She felt herself blushing at the thought; and pulled up at the gate, and stood with it open and her hand upon the iron spikes, wavering, and looking uncertainly upon the shadowy road. If she detected in his manner any decrease of respect it would hurt as well as humiliate... Perhaps after all it would be wiser not to go...
She glanced back over her shoulder towards the house. Two men made their appearance on the stoep while she looked back. She had made one of a set with them that day for tennis; the younger had suggested taking her up the mountain later. It had seemed quite natural and in order to consent to these things. Yet what did she know about these men more than she knew of Guy Matheson? They chanced to be staying in the same house; that was all: had the other been staying in the house she would not have hesitated to walk with him on the beach. These distinctions were rather absurd.
She let the gate go, and it clanged behind her as she emerged upon the road, and, startled a little by the noise of the gate swinging to, stood for a second and looked about her with an air of furtive watchfulness, and the feeling that she was doing something just a little shameful, something which later she might regret.
The expedition seemed scarcely worth such complications of perplexed thought. It was a proof of the strength of her inclination that she persevered in face of this sense of impropriety, and the formless doubts that assailed her continually in defiance of the logic with which she sought to banish them. She was interested in this man with the strong body and handsome face and the air of reckless indolence. She wanted to meet him and talk uninterruptedly without the necessity to break away in the middle of the conversation and hurry back to a meal or something. The freemasonry that exists between persons of like temperament and instinctive sympathy assured her that this interest was mutual.
She crossed the road and walked on to the beach. Against the wall, lounging in the shadow of it and obviously waiting for her, was Matheson. When she saw him she realised how ashamed, how bitterly ashamed, she would have felt had she arrived first. He must have dined early, or hurried through his meal, to have got there so soon. He turned his head quickly, caught sight of her, and advanced to meet her.
“It’s good of you,” he said. “But I felt sure you must relent.”
He scrutinised her for a moment, and found himself enjoying the effects of the last rays of the sunset warming her hair and the clear olive of her skin.
“The sun is kissing you good-bye. It’s a good time of the day, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes,” she answered a little shyly—“the best time of all.”
“Wait,” he counselled. “I am going to take you beyond Sea Point. You needn’t trudge it all the way. We can board the tram—as far as it goes. Round the point one gets a view of the Twelve Apostles—if you care about mountains,—but I’m sure you do. One faces the wide sweep of the bay and the immensity of the open sea. We’ll watch the moon rise out there—then you will know which is the best time of all I want you to admit that my hour is the best hour.” He laughed with a ring of light-hearted enjoyment in the sound of the mirth. “Humour me,” he pleaded. “That’s one of my conceits.”