This side of four! Why, she thought about seven was going to be the hoar named. Make Suffield wait! Why, Charlie should wait till midnight if she chose. And the voice, the tone! When Roden spoke thus he could make her do whatever he liked. Was he beginning really to care a little for her at last? Her heart beat tumultuously as she went down the stairs, laughing and talking commonplace with her companion. Could he ever love her as she loved him? Was it not all a one-sided affair and therefore despicable? Ah! but—she told herself—there was a possibility; and this it was which underlaid the strange wellspring of new-born happiness which had sprung up in Mona’s heart, completely transforming her. Now and then a corner of the curtain which hid his inner nature was lifted—lifted just enough to convince her that the capabilities which lay behind were those which it was in her power to call into play, and that the day might come when her love should be returned tenfold.
After all, thought is swift, and can cover a great deal while the thinker is descending one flight of rather rickety and not very well-swept stairs.
Nothing was said during dinner about Roden’s impending trip, for an absence from duty of upwards of two days was irregular, to say the least of it, on any other terms than a formal application to headquarters, which, at that distance from the Colonial Office, would necessitate a couple of weeks’ correspondence and a due expenditure of red tape. When Roden returned to the office he found Mr Van Stolz already there, letting off steam in a few harmless “cuss words,” for the post had just arrived, bringing with it from headquarters an unusually large batch of circulars, desiring information of no conceivable utility; also some returns.
“Musgrave, old chap, look at all this damn nonsense,” said the jolly little R.M., with a mischievous laugh, shoving away the obnoxious papers and lighting his pipe. “What, the devil! do they think we’ve got nothing better to do—and with all these troops of burghers pushing through to the front, and knocking us up in the middle of the night to find rations for them? These stoopid returns ’ll take at least a week of turning out dead-and-buried records to make up.”
“Then I won’t go down to the Camp to-morrow, sir,” said Roden, thinking how he would quietly chaff Mona as being in league with the people at headquarters to knock his trip on the head.
“No, no, Musgrave. It isn’t so important as all that. I’ll get them together, somehow, and Somers can give a hand. Besides, we needn’t hurry. It doesn’t do, either, to break one’s neck being over zealous. You don’t get any the more appreciation for it, or promotion either; at least, that’s what I’ve learnt after my twenty odd years in the Service, though of course it wouldn’t do to say that to every sort of a youngster who happened to be one’s clerk. And, I say, Musgrave, old fellow, that pony of yours has had quite his share of work of late, after Stoffel Van Wyk’s rhyboks. Why not take my horse to go down there on? He’s a young horse, but a good one, and he’ll stand fire like an armchair, as you know, though he does shy like a fool now and again at a schuilpaat (Dutch. The small land tortoise common all over South Africa.) the size of a snail.”
“It’s awfully good of you, Mr Van Stolz, but—”
“Tut, tut! What’s a horse for, if not to be ridden? Any fellow knows he can always have mine when I’m not using him, and I’m not often.”
“Rather—why, you keep the whole township going in riding material.”
“Ha! ha! I believe I do!” was the jolly reply. “Why, no less than three fellows wanted to borrow Bles to-day, but I thought it might be as well if you took him to go and have a shot at the Kaffirs, instead of your own, Musgrave, so I let him have a rest to-day.”