickly. “I know as much as suffices. Nothing could alter my regard for yourself anyway. I hope you believe that?”

“You are very generous,” she answered, in so low and grateful a voice that he felt he wanted to comfort her in some more practical way than by mere words. Instead he said quietly:

“I think you are a brave, dear little soul. Your friendship is an immense help to me. It’s the best thing that has happened to me. I’ve been back in Cape Town three months now, and I’ve come out here alone and thought about our jolly walks and missed you more than I can say. It was good to find you unexpectedly like that to-day.”

Brenda glanced at him swiftly.

“You came into the café last week,” she said, “and stood close to me. I could have touched you.”

“Really?” he exclaimed in amaze. “Why in the name of mystery didn’t you speak to me?”

“I wasn’t sure you would be pleased. I thought—perhaps you didn’t wish to see me.”

“Oh Lord!” he cried, and laughed. “You—Puritan, you! As though I could be anything but pleased to see you anywhere. I don’t know how I came not to see you... But I’m eyes right generally with all those girls around. If you hadn’t returned my change—”

“Your tip,” she corrected.

“My tip, then.” He laughed again light-heartedly.—“I doubt I’d have noticed you at all. What made you do it?”

“I don’t know. It was quite a handsome tip for a café. But I could not take it—from you.”

She did not add that besides her reluctance to take his tip, she had desired to make him recognise her—had wanted to prove to her own satisfaction whether his former omission was intentional or merely the accident he now assured her it had been. She had believed it to be accidental, but at the back of her mind there had lingered a doubt; and the doubt hurt.

“I don’t want you to take tips from any one,” he said. “Promise me... I don’t like the thought of your being offered tips. I don’t like to think of your serving people. It’s ridiculous, perhaps, but I would rather you were still in attendance on that immoral old woman. She was an immoral old woman. I’d like to tell her how her conduct strikes an outsider.”

“I prefer the café,” Brenda said. “At least, there’s a mental freedom. Often I am tired, and frequently I am annoyed; but there’s a sort of liberty... After all, liberty is the best thing in life. And it’s good to get home at night-time,” she added on a softened note.

Home consisted of one room, but in that room her mother waited for her, and that meant everything.

“On the whole,” he said lightly, “you’re a lucky person. I get off at night, but I can’t get home. There’s the ocean between me and all the home I ever knew.”

He described his home to her briefly, and his parentless childhood.

“One day I hope to make a home of my own,” he finished reflectively, and after a brief pause proceeded to unburden himself of his ambitions to her in much the same words as he had confided them to Macfarlane. Then, drawing on his imagination, he enlarged and elaborated his schemes, almost forgetting his audience in the pleasure of thinking out and developing his views of life, evolved in the first instance from Nel’s opinions.

She listened in an attentive silence, which she did not break when he ceased talking. For the life of her she could find nothing to say. It sounded so coldblooded this deliberate purpose of marriage for certain ends, with a definite idea of colonisation, and no thought, it seemed to her, of love or the needs of the girl he would single out for his purpose. She felt the keen breath of disappointment chilling her liking for him.

“You don’t say anything,” he observed, slightly aggrieved. “I don’t believe you are the least interested. You don’t enter into the spirit of Empire building.”

She was looking away, seaward, and the moonlight, falling upon her face, lent it a strange pallor, and revealed the soft roundness of its outline and the shadowed mystery of her eyes. Quietly, and very deliberately she turned her face towards him, and he noticed when she moved the quick, nervous beat of a tiny pulse in the bare white throat, and the faint, half-wistful smile that curved the parted lips.

“Oh, Empire building!” she said indifferently. “What of the human need? ... Isn’t that more important? You are overlooking that, and yet it’s the most important thing of all. I don’t think so much of the Empire. Of course I’m patriotic; but the human need comes first.”

He did not answer immediately. He looked into her eyes, puzzled and disquieted, and reflected a while. The patriotism that Honor had stirred into active being was questioned and opposed by this other girl’s quiet insistence on the claim of the individual. Was he in danger of developing into a bloodless idealist, with a limited understanding of the requirement both of the individual and of the State?

So many emotions had held him of late for a space, so many thoughts had filtered through his brain and left their conflicting impressions there, that a certain confusion held possession of his mind. All the old warm impulses were subdued and dulled, and he had nothing in the place of them that was as good as the emotions he repressed. He realised that now. Something—something enveloping, stultifying and bewildering the understanding—dropped away from his soul, as a leaf drops from the tree which no longer nourishes it. He saw clearly how surely, through disappointment, he was drifting towards a hard callousness that would end inevitably in all the kindly human sensibilities becoming submerged therein and ultimately lost. He did not want that to happen. And yet he felt that he had no power to stay this drifting. The warm, generous youth of him was running back, as the sap runs back in the bark; and he was no more able to prevent this than the tree to stay the processes of nature. He had believed that he had discovered the purpose of life: now he was beginning to realise that he had discovered nothing, only lost something of worth, which he might never recover.

“It’s odd,” he remarked, “how you set me thinking. I never met any one who challenged thought as you do. I believed I was on the right tack, and you immediately point out that I’ve got my values wrong. It’s like having one’s sums crossed out on the slate when one fancied the answers were correct. There’s a baffling sort of feeling about it. And you’re right, that’s the worst of it.”

“It’s only your values that are wrong,” she said quietly. “If you readjust those, then the idea is fine enough.”

In confiding his plans to her he had intended to prepare her for the proposal of marriage he had in contemplation, and to accustom her to the idea of marriage with a man who could never be a lover. He did not know whether she divined his purpose, but he apprehended very clearly that she would not be satisfied with that.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Matheson made Mrs Upton’s acquaintance on the following Sunday. He called at the boarding house and had tea in the shabby general sitting-room, and allowed himself to be drawn out by Brenda’s mother, who was plainly bent on learning all she could concerning him before and since his intimacy with her daughter.

He succeeded on the whole in impressing her favourably, despite a natural prejudice she entertained against the unconventional manner in which the acquaintance had begun, and a further disapproval of the nightly excursions which Brenda made under his escort, a custom which allied itself with her present occupation but was not the custom of her class. Without a home, a girl was so handicapped. She felt their social downfall more bitterly on her daughter’s account than ever she had felt it on her own.

She resembled her daughter in appearance, and also in manner. Before life had bruised her she had possibly been a very entertaining woman. She possessed still a certain charm, and had an alert way of expressing herself which appealed to the listener. Matheson was conscious primarily of an immense relief. He had rather dreaded this meeting with Brenda’s mother. Why he should have expected anything so wildly improbable he could not tell, but he had anticipated a replica of Mrs Aplin. But this little quiet-eyed woman was altogether different; and her bright way of saying the unexpected thing pleased him. If her life had known unusual distress, she had not permitted herself to go down under them, but kept a brave front to the world, hiding even from her daughter the humiliation she experienced in coming back to the place where she and her misfortunes were so well known.

