“I’ll be there at the station to meet you,” she said.
“Well, of course.”
He experienced a new tenderness for her, a sort of protective love, unlike any other emotion he had felt, as he sat beside her on the tiny ill-kept stoep and talked fragmentally of unimportant things in a determined effort to steer wide of the tragic doings of the times, and to avoid further discussion of his own immediate plans. It afforded him pleasure to reflect that shortly they would be married; that when all this business of fighting was over they would have a home of their own, and this dear girl chum would be his wife and daily companion. He put his arm about her shoulders with an unwonted display of affection that caused her a thrill of shy pleasure. She never invited his caresses; they were the more precious on account of their rareness.
“You’re such a chum,” he said. “I think I’m a very lucky fellow to have secured so dear a comrade to march by my side through life.”
“That’s all I ask to be, your comrade through life,” she said, and looked up at him with big worshipful eyes, secure in the knowledge that comradeship is the surest foundation upon which to base a successful marriage. The union thus founded is more assured of continuing happiness than a marriage between unequals as the result of physical attraction. Passionate love has its limitations; but comradeship, which is born of a perfect understanding, strengthens with the years.
It was odd, Matheson reflected while gazing steadily into Brenda’s quiet eyes, that the encounter with Nel should have brought nothing of the past very vividly back. He wondered whether in returning to the scene of those emotional stresses he would experience anew something of the pain and keen resentment of frustrated desire which had gripped him at the time with what had seemed unforgettable anguish.
It struck him, while he pondered these things, as disloyal to Brenda, this contemplated journey to Benfontein; the fact that he kept his destination secret from her was proof in itself of a consciousness of wrong. He was not acting on the square. He was not even sincere with himself. Why should he undertake the punishment of Holman? It was clearly a case for the military authorities, and his duty to furnish the necessary information and leave the matter with them. He recognised that. But the complex motives which drove him to seek out Holman, to confront him with his villainy, and deal personally with this insidious poisoner of innocent minds, were compelling. In striking at Holman he not only struck at a national enemy, he would strike also at the insinuating subtlety which had thrust between himself and Honor; which thrust between Honor and happiness, and trampled ruthlessly over the virgin soil where the tender seed of love lay germinating, and disturbed it and bruised it and left in its stead the unlovely seed of hate, striking its tenacious suckers deep into the ground. There was no punishment to fit this infamy; but at least he could make certain that the lying tongue was silenced and could do no further harm.
The urgency of his desire reduced his scruples to a minimum. But he felt shame none the less as his glance rested on the girl beside him, the girl whose entire heart was given into his keeping. It was not much of a return he was making her. Contrasted with the richness of her gift, the poverty of his was painfully apparent.
“Come!” he said, grown suddenly restless before the rush of his own thoughts. “We are wasting our afternoon. We’ve a lot to crowd into the next few hours.”
She stood up and faced him, laughing.