Just then his housekeeper, Katrina, Gert’s wife, met him in the door with a note. It had just been brought, she said. Baas Wenlock’s boy was waiting for an answer.
He opened the note. It was in May’s handwriting, wanting to know if he would come over and spend Sunday with them. What should he reply? This was Friday; yet, one way or the other, he was under no doubt whatever that in forty-eight hours he would not be precisely inclined to put in the day at Spring Holt—no—no matter how things went. Yet to refuse would seem unfriendly, and, viewed from one aspect, somewhat brutal. So he left the matter open, pleading hurry in his reply.
Then as he passed out of his door a chill feeling came over him. How would he re-enter it—elate, happy, or—only to calculate how soon he could make arrangements for leaving it altogether, for shutting down this volume of the book of his life? And with a sense of darkling superstition upon him the delivery of that message as he passed the threshold seemed to sound a note of ill augury.
He was destined to meet with another such. When nearly half-way on his ride he came in sight of another horseman cantering along the flat at some distance off, travelling towards him. A few minutes more and he made out Adrian De la Rey.
It was rather a nuisance, he decided. He did not want to meet Adrian just then. Adrian was too addicted to making himself disagreeable in these days. Formerly they had been very friendly, but now, since Adrian had come upon them that morning in the garden, his manner had changed. It had displayed towards Colvin, upon such occasions as they had met, a brusqueness akin to rudeness.
“Daag! Adrian!” cried the latter, reining in.
“Daag!” answered the young Boer gruffly, without reining in, and continuing his way.
“You want a lesson in manners, my young friend,” said Colvin to himself, feeling excusably nettled. “Well, well!” he added. “The poor devil’s jealous, and of course hates me like poison. I suppose I should do the same.”
Thus lightly did he pass it off. He would not have done so perhaps could he at that moment have seen the other’s face, have read the other’s mind. A savage scowl clouded the former, black and deadly hatred seethed through the latter.
“Wait a bit, you verdomde rooinek!” snarled the Boer to himself. “Your days are told. They may be counted by weeks now, and not many of them. These accursed English—is it not enough that they rule our land and treat us like Kafirs, without coming between us and those we love? Their time of reckoning will be here directly—and of this one too. He little knows—he little knows, that he will be dead in a few weeks. No-no!”