Brenda poured out the tea and left the talking principally to the others. She was almost nervously anxious that this man whom she already liked so well should win her mother’s approval. Mrs Upton had expressed doubts as to the desirability of this casual friendship. Matheson’s request for permission to call had done much towards mislaying these misgivings; but the ultimate decision, Brenda felt, rested with himself. She wanted him to shine, to say brilliant things; and all the while he was behaving in a perfectly correct and commonplace manner. She had not believed he could be so dull. It exasperated her. And when he rose to go he did not suggest, as she hoped he would, that they should go for a walk. Possibly, she reflected resentfully, he had other calls to make and did not want her company. It never occurred to her that he was regulating his conduct with a view to its effect upon her mother. It surprised her when he was gone to hear her mother praise in him the characteristics which she deplored.

“But he wasn’t at his best,” she protested. “I never knew him to be so dull.”

“He is a very interesting man,” Mrs Upton declared. “It was you who were a little dull. You scarcely spoke to him.” She laughed suddenly. “Perhaps he is one of those men who like an audience; otherwise I don’t see what he gets out of it, if you are not more eloquent alone with him than you were to-day.”

“Yes, he needs an audience. He always does most of the talking,” Brenda said.

After that Sunday it became a weekly custom for Matheson to call in the afternoon. Generally he took Brenda out somewhere, and when he brought her back he stayed for a chat with her mother, and occasionally had tea with them. He took them to the theatre, and to any entertainment he thought might give them pleasure. And once, despite a natural shrinking on Mrs Upton’s part to be seen in public, he persuaded them to dine with him at the Mount Nelson. That evening stuck in his memory. It was the first occasion on which he had seen Brenda in evening dress. She looked well, and was animated and almost brilliant. He felt proud to be seen with her.

Mrs Upton was considerably perplexed. It was quite manifest to her that Matheson was making up his mind to propose to her daughter, if indeed it was not already made up; but she could discover in his undoubted affection for Brenda nothing of the quality of passionate love. This disturbed her. Matheson’s quiet affection seemed to her a wholly inadequate return for the devotion of the girl’s whole heart. It was no secret from her mother that Brenda was very much in love. It was the girl’s first and only love affair, and it absorbed her entirely. Should anything interpose between her love and its fulfilment the result might easily lead to a lifelong disappointment.

Mrs Upton, realising this perfectly, could only stand by and watch the course of events shaping themselves to the making or the marring of her daughter’s happiness. There were times when she wished Matheson had not come into the girl’s life; though all the glamour and romance her life had known had come to her through him. She wished too that he had not been so sure of Brenda. The girl’s devotion shone in her look.

But Matheson, though he had no doubt of Brenda’s love, was not so confident of winning her as her mother believed. In all the weeks of their renewed friendship he had not uttered one word of love to her, had attempted none of those affectionate familiarities he had practised during the early days of their acquaintance. The kiss she had given him in the road at their first parting was the only kiss he had received from her. Something in the girl’s manner silenced him.—It may have been that the mere knowledge that she loved him, acted as a restraint; possibly too the lukewarm quality of his own desires caused him to hesitate ere taking the irrevocable step he contemplated. He was sure of the girl’s love, but he could not feel positive as to her answer. Nor was he satisfied that perfect happiness would result from an alliance based on such inequalities of affection. She had set this doubt working in his mind, and he was powerless to determine it, or to put it aside. The matter occasioned him endless thought and worry.

At times he felt like taking the plunge and leaving the doubts to resolve themselves; and then her quiet face, with the earnest eyes lit with love for him, gave him pause, and he decided to wait and allow the friendship to develop. Already it had grown deep enough to make him conscious of his need of her. The idea of letting her drop out of his life again was altogether unthinkable. She was necessary to him. He did not understand it, but he realised it perfectly. Out of the odd confection of human emotions that swayed him, his dependence on Brenda, even the inconsistent urgency of his requirement of her love, stood out and dominated the rest. He wanted her; he had no longer any doubt about that.

And yet when he was alone, and at night-time, it was seldom of Brenda he thought Even when he was with her the memory of Honor thrust between them, a beautiful, intangible obstruction keeping them apart.

The time came when he felt the necessity to talk to her about Honor. He did not stop to consider whether it was wise to do so; something impelled him to speak of this matter which alone formed a bar to their complete understanding. He could not, he found, ask Brenda to marry him without confiding to her something of that part of his life the influences of which intervened between them.

It was on a Sunday afternoon that Matheson chose to unburden himself. He took Brenda to see the Rhodes’ Memorial—the fine unfinished work of Watts, emblematic of Rhodes’ unfinished work—for that matter, emblematic of the unfinished work of any human span.

It was a day of brilliant sunshine and cool winds, such as one gets during the Cape winter, and which one can only compare with spring weather in England, or an early autumn day before the leaves fall. They went out by tram, and walked through the wonderful grounds of Groot Schuur, that magnificent home of a wealthy, ambitious, brilliant man, who dreamed of Empire expansion, and who realised a part, though never the entire dream.

Silent and a little weary, they followed the broad gravelled drive to the temple where the eight bronze lions guard the steps which lead up to the lonely enshrined bust of a strong man who, for all his greatness, despite wealth and success and numberless friends, stands out a lonely figure in the history of his time.

They walked up the broad stone steps and stood before the fine thoughtful face, lifelike in its quiet abstraction, gazing towards the north, as Watts’ equestrian statue of Energy gazes, through eternal sunlit spaces, across rich plains of unsurpassed beauty, towards the mountains and the remote distances of that hinterland which lies beyond them, and in which Rhodes’ hopes and thoughts were centred.

It was the first time that Matheson had visited the place. Its influence upon him in the quiet grandeur, the spirit-invaded atmosphere of this spot where Rhodes in his lifetime spent so many thoughtful hours, where even now in bronze he mounted guard over this chosen place, was tremendous. It did not surprise him, on looking towards her after a pregnant silence, to see the tears standing in Brenda’s eyes. There was a greatness in the quality and the inspiration of this monument to greatness which touched the secret springs of emotion and stirred the imagination.

“Let us go and sit on the seat below there, under the trees, where he used to sit,” he said.

And without further speech they descended the steps and walked quietly to the plain wooden bench where Rhodes in his lifetime sat often and dreamed his big dreams, looking away through the golden haze over the limitless scene.

“He was wonderful,” Brenda said... “His is the greatest name in South African history.”

Matheson, looking towards the distant mountains, nodded acquiescence.

“He died too soon,” he said. “That’s the worst of it... Had he lived long enough he would have linked up the south with the north. He won more territory for the Empire without bloodshed than any other man.”

“And then came the Boer war...”

Quickly he brought his face round and looked at her.

“Well, yes,” he said. “But I don’t suppose he could help that.”

“When I stand in front of his bust up there, and gaze away over this scene, and realise the greatness of him and the vastness of his ambition, I incline to believe that he could,” she said.

“Yes!”

Her words obviously impressed him. Involuntarily his mind travelled bade to Benfontein, to the impressions obtained from that visit, and the memory of the bitterness of racial hate he had discovered among the Dutch whom he had met.

“He cherished so many schemes—too many for one man to carry out Perhaps you are right, and he neglected the finest and wisest scheme of all, that of welding together the two white races in the Colony by the closest ties of friendship and trust. One can’t determine these things now.”

