“You are making me out ungrateful. It isn’t that, believe me... You are so kind; I know you will forgive my seeming ungraciousness. It is really important that I should return to the coast. There is some one in Cape Town who expects me. I am going to be married shortly.”
He was conscious as he said this of the sudden brightening of Mrs Krige’s face. She glanced towards him with eyes that expressed interest and an immense relief.
“I’m so glad,” she said.
She got up and moved away to the window, and remained with her back towards the bed, so that Matheson was no longer able to watch her face. She was, as he was perfectly aware, thinking of the confidence he had once reposed in her, when he had talked to her of his hopeless attachment for Honor, and had seemed to reproach her for the misdirection of Honor’s views. Those days appeared far away now; so much had happened in the interval; and yet the distress of them was painfully alive.
“Tell me about her... her name, and where she lives,” Mrs Krige said presently, without turning round. “You know I’m interested. I always hoped that—that something of the sort would happen.” She faced about and came back to the bed and sat down beside it. “I wish I knew her. Help me to know her through you... Talk to me about her. If you describe her I shall have a picture of her in my mind.”
The pleasant eyes bent upon him were so kind and inviting of confidence; the voice, asking for details of the girl he was so soon to marry, expressed such real sympathy and understanding, that Matheson found himself confiding in her fully the story of his engagement and the events which had led up to it. He painted the worth of his little fiancée in no mean colours, and admitted his own good fortune in having won the most priceless of all possessions, a good woman’s earnest love. But he did not speak of his own love. Possibly the mother of Honor understood that for him the shadow of the past lay darkly yet across the sunlit prospect of this later love, and, lingering, obscured the brightness of the newly won happiness in the gloom of unforgettable things. But no shadow hovers eternally in life’s sky: the darkest clouds must pass.
He told her of Brenda’s home life, and touched upon the sadness of her girlhood, and the plucky fight she was putting up when he met her.
“She’s such a brave, bright little soul,” he finished. “I want to make up to her if I can for the things she’s missed. I’m going to devote my life to that end. Only sometimes I doubt...”
He broke off and moved restlessly on the pillow, and looked up to discover the kind, comprehending eyes scrutinising him attentively, and flushed beneath their gaze.
“She’s such a capital chum,” he said. “I’m not really worthy of her.”