Now night had fallen, and at Quaggasfontein the sounds of household and nursery were alike hushed, and these four sat out upon the stoep, enjoying the still freshness; discussing, too, Roden’s trip to the nearest seat of hostilities, on which topic Grace Suffield was inclined to be not a little resentful.
“How can you go out of your way to shoot a lot of wretched Kaffirs, who haven’t done you any harm, Mr Musgrave?” she said.
“That holds good as regards most of the fellows at the front,” he replied.
“No, it doesn’t. Many of them are farmers, who have had their stock plundered, perhaps their homes destroyed. Now, nothing of the kind holds good of yourself. I call it wicked—yes, downright wicked, and tempting Providence, to throw oneself into danger unnecessarily. Your life is given you to take care of, not to throw away.”
“I don’t know that it’s worth taking such a lot of care of,” he murmured queerly. But she overheard.
“Yes it is, and you’ve no right to say that. Putting it on the lowest grounds, don’t you come out here and help amuse us? That’s being of some use. Didn’t you help me splendidly when we crossed that horrible Fish River in flood? I believe you saved my life that night. Isn’t that being of some use?”
“Here, I say, Mrs Suffield, are you all in league to ‘spoil’ a fellow?” he said, in a strange, deep voice that resembled a growl. For more forcibly than ever, her words seemed to bring back to the lonely cynic, how, amid the whole-hearted friendship of these people, he had been forced again to live his life—if indeed he could—if only he could!
“Don’t know about ‘spoiling.’ You seem to be catching it pretty hot just now, Musgrave, in my opinion,” laughed Suffield.
“And he deserves to,” rejoined that worthy’s wife, with a tartness which all her hearers knew to be wholly counterfeit. “Doesn’t he, Mona?”
“I don’t know. As you’re so savagely down upon him, I think I shall have to take his part.”