“He was an Empire builder,” she returned, and looked at him with a smile in her eyes. “The Empire builder inclines to overlook the great human essentials. The field of his operations is necessarily impersonal.”

For a moment or so he looked back at her steadily. She was wise, this slender slip of a girl. He already entertained a profound respect for her opinion; and it occurred to him while he gazed at her, that she would be ready also of understanding, that he had less to fear in giving her his entire confidence than in holding a part, the vitally important part, back.

And then abruptly he began to talk to her about Honor.

“I think I ought to tell you,” he said in a slightly constrained voice, and without looking at her, “that while I was away, before I came back here, something happened to me, something of tremendous importance. I met—some one—a girl... You understand... She meant a lot to me. I fell in love. She was Dutch. She hated the British... she couldn’t forget. That stood between us—her resentment struck deeper than anything else.”

He paused, and leaned forward slightly, peering into the distance.

“That’s all,” he added jerkily. “I felt I would like to tell you.”

She was silent for a space, watching him, seeing the strained look in the eyes staring straight ahead of him, the set lines of his mouth. One strong hand was clenched on the bench beside him; the prominent knuckles showed white. She put out her hand and covered his.

“Poor dear!” she said, and repeated softly after a moment: “Poor dear! ... That explains it.”

“Explains what?” he asked dully.

“Explains everything I haven’t understood in you of late... Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I wasn’t sure, I suppose, that I ought to tell you... I’m not sure now that I’ve done well.”

“Oh! yes,” she returned quickly. “I’m glad you trusted me... I’m sorry. I hate to see you hurt.”

“One gets over that—in time,” he said. “I’m not going to let it swamp me.”

And then abruptly he drew his hand from under hers and stood up.

“They provide tea in the cottage up there,” he said. “Come along and have some.”

He drew her up from the bench, and gripped her hand hard when she stood beside him, forcing a smile to his lips.

“This spot stirs the emotions,” he said. “I shall always think of it as the Place of Memories...”

Chapter Twenty Five.

It is a sad moment in a woman’s life when she realises that she does not possess the heart of the man she loves. If one may use a sordid simile in this connexion, her position resembles that of the owner of a beautiful home in possession of which the bailiff has been placed through the indiscretion of another. In this instance Honor was in possession with full power to hold, and without personal interest in the value of what she held, and what she would never claim for her own. But her right robbed the other of all the joy of ownership. An empty jewel casket has little intrinsic value, and stands only as a reminder of the precious thing it was intended to contain.

It was impossible for Brenda to hide altogether from Matheson the difference which his confidence had made to her. She endeavoured to maintain their former relations of pleasant and intimate comradeship, but he detected behind the assumed brightness of her manner the increasing restraint, the shy reserve, beneath which she sought to cloak her feelings, and the pain of her disappointment. He realised with considerable dismay that his matrimonial plans were in danger of further defeat. The fear of defeat goaded him and gave a keener edge to his desire. He could not, he found on making the attempt, reconcile himself to the thought of losing her. For one entire, unforgettable week he refrained from going near her. He had no means of discovering whether she missed him, but he missed her almost intolerably. In the end he threw over his resolves and went in search of her.

Again it was on a Sunday that he sought her after his brief avoidance. On the previous afternoon he had been at the Aplins. Something he heard there stripped his last scruple from him and determined him to see Brenda on the morrow. Mrs Aplin had pressed him to stay to dinner, and he had stayed; he did not know why; he had not wished to, and he had demurred on account of being in flannels. They waived the matter of dressing. No one would dress, Mrs Aplin announced; the girls would merely change their blouses.

The change had been somewhat elaborate, and only stopped short of being full evening dress. Instead of rousing his admiration, as had been intended, it kept alive a consciousness of his own negligent attire, which did not add to his enjoyment. He had never felt so unutterably bored with the inconsequent chatter of Rosie, nor more annoyed with May’s noisy performance on the piano. She sang popular songs with choruses in which every one joined; and when this form of amusement wearied they all repaired to the billiard-room, just to knock about the balls, Mrs Aplin said, beaming, thoroughly satisfied, having started the young people playing games, that they were having a good time.

Before he left she contrived with an openness that was not diplomatic to get a few words alone with him. Her insistence on a little private talk robbed her confidences of the air of being casual which she had intended to give them, and prepared him against surprises.

“The girls monopolise you,” she said pleasantly. “I never seem to get the opportunity for a talk.”

He wondered what was coming and felt apprehensive; but his wildest conjectures could not anticipate what she had it in mind to say. She started on irrelevant topics, wandered rather aimlessly from one subject to another, and finally came to her point.

“I am so pleased you came to-day,” she said. “We began to feel neglected. The girls tell me they see you sometimes in town; and of course at the theatre last week... I don’t think you saw us though. You were with the Uptons.”

“I saw you,” he answered, and felt himself flushing awkwardly. “But I wasn’t sure... I thought perhaps... You see, Miss Aplin told me there was a little difficulty...” He looked at her squarely and shifted his ground. “It was a jolly fine play, wasn’t it? And the acting was quite good.”

“I thought it a little sensational,” she replied, and disposed of that, smiling at him with almost maternal solicitude as she added: “It was thoughtful of you to consider my prejudices. Having girls, you see, I have to be very careful. But I am sorry for Brenda Upton. She is thrown with undesirable associates, and has been talked about in connexion with men. Her mother is always striving to get her married. That sort of thing is very bad for a girl; and with their history they ought to be so careful. She is naturally anxious to marry for the sake of a home; and I hope she will succeed in finding some honest man in her own sphere who will overlook what is undesirable in her past. She is not after all responsible for her father’s failings.”

“I should think not,” he answered, with a curtness he was unable to prevent. He felt almost uncontrollably angry. He apprehended quite clearly that Mrs Aplin was desirous of warning him against a mésalliance, and he considered it not only an unwarranted impertinence, but a mischievous and scurrilous aspersion of Brenda’s reputation. “I doubt whether any man of average common sense would think twice about that,” he said.

“You know her quite intimately, I suppose?” she ventured.

“Yes,” he answered, and added with a certain dry malice: “I imagine I am the only man in connexion with whom she has ever been talked about.”

“Really, Mr Matheson!” Her tone was as shocked as her look. He laughed savagely.

“Oh! it’s an entirely innocuous scandal. To be honoured with Miss Upton’s friendship is a guarantee of discretion. Believe me, you have been doing her a grave injustice.”

“I don’t wish to be unjust.” Mrs Aplin surveyed him with displeased, protesting eyes. “And I am sure if I had known you were such great friends I wouldn’t have spoken. But I know so much more of them than you can possibly know.”

“I know only good of her,” he returned quietly, and was immeasurably relieved that May should choose that moment for breaking in upon their talk, which he felt was getting altogether beyond his patience.

“You look,” she said, assuming a graceful pose by the head of the sofa upon which she leaned, “abnormally serious. I believe mother has been fault finding. Come and sit over here, and I’ll comfort you.”

