“Well, no. You see I’ve got it all arranged now. I can’t throw up the plan. Besides, I want to see how they work a war of this kind. My mind is made up.”
No one knew better than Mona that when the speaker said his mind was made up, why, then it was made up. Still she continued to plead.
“Ah, don’t go! Besides, it is a paltry affair, and hardly worth a man’s while to touch. It is quite sickening to hear these Doppersdorp ‘heroes’ brag. They go away nearly three hundred strong, and come back again with three men slightly scratched, and talk big about ‘terrible hand-to-hand conflicts lasting all day,’ ‘assegais flying as thick as hail,’ and so forth. Dear, don’t go; I have a presentiment something will happen.”
Roden laughed.
“How does that pan out for a lovely bit of feminine consistency?” he said. “After labouring to show that the whole thing is child’s play, and the merest walk over, you adjure me not to go, on the ground that I shall come to grief if I do.”
“And that day on the cliff; was my warning right or wrong then?”
His face softened at the recollection. For a moment they stood gazing into each other’s eyes.
“You saved a strange sort of life, Mona.”
Instead of replying, she moved to the window and declared, in a commonplace way, that there was a big dust-cloud whirling up the road; for the place they were in was a certain staring and fly-blown apartment, which did duty for “drawing-room,” at the Barkly Hotel, and now steps were approaching the door. The latter opened, admitting the head and half the person of Sonnenberg.
“Beg pardon. Thought Suffield was here.” Then meaningly and with an impudent grin, “Sorry to interrupt. ‘Two’s company,’” and the door closed behind him.