“You are a little startling in your vehemence, Honor,” Freidja Krige observed, speaking for the first time since her sister’s advent had snapped the desultory general conversation, which Matheson had found so unenlivening, and flung the bombshell of her complaining into the void.
Honor laughed quietly. The deep emotions that had swayed her and provoked her attack, were subdued; she had her feelings well in hand now.
“I haven’t startled any one really,” she said. “But—I have made Mr Matheson angry.”
A new quality had come into her voice. She gave Matheson a gesture of appeal. It was as though she wished to assure him that there was nothing personal in her attack, that she did not hold him responsible for the national crimes of which she complained. She excepted him, as she excepted her mother. They had been born English, they couldn’t help that. He might even be an estimable person in despite of it.
“Not angry,” he contradicted, and rose, moved, not so much by a desire to stand, as a feeling that he wanted to be more on a level with her, wanted to face her on equal ground; seated he was at a disadvantage. “What you have said has given food for thought I’d no idea; ... One doesn’t think enough about these things. It’s only when one comes face to face with it that one gets a sense of what lies beneath the surface. We are too easily satisfied with a superficial view. One should look deeper.”
Honor’s arm fell from her mother’s neck and hung at her side. She did not move nearer, but she turned more directly towards him.
“You will look deeper,” she said with conviction.
Suddenly a smile broke over her face.
“I have shown you something of the tragedy of the veld,” she added. “To-morrow, if you are willing to rise with the sun, I will show you something of its beauty and its charm. The Karroo is at its best when the day is young.”
If he were willing... He would have risen in advance of the sun to have set forth in her company on any quest.