He laughed, and answered her jestingly; but he did not avail himself of the invitation. That was the general idea in that house, that a man must be comfortably placed, and submit to being petted. Possibly some men liked petting, but that sort of thing was not in his line.

“It’s getting late,” he said, with an attentive eye on the clock, the big hand of which seemed to drag with such exasperating slowness. He felt grateful for the first time in their acquaintance to Mrs Aplin for silencing her daughter’s protests against his leaving so soon.

“Whatever did you say to him to make him so huffy?” Rosie asked when he had gone. “I always knew he had a horrid temper.”

“I warned him against that Upton girl. Those people are shameless in their pursuit of him. But he wouldn’t hear a word. If he spends all his spare time with the girls in the cafés, I don’t think it advisable to ask him out here any more.”

“It will be a triumph for her if she succeeds in marrying him,” May opined.

“Oh! he won’t marry her. Men don’t marry those sort of girls.”

As an outcome of that unfortunate talk Matheson went the following afternoon in search of Brenda. It was a cold dark day. A south-east gale was blowing, and the town was enveloped in a sticky dust that clung to the clothes and hair. Grit and small pebbles were carried by the force of the wind and stung the unprotected faces of the few pedestrians who ventured abroad in the teeth of the gale. The clouds hung dense and low upon the mountain, pouring over the rocky sides with the effect of cascades of foam tumbling over a precipice. Matheson, with his head down, buffetted against the gale, and arrived damp and rather breathless at his destination. He was early. He had timed his arrival in the hope of getting Brenda to himself. He asked for Brenda on being admitted. She came to him almost immediately, and it was manifest from her manner that his visit was unexpected.

She shook hands, looked out at the lowering sky and the waving branches of the trees, and smiled.

“You are brave to venture out in this,” she said.

“I’ve been lonely for a week,” he replied, as though that explained everything, as perhaps it did; “an earthquake couldn’t have kept me away to-day.”

The wind rattled the window, and flung a shower of tiny stones against the glass.

“God! how it blows!” he cried. He drew her to the sofa, and seated himself beside her.

“I’m not in the way, am I? You weren’t lying down?”

“No.” She laughed brightly. “I don’t do those nice reposeful things even on a Sunday afternoon. Mother is resting though, and I imagine every one else in the house. There is nothing much to do with a black south-easter blowing.”

“We won’t disturb them,” he said, and smiled at her. “I am needing at the moment only you. You don’t mind if I stay?”

She looked surprised at this question, and answered in the negative.

“You’ve made me dependent on you somehow,” he explained. “I’ve never felt so intolerably lonely as during this past week. You ought not to teach me to rely on you and then send me into banishment. It isn’t kind.”

“But,” she protested quickly, a soft amazement in her voice, “I never suggested that I didn’t wish to see you.”

“I know,” he said, “but...”

He paused, and regarded her fixedly. Their eyes met for a moment; then she turned her gaze from his deliberately and looked out through the window, an expression of distressed embarrassment sweeping over her face. He stretched an arm along the back of the sofa behind her and leaned slightly towards her.

“That isn’t enough,” he said—“not as things stand. You see, I can’t always have your comradeship that way. The time will come—it’s approaching now—when my work will take me away from here. What’s the good of friendship then? When I go, I’ll miss you—as I have missed you this week. I can’t face it. I’ve grown to want you. I want to keep you with me. There’s only one way to do that, and I’m not sure you’ll agree to it. Had I been sure I’d have said all this weeks ago. But you... you haven’t let me somehow. You’ve held me off. And since that day at the Monument I’ve been conscious of—a sort of estrangement. You made me feel that I haven’t enough to offer—”

“No,” she interrupted sharply. “Surely not that?”

The tears rose in her eyes: slowly they overflowed and rolled down her cheeks. She made no effort to stay them. She sat still with her face averted and wept silently.

“I’m a clumsy fool,” he said; “I hurt you without intending it. And you’re so sweet and kind... Dear, if you will marry me I will do everything a man can do to make you happy.”

Never one word of love! ... Not one word of love had he ever let fall in all their talks together. She dropped her quivering face suddenly between her hands to hide its sorrow from him.

“All that I have to give is yours,” she whispered—“everything... If all my love can help you just a little I will be glad. I’ve loved you—from that first morning when you spoke to me on the beach.”

He put his arms about her and drew her close and held her, still weeping, with her face hidden upon his shoulder—giving all of herself to him, taking the little that he offered, because she was a woman in love who must have denied the crumbs of his affection.

“I couldn’t bear to lose you,” she sobbed... “I couldn’t bear it. I’ve thought I couldn’t marry you even if you wished it, but—I can’t—give you up.”

Without answering her, he kissed her, if not with passion, with a great tenderness and an almost reverential gratitude; and in his heart he resolved that he would make good to her in every way in which it was humanly possible for the one thing which he could not give her—that which was given already, and which no one can give twice—the pure flame of a first passion. The love which he had for her was the steady glow which succeeds the fierce upward flash of the white flame that leaps from the heart and leaves behind only memories.

Chapter Twenty Six.

It seemed to Matheson that with his engagement events multiplied with such amazing rapidity that the deep significance of the step he had taken was lost sight of; its importance was swamped in the whirlpool of calamitous happenings that marked the year of 1914 in bloody letters upon the calendar of the world.

It was in July that he became engaged, and within a week of his proposal the world war had made its puling start with the faked dispute over an assassinated archduke. The insignificant start swelled to compelling significance; and the world awaited with suspended breath each new development of the most appalling disaster in the history of the nations. From the first Matheson had no doubt that Great Britain would be forced into the struggle. There was no choice about it; it was a question of national safety as well as of honour. He began to consider the subject in connexion with himself. Plainly if the country went to war it was his duty to see the matter through. Quite apart from inclination the man of military age and fitness was called upon to serve.

He talked to Macfarlane about it. Macfarlane was cautious and reserved his opinion.

“You’ve got a girl now,” he said. “You’ve got to consider her.”

“But that’s all the greater reason why a man should stand by his country,” Matheson insisted.

“Better talk it over with her first. And, look here!” Macfarlane became more alert. “This trouble, if it involves England, is going to reach out here. Have you forgotten your talk about a Boer rebellion? I thought you were rotting at the time—but you weren’t. You are something of a prophet, you know, Matheson. If England is full up with her own affairs, that’s just the time the Boers will seize for getting hold of this country. It’s all cut and dried, you can depend on that. Should there be trouble out here,” Macfarlane added in a hard decisive voice, “I am for helping to quell that anyway. If your talk of colonisation is worth anything, you will do the same.”

Matheson made no immediate answer. Macfarlane’s speech somehow visualised for him the whitewashed walls of Benfontein, and Honor’s face showing wanly in the moonlight while the low-pitched voice breathed its earnest question: “I wonder if you will ever see into the heart of the veld?”

“I can’t tell what I’ll do,” he answered after a long silence, and got up and went away with rather surprising suddenness.

July ended and August came in on the pathetic note of Belgium’s appeal against the savage bestiality of this new-born oppression which overran her territory, an appeal to which there could be but one answer. The hour for Great Britain’s intervention struck with that piteous cry for help.

