What had become of all his misgivings now, as he sprang out of bed, his one and only thought that of joining her as soon as possible? The voice, however, was not addressed to him. It was merely raised in commonplace command to the small Mashuna boys. What a lovely voice it was! he thought to himself, pausing to listen, lest the splashing of his tub should cause him to lose a tone of it: and he was right so far. Hermia owned a beautiful speaking voice, and it constituted not the least of her fascinations. Recklessly now Justin cast his self-accusations to the winds.
And Hermia? Well, she had none to cast. Self-accusation was a phase of introspect in which she never indulged. Why should she, when the rule of conduct on which she acted with a scrupulosity of observance worthy of a better cause, was “Get all you can out of life, and while you can”? Never a thought had she to waste on the absent. It was his fault that he was absent. Never, moreover, a misgiving.
Yet when Spence joined her there in the gateway of the stockade, the eager, happy glow in his face met with scant response in her own. She affected a reproachful tone and attitude. They had both done very wrong, it conveyed. It could not be helped now, but the least said, soonest mended. They had been very weak, and very foolish, but it must never occur again. And all the while she was killing herself in her efforts to restrain her laughter, for she fully intended that it should occur again—again and again—and that at no distant period: but she was going to keep her adorer’s appreciation up to fever heat. To this intent, he must be kept well in hand at first.
Well, he was submissive enough even for her, and again she was convulsed with suppressed mirth, for she promised herself keen enjoyment watching his struggles to keep within the bounds of conventionality she had imposed upon him. The whirlings and buzzings of the impaled beetle of her childhood’s days, as the luckless insect spun round and round in his efforts to free himself from the transfixing pin, were not in it with the fun held out to her by the writhings of this six-foot-one victim. And the sport was already beginning in his blank face and piteous tone.
“No, I don’t think you must even use my name, Justin,” she said, in wind-up of the programme she was laying before him as to his future rule of conduct. “You will be forgetting, and rapping it out when Hilary is here.”
“What then? Would he be very jealous?” returned the victim shortly, very sore with jealousy himself at this recalling of the absent one’s existence.
“Perhaps. There’s no telling,” answered Hermia, with a wholly enigmatical smile. She was thinking that here was a new and entertaining development of the situation. Hilary jealous! Heavens! that would be a feat to have accomplished. She did not believe him capable of any such foolish and youthful passion. And yet, if she misjudged him? And recognising such a possibility, a spice of fear came to season the excitement, only serving however to enhance its original zest.
In the fair scene spread out before these two there was little enough to suggest the growlings and roarings of ravening beasts making terrible the dark night hours. The undulating roll of veldt, green after the recent rains, and radiant in the golden morning, sparkled with innumerable dewdrops. Birds called cheerily; bird-wings glanced through the air in gorgeous colour and flash of sheeny streak; and the great granite kopjes to the westward, rising to the cloudless blue, seemed to tower twice their height in the shimmer and warmth of the newly risen sun.
Upon this lovely outlook one of the two was gazing with a moody brow and a heavy heart. Suddenly he started.
“Who’s this, I wonder?” he exclaimed, shading his eyes.