“There’s the dinner-bell, and you haven’t even off-saddled. How late we shall be!”
“We shall, rather. But what does it matter? Good Lord, though, how the last hour has flown?”
Was it a suspicion born of the fact that these two shared a momentous secret that made them think Stephanus exchanged more than one significant glance with his wife while they sat at dinner? He began to talk about his nephew Adrian. The latter never came near them now. He had changed entirely, and seemed to have run patriotism mad. Moreover, he had taken to associating with certain Boers of a particularly low and disreputable type, such as Hermanus Delport, Gideon Roux, and others.
The while Condaas and Andrina were kicking each other under the table, and Aletta was feeling supremely uncomfortable. Then the worthy Stephanus, suddenly becoming aware that he was romping gaily over mined ground, abruptly changed the subject.
But thereafter was surprise in store for him, when Colvin took him aside and imparted the events of the morning. Stephanus was delighted, and an additional fact, not at present to be divulged, which the other imparted to him, did not lessen his satisfaction.
“Maagtig! Colvin. You are a slim kerel,” he cried, shaking his son-in-law-elect warmly by the hand. “Why, you have kept it dark between you. Well, I don’t know anybody I would rather give my little girl to. Besides, she is almost English in her ways. But, say; it seems a strange thing that you, with ample means to live where you like, should prefer to bury yourself in an out-of-the-way place like this. Of course, for us who are born to it, why it’s different. We couldn’t get on anywhere else.”
“Oh, I like the life, Stephanus. Since I have known Aletta, I have liked it more. By the way, I am under no sort of a cloud at home, if that is what you are thinking about. I could go and set up in London to-morrow if I wanted.”
“I was not thinking otherwise, ou’ maat,” said Stephanus heartily. “Let us go in and tell the wife.”
Mrs De la Rey gave both of them a good-humoured scolding. She ought to have been told first, not Stephanus. Girls belonged first of all to their mother. She, too, was delighted. But the cream of the joke came when they broke the news to old Tant’ Plessis.
“Colvin going to marry Aletta?” cried the latter sharply. “What nonsense are you telling me, Gertruida? Why, Colvin is going to marry Wenlock’s sister. She is the only English girl here, and he is the only Englishman, so of course he is going to marry her. I have heard Mynheer—no, I mean everybody—say so.”