To Matheson, after the first shock of amaze wore off, it did not appear so much a question of a European crisis as of the deepening of that sinister shadow which stretched its forbidding length across this land. Dark though the cloud of war loomed in Europe, this lesser cloud, which lay like a black stain upon the sunlit peacefulness, was even more tragic in the bitter personal nature of its animus. If no human agency could disperse this cloud, brother would be against brother, friend against friend.

Matheson did not believe that anything would avert the disaster. Quite clearly he saw it coming. Every word in Holman’s letter was indelibly fixed in his memory—the letter which Honor had read to him, and which breathed through every line the insidious cunning of the spy who is paid to organise rebellion. It was coming surely, and it would come soon.

The first intimation of active trouble revealed itself in the impudent invasion of the Union by a German force from South-West Africa, an act of war that could have originated only in a confident assurance of a prompt and general rising of the Boers.

Matheson applied to his firm for leave to volunteer, and received immediate permission. He was in a state of considerable indecision. His interest in the country inclined him to stay to defend it. Had it been a matter simply of fighting the Germans there would have been no hesitation in respect of choice; but he felt an increasing reluctance to take the field against Honor’s people. They were wrong, they were wholly mistaken; but at bottom, the motives which actuated the majority of them were pure in conception. If later in the heat of conflict, and with a free rein given to hatred, some among them lowered their ideals and committed base acts, these were in the minority. He knew what they would fight for—Liberty. Man has sought after and fought for his ideal of liberty since the beginning of time.

One result of the war was to precipitate his marriage. Whether he went to Europe, or whether he remained in the Colony and joined the Union forces, now commanded by the Premier since General Beyers’ resignation of troops he knew he could never take over with him in his treacherous alliance with the Germans, the question of Brenda’s future could not remain unsettled.

He took her for a walk and discussed the matter with her.

“I can’t, you see,” he said, “go away and leave you at the café. I want to provide for you. It will be an inadequate provision, but it will be an improvement on the café. I can’t leave you there. I don’t like your being there. I’ve never liked it. It’s rather inconsiderate to hurry you like this... Do you mind?”

“No. I can be ready as soon as you wish. But if you go to Europe I’ll go too. I could put my hand to something to help. At least,” she said, smiling, “I could undertake canteen work. I’m qualified for that. You wouldn’t object to my doing that—for the war?”

“No. I suppose I never imagined you would be satisfied to sit still and look on.”

He felt for her hand and held it, and they walked on together in the dusky starlight, rather silent and preoccupied, thinking of many things.

“This settles any chance of honeymooning,” he said presently. “We’ll have to have that later. It’s rough on you all round.”

She drew closer to him.

“I’m not minding that. Those things don’t seem to matter any more. If only you come through!”

He squeezed her hand hard, and they were silent again. The possibility of losing him had wrought a considerable change in Brenda’s view of things. Her own phrase perhaps best expressed this alteration:

“Those things don’t seem to matter any more.” The sting of bitterness had gone out of her sorrow. Those minor distresses, the jealousy of another’s claim, and the knowledge that she did not possess his entire heart, shrunk to inconsiderable dimensions in the face of this greater disaster—before the haunting spectre of possible death for him. The fear of losing him in a sudden and tragic manner made him very precious to her. There was no room in her mind for any but loving thoughts.

“What a lot of things have happened,” he said presently, “since you and I first mooned about this beach! I remember having a feeling in those days that you had come into my life to some purpose... come to stay. One knows somehow instinctively the people who are going to count.”

He stooped suddenly and kissed her lips.

“Salt kisses,” he said... “like the salt kisses I first took from you.” He held her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward slightly. “The spray has got into your dear eyes... There were no tears there on that other occasion.”

She smiled at him and attempted to wink the tears away.

“It’s only spray... don’t heed that. Go on talking... I want to hear you talk. These remembrances... I love to hear them.”

“Confidence for confidence,” he said teasingly. “Tell me something of your early impressions. Did you ever dream of me?—I’ve dreamed of you.”

“No.” She laughed happily. “I don’t dream. But I used to lean from my bedroom window and think and think and think.”

“What about?” he asked.

“You... You peopled my world from the outset. There were nights when I lost count of time, and leaned there and watched the dawn break.”

“That last night?” he asked.—“When we said good-bye under the oleanders?”

“That last night of course,” she answered. “I stayed at the window until the sun rose.”

“Dear little lonely watcher!” he said. “I wish I could have been with you... And you were in trouble too that night.”

“I hadn’t time to think of that. I was enjoying in retrospect my perfect hour. The troubles began next day.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder caressingly. “We won’t talk of that I refuse to remember unpleasant things.”

“Wise little woman! ... Stand here a moment. I want to listen with you to the wash of the waves between the rocks. How often have we stood here like this?” he said with his arm about her. “There is no other music—is there?—like the music of the sea.”

“With you beside me—no. When I listen to it in your absence it will be as sound divorced from the spirit of music.”

Bending over her, he asked quickly:

“You wouldn’t wish to keep me back?”

He thought of Macfarlane’s words: “You’ve got a girl now. You have to consider her.” He had not considered her in this matter at all. He had not even consulted her. He had taken her approval for granted.

“Of course I wouldn’t keep you back. Only I hate war. You can’t expect me to be glad.”

“There isn’t much in it to occasion any one gladness,” he replied. “It’s a bad business however one lodes at it.” The old reckless smile shone for a moment in his eyes. “Though, if it wasn’t for a certain young woman, I think I could find the prospect somewhat alluring. Man was born to kill his enemy.”

“It’s high time man had outgrown his primitive instincts,” she said, smiling with him.

“That he will never do,” he answered with conviction. “Love and hate, the primordial emotions, hang together—the antithesis of each other, irreconcilable yet inseparable. Humanity without love is inconceivable—and so is a world without hate. At best civilisation teaches us to control these elemental passions—and our control is about as effective in a crisis as the outer petals which conceal the canker in the heart of a flower. If you look close enough you see the stain of evil showing through.”

He discussed their immediate plans for a while, and referred to the growing difficulties of the South African situation. Her own brothers had joined the Union forces: he felt that it caused her surprise that he did not do the same. Her mother had taken it for granted that he would. He found it more difficult to deal with Mrs Upton; she required explanations. He was a little uncertain how she would receive the news of their immediate marriage. Although she liked him, and approved of the engagement, she had expressed the hope that they would do nothing hastily, but would learn to know one another more thoroughly before taking any decisive step.

He went back with Brenda that night to break the news to her, braced to meet opposition, and bent on overcoming it. But when he faced her and made his half-defiant announcement, he saw by the look in her eyes that there was no opposition to fear. She lifted a serious, unsurprised face to his, and said quietly:

“I’ve been expecting this... You want to marry before joining up?”

“Yes. It’s awfully jolly of you to take it like this.”

She smiled briefly.

“When it comes to war,” she said, “we stand aside and yield your sex first place. It’s your hour. You’ve a right to consideration. But for the war, I would rather you had waited—years.”

“You don’t mean that?” he said, and scrutinised her closely. “There is a little distrust at the back of your mind which I haven’t succeeded in allaying.”

She changed colour, showing signs of embarrassment, and turned away a little disconcerted at this outspoken attack.

“Do you suppose any mother ever thinks a man good enough for her girl?” she asked with a slightly nervous laugh.

“If that’s all...” he said, and waited.

She faced round again and held out both her hands to him in an impulsive appeal.

“You will be good to her?” she cried... “Oh! you will be good to her?”

“Surely,” he answered earnestly, “you know I will be?” and took her hands and kissed them.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

There was a task which, when he had little knowledge of the nearness and the overwhelming nature of the tragedy that had since befallen, Matheson had allocated to himself with every intention of going through with it; the task included fixing the guilt of incitement to rebellion on to Holman. He meant to bring Holman to account for his treachery.

Amid the hurried preparations for his wedding, which was to precede his enlistment for Home service, he had no thought of evading this task. It was inconvenient at the moment to give his time to outside matters; but the tracking down of this man—this German spy who for years had been fostering a spirit of hatred among the Boers to the end that these people whom his country was deluding would, when the hour struck, serve his country to their own undoing—the confronting him with his treachery and the bringing of him to justice was a matter of vital importance to him. In his desire to punish Holman he was moved primarily by resentment, fierce, bitter resentment that was mainly concerned with Honor, with the pernicious effect of this mischievous doctrine upon Honor’s warm responsive nature. It seemed to him that the punishment of Holman, the punishment of all those who had planned and assisted in this devil’s work, was an act of bare retribution, incomplete and wholly inadequate though the utmost punishment meted out to the individual could be in consideration of the evil resulting from the insidious poison inculcated for many years into the receptive minds of a simple and credulous people—a people labouring under a sense of past injustice. It had been an easy task for a nation accomplished in crooked measures, this sowing and untiring cultivation of the seed of rebellion. For years this work had been going forward in the Colony unsuspected. Germans who had lived on seemingly friendly relations with their English neighbours for nearly a lifetime had been steadily pursuing this system of intrigue, and secretly sowing dissension among the peoples of the country. Now the trouble had come to a head and the persons most criminally responsible had for the greater part fled to Europe.

So far as Matheson knew, Holman might also have gone. He had no knowledge of his whereabouts. The most likely source from whence to glean any information concerning him was the man’s own office in Johannesburg, though in all probability he would find the office deserted if he made the journey. There was, however, the clerk: if he could discover this youth he might possibly learn something of his employer’s movements. In any case it was worth the attempt.

He decided to start immediately; and found himself wondering how he should explain this abrupt journey to Brenda. Finally he decided to explain nothing, and left her to infer that business took him up the line. She was much occupied in getting ready for her marriage, and preparing to sail for Europe if necessary with her husband. If he served in France, she purposed serving also in some capacity behind the fixing line. It was understood between them that where he went she would follow whenever practicable. In all things they were to be comrades: only in the matter of Honor did he keep her outside his life. He had confided to her the essential facts in regard to his relations with Honor Krige; he did not deem it expedient after that to go into further detail. That part of his life was finished—he believed it to be finished; but a man cannot finish with a part of his life at will: life has a habit of facing about upon the person who would ignore it. It was so in Matheson’s case. When he had, as he fancied, closed this chapter which related to the past for ever, the chance breeze of an accidental encounter ruffled the pages and turned them bade.

On the day before he had arranged to go to Johannesburg he came face to face with Herman Nel in the fine oak avenue outside the Botanical Gardens. He was on his way to fulfil an appointment with Brenda; but when he saw Nel—Nel looking handsome and business-like in the serviceable uniform of the Union Defence Force—he forgot everything for the moment in sheer amaze at this unexpected meeting.

It was never clear to him who saw the other first; the recognition seemed to be simultaneous: the grip of their hands was spontaneous and eager.

“I never expected to see you here,” he said, and wrung Nel’s hand warmly. “What’s the farm doing in your absence?”

“Looking after itself,” Nel answered with a shrug. “I’ve come away to defend it. Leentje imagines she is seeing after things while Cornelius is engaged in espousing the German cause.” His face was grave. “Come into the Gardens here, and sit down and let us talk.”

Matheson accompanied him in silence and sat down with him on a seat near the entrance. Nel looked hard at him, looked from his face to his clothes; and Matheson felt that the shrewd eyes were mutely inquiring why he also was not in uniform.

“I’ve been in Cape Town only a few days,” Nel volunteered. “I’m following Botha wherever he leads. His lead is straight always, and for the good of the country. Cornelius can’t see that—yet.”

“So he has joined the rebellion?” Matheson said.

“Yes. He’s with his commando—and Andreas Krige. They have joined Maritz. It’s a bad business. One cannot help feeling sorry for men who deliberately cut their own throats. There is a sort of predestination in it.”

“And what,” Matheson asked quickly, “are they doing at Benfontein?”

Nel shook his head.

“I’ve not been received at Benfontein since the beginning of August,” he said. “My engagement is terminated—temporarily.” He smiled in his old whimsical way. “The outlook is dark at the moment; but always I look forward to the dawn of a to-morrow. And now tell me about yourself. You are remaining outside all this?”

His voice was puzzled; there was a ring, Matheson fancied, of disapproval behind its surprise. He took up his own defence eagerly.

“No, indeed!” he answered. “Who could remain outside? ... Certainly no one with any interest beyond his own immediate affairs. I intend to volunteer for service in Europe.”

“Why in Europe?” Nel asked. “There is quite important work to be done in this country.”

“I know it.”

Matheson was silent for a while. Presently he said:

“I’ve a feeling—I can’t explain it—against fighting out here. If it was simply fighting the Germans I wouldn’t hesitate, but—the Boers... No; I can’t do it. Simply I can’t do it.”

Nel scrutinised him closely, a kindly, rather wistful, expression lighting his grave features.

“That’s the very reason,” he said at length, “why you ought to remain out here. It’s men who feel as you do about it that we want... Do you suppose that it is easier for me, who have to take the field against the brother I love? ... Do you think it is easy for Botha to fight against men who once fought shoulder to shoulder with him in a just though unequal cause? Botha took the field before for his people; he takes it to-day for the good of South Africa, which before everything else he has at heart. He is fine—a simple and honourable man. I would follow him to the death.”

Nel stretched out a hand and laid it on the other’s knee.

“It is in no vindictive spirit that we go to war,” he added. “Always it will be in our minds to spare life where that is possible. It is for this reason, and because you have no animosity in your heart against the Dutch, that I say to you with the greatest earnestness, you can do more good here in helping to quell this ill-advised rebellion than ever you can do in Europe. Stay and see it out.”

For a while they were silent, looking at one another. Then Matheson said:

“I never looked at it like that before.”

“Good!” Nel smiled suddenly. “You begin to recognise that your work lies here?”

“Yes. I think you have shown me that.”

“Then don’t delay. Join up at once.”

Matheson thought for a moment. He was no longer in any doubt as to his ultimate decision; but there was one thing that remained to be done before he joined up. He spoke of it to Nel—told of his intention to trade down Holman, and of his projected journey on the morrow.

“You won’t find Holman in Johannesburg,” Nel assured him. “On and off for the past three months he has been at Benfontein. He was there, I believe, when I left. But that it seemed to me I had more responsible work to accomplish, I would have shot him like a jackal. I don’t know what he is after at Benfontein, but I don’t trust him. He has been Krige’s evil genius from the beginning. And the women... they simply worship him. His is the hand of the friend stretched forth to deliver them from the oppressor. As though a friendly hand was ever advanced by a stranger nation from entirely disinterested motives! They can’t see that this so strong hand of Germany would make a tool of them.”

For a while he remained without speaking, staring abstractedly ahead of him; then with a sudden movement he looked round sharply, and added:

“They are quite sincere in desiring their country’s good. That—the good of one’s country, is right in principle, only they look at it crookedly. Botha sees straight: always he works unselfishly for his country’s welfare. That is a principle it would be well for all nations to adopt. Good cannot come to any country through war.”

He looked thoughtfully away across the sunlit glory of the gardens, in which the vivid beauty of subtropical flowers and shrubs flourished prodigally, and his face was sad.

“I have watched this country grow and expand,” he said. “I have seen it shrivel beneath the devastation of war, and have watched its struggle until it blossomed forth anew. Now I see it bent and scorched before the fires of rebellion. That is the worst event that has yet befallen. But the land survives these things; only man, with his paltry ambitions and his insignificant span, goes under, paying for the folly of others with all that he has to give. It’s senseless, this business of fighting—a puerile defiance of the laws of life.”

“And yet,” Matheson said, “you and I are drawn into it.”

Nel smiled swiftly.

“Yes; you and I are drawn in. And if we have to pay the full price we shall consider the end worth the sacrifice. I recognise sincerity, Mr Matheson, when I meet it. From that first morning when you visited my rondavel I knew that we should be friends. I don’t know how deeply you are interested in South Africa, but if you live here long enough the land will grip you.”

“It grips me already,” Matheson said. “I am ready to help purchase the peace of this country without counting the cost.”

Nel’s eyes brightened with a sudden fire; his voice, quiet and controlled though it was, vibrated with a ring of triumph.

“Boer and Briton!” he said, and laughed quietly... “Boer and Briton! I would merge such distinctions in the comprehensive title of South African. To us—to you and to me—this land belongs by virtue of the reason that we live by it, and are willing to defend it with our lives. The land is our inheritance. Imperial claims concern me very little. A man who has a life’s lease of his homestead doesn’t take much account of the landlord. You haven’t come yet to feel that way?”

“No. I don’t suppose an Englishman ever does.” Matheson glanced at his watch. “I’ll have to be going,” he said, and laughed a little consciously. “I’ve an engagement for three, and am overdue now.”

He stood up. Nel rose with him. For a second or so they remained still in the path steadily regarding one another.

“I’m going to be married,” Matheson said abruptly—“in three weeks’ time.”

“Yes!” Nel’s gaze was searching. “I’m glad to hear it, Mr Matheson,” he said. “You are more fortunate than I. Is she English?”

“Yes... born out here. I hope some day you’ll meet her. But to-morrow I leave, as you know.”

“You are going to Benfontein?”

Nel’s tone was discouraging. Matheson answered in the affirmative.

“Well, don’t forget,” the Dutchman added cautiously, “that your life is of infinitely greater value to the country than Holman’s death could be. It will be a desperate man you face, remember. Take care of yourself.”

“Yes; I’ll do that,” Matheson assured him, and held out his hand. Nel grasped it.

“You’ll find the rondavel open and provisioned,” he said. “You may have a use for it.”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

On parting from Nel, Matheson started to walk briskly, aware that already he was some minutes late for his appointment. It was the first occasion on which he had kept his fiancée waiting. He did not anticipate that she would be vexed; the delay had been unavoidable, and the meeting with Nel had saved him an unprofitable journey. A knowledge of Holman’s whereabouts simplified his quest and would economise time, which was an important factor; the settlement of this business had to be accomplished while he was free to attend to private matters.

In his hurried walk he overtook the Aplin girls, very gay and important, bedecked with tricolour ribbons and wearing the Union Jack badges in their hats. They were frightfully busy, they informed him, collecting for Christmas parcels for the troops. It was great sport, begging, but desperately tiring.

“One likes to feel that one is helping,” Rosie explained.

Their manner towards him was more gracious than it had appeared of late. On the few occasions when they had met since his engagement they had contrived to convey a sense of aggrieved disapproval, and had pointedly refrained from offering him their congratulations on his forthcoming marriage. They never referred to Brenda.

“Mr Macfarlane told us you were going to Europe,” May said. “When do you sail? I’ve promised to write to half a dozen boys who have joined up for overseas.”

“I’ve changed my mind about that,” he said. “There’s work to be done out here first.”

Immediately their interest waned.

“If I were a man, as I told Mr Macfarlane, I’d want to go where the big things are doing,” May asserted. “I wouldn’t be bothered with these horrid rebels.”

“Somebody must,” he said, and refrained from further comment. It would be wasted labour, he felt, to question their point of view.

“But it would be such a lark, going to Europe. It’s the chance of a lifetime. I wish mother would let me go.”

“Nursing?” he inquired.

“Oh, nursing! That’s horrid work. No. I’d like to drive an ambulance wagon, or do something smart... and wear a uniform like the men.”

“Yes,” he answered, and laughed. “I remember you had always a leaning towards fancy dress. I daresay you’ll find something to do even here.”

“Oh! we’re having a perfectly gorgeous time,” put in Rosie, “And we are really working—not just stupid sewing meetings, you know, but hard work. We are organising a fancey fête for the relief of the poor Belgians. It will be great fun. We are raising the funds all right.”

“After that we start recruiting,” May added, smiling. “The slackers will have a bad time of it. Every man ought to be a soldier.”

“You are busy,” he said, and wondered whether they ever took anything seriously. The war was not a world disaster, but a huge excitement with possibilities of interesting developments. It gave them something fresh to think about. “I turn in here,” he added, pausing outside the gate leading to Brenda’s lodging.

Rosie’s glance travelled towards the windows of the house, and then back again slowly to his face.

“I suppose Miss Upton has had something to do in influencing your decision to remain out here?” she said. “She wouldn’t like you to go to Europe.”

“She is satisfied either way,” he answered. “Had I sailed for Europe she would have accompanied me. That was settled from the first.”

They parted from him unconvinced, and with a slight return of the chill displeasure he had grown to look for from them. The halt at Brenda’s gate had seemed to them an affront.

“Of course she stopped him from going,” May declared. “She knows if she lets him out of her sight she risks losing him. She was always an artful little thing. I believe he would get out of that engagement if he could. It seems to have flattened him.”

“He hasn’t been the same since,” Rosie admitted, and looked away down the leafy avenue with sentimental eyes. “It’s such a pity; he’s so awfully good looking,” she said, and sighed.

Brenda was on the stoep waiting for him when Matheson reached the house. She must have witnessed the parting between him and the Aplin girls, which had been sufficiently leisurely to excite resentment in view of her long wait. He forestalled any remark by apologising for his lateness.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “Twice I was stopped on the way here. I ought to have been with you half an hour ago. I met a man—a Dutchman—Nel: he kept me. He wants me to join Botha’s army.”

She scrutinised him closely.

“And you’re going to?” she said.

“Yes.”

“These changes are a little unsettling,” she observed after a brief reflection. “I was quite prepared for Europe.”

“You don’t mind?” he asked quickly.

“No.” She stood touching his coat softly, caressingly, with her fingers; and her eyes wore a look of quiet satisfaction, almost of relief. “I’ve dreaded France for you. Out here a man has a chance—a sporting chance; over there it’s a war of chemicals. No; I’m not brave. I never wanted you to go.”

“One has to defend the Empire,” he said.

“Oh! yes.” She smiled suddenly. “No woman really admires the man who thinks otherwise. But...”

She broke off abruptly, and pulled him towards a seat on the stoep and sat down beside him.

“Tell me, who is this man? Why should a Dutchman influence you so strongly? I tried from the first to persuade you to join the Union Forces. I’m jealous of this Dutchman.”

He laughed and possessed himself or her hand and pressed it warmly.

“He’s a Boer I met up country—one of the finest men I know. He has the welfare of South Africa at heart—like Botha and Smuts.”

“Oh! a loyal Boer,” she said.

Matheson made a gesture of impatience.

“That term is applied so differently,” he said. “He is one of the men who are on our side, if you mean that.”

“Well, but that’s being loyal, isn’t it?” she said.

“Loyal to one’s conception of right—yes. I imagine one needs to be Dutch to see the thing clearly. He is not a son of Empire; he’s a South African, heart and soul. His brother is on the other side.”

“Ah!” she said. “A rebel. That’s painful for him.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It cuts him, of course, badly. But he regrets this difference rather than condemns it. That’s where the wider understanding of race comes in: he discriminates between sedition and mistaken ideals.”

“And he has tutored you?” she said.

“He—and others.”

He looked away from her, aware of her searching scrutiny. Did she guess, he wondered, that Nel was somehow connected with the story of Honor? His sympathies with the Dutch, he felt, must wound her in a sense.

“I’ll tell you why he wants you to join Botha’s army,” she said, after a short pause; and Matheson was conscious that the fingers of the hand he held closed suddenly tighter about his own—“why you mean to do that rather than go to Europe—because you also understand... You’ve gone into this question, and you can regard it without prejudice. I wish I could do that.”

“Any one can,” he asserted. “It’s merely a matter of analysing motives.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I know that admittedly there are two sides to every question; but each side sees inevitably its own point of view; occasionally one may obtain an imperfect view of the other side; but it is given only to the largest vision to see both sides clearly. The wider vision lights the path to a more complete understanding. I wish I possessed it.”

“Are you so sure you don’t?” he asked, and took her chin between his fingers and turned her face towards his and held it for a while. “They see a long way, those wise brown eyes. Some one once tried to make me see into the heart of Africa... You penetrate deeper than that—you see into the heart of humanity; and there you have the key to everything.”

Matheson did not speak of the other change in his plans which the meeting with Nel had brought about Brenda still supposed he was going to Johannesburg; and he allowed her to think that. But he felt some embarrassment when she asked him to send her word of his arrival, and a telegram to let her know when to expect him back.

“If I miss writing on my arrival,” he said, and felt mean at the equivocation, “I’ll wire you news of my return. It will be such a hurried affair, I doubt whether there will be much time for writing—and none for receiving any reply from you. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be there at the station to meet you,” she said.

“Well, of course.”

He experienced a new tenderness for her, a sort of protective love, unlike any other emotion he had felt, as he sat beside her on the tiny ill-kept stoep and talked fragmentally of unimportant things in a determined effort to steer wide of the tragic doings of the times, and to avoid further discussion of his own immediate plans. It afforded him pleasure to reflect that shortly they would be married; that when all this business of fighting was over they would have a home of their own, and this dear girl chum would be his wife and daily companion. He put his arm about her shoulders with an unwonted display of affection that caused her a thrill of shy pleasure. She never invited his caresses; they were the more precious on account of their rareness.

“You’re such a chum,” he said. “I think I’m a very lucky fellow to have secured so dear a comrade to march by my side through life.”

“That’s all I ask to be, your comrade through life,” she said, and looked up at him with big worshipful eyes, secure in the knowledge that comradeship is the surest foundation upon which to base a successful marriage. The union thus founded is more assured of continuing happiness than a marriage between unequals as the result of physical attraction. Passionate love has its limitations; but comradeship, which is born of a perfect understanding, strengthens with the years.

It was odd, Matheson reflected while gazing steadily into Brenda’s quiet eyes, that the encounter with Nel should have brought nothing of the past very vividly back. He wondered whether in returning to the scene of those emotional stresses he would experience anew something of the pain and keen resentment of frustrated desire which had gripped him at the time with what had seemed unforgettable anguish.

It struck him, while he pondered these things, as disloyal to Brenda, this contemplated journey to Benfontein; the fact that he kept his destination secret from her was proof in itself of a consciousness of wrong. He was not acting on the square. He was not even sincere with himself. Why should he undertake the punishment of Holman? It was clearly a case for the military authorities, and his duty to furnish the necessary information and leave the matter with them. He recognised that. But the complex motives which drove him to seek out Holman, to confront him with his villainy, and deal personally with this insidious poisoner of innocent minds, were compelling. In striking at Holman he not only struck at a national enemy, he would strike also at the insinuating subtlety which had thrust between himself and Honor; which thrust between Honor and happiness, and trampled ruthlessly over the virgin soil where the tender seed of love lay germinating, and disturbed it and bruised it and left in its stead the unlovely seed of hate, striking its tenacious suckers deep into the ground. There was no punishment to fit this infamy; but at least he could make certain that the lying tongue was silenced and could do no further harm.

The urgency of his desire reduced his scruples to a minimum. But he felt shame none the less as his glance rested on the girl beside him, the girl whose entire heart was given into his keeping. It was not much of a return he was making her. Contrasted with the richness of her gift, the poverty of his was painfully apparent.

“Come!” he said, grown suddenly restless before the rush of his own thoughts. “We are wasting our afternoon. We’ve a lot to crowd into the next few hours.”

She stood up and faced him, laughing.

“Man of moods,” she said, “I was just wondering how long you would be satisfied to sit here staring at the gum trees... Let us go out into the sunlight and the wind—and just talk...”

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Sweeping swiftly, as quickly scudding clouds will sweep athwart a wind-swept sky, memories that were not wholly bitter flashed across Matheson’s mind with each mile that he covered on his journey to Benfontein. Some odd thought or phrase or emotion leapt out of the past into prominence and held him with all the vital qualities of a thing newly realised. Always in imagination he was speeding towards Benfontein, though Nel’s rondavel, and not the farm of Andreas Krige, was his ultimate destination.