“He is interested in his work,” Freidja put in quickly. “As for hard work, every one works hard on a farm.”
Involuntarily her glance travelled in her sister’s direction. How did Honor purpose making beds and helping with the dinner in that frock?
Honor proceeded leisurely with her breakfast, as though work were the last thing to concern her. It did not concern her for the immediate present. With the finish of breakfast the visitor must be disposed of; he would sit in the garden in the shade of the pepper trees—her mother would see to that; then she would slip out of her clean frock and get through the morning’s work and dress again. It was quite simple, entailing merely a little additional trouble. Honor did not object to trouble of that nature, and visitors were rare.
“You shame my idleness, Miss Krige,” Matheson said. “I don’t see why I should be told off to rest. I think I’ll go and have a look at that well.”
Honor laughed.
“You know you just long to sit in the shade and smoke,” she said.
And Freidja, who, like Andreas, disapproved of her sister’s easy familiarity with the stranger, replied that she thought her brother would prefer to accompany him when he inspected the wells.
“You see,” he said, and turned in protest to Mrs Krige. “I am not allowed to do anything. Every one insists upon encouraging my natural indolence.”
He would have been very willing to sit in the garden had Honor consented to sit with him; but, breakfast over, Honor disappeared with her sister; and Mrs Krige, explaining that they had duties to attend to, offered to show him a pleasant corner in the shade of the trees, where he would feel as cool as it was possible to feel in such warm weather.
She led the way into the garden. There were chairs under the trees, and a primitive wooden seat formed with roughly sawn logs, which served the double purpose of a seat and table. Beyond the garden were lucerne beds, and beyond these again was a fencing of wire confining a number of Krige’s best birds. It was neither a restful nor a pretty garden; it was burnt up and sunbaked like the surrounding veld, save for one long bed below the stoep which was planted with flowers and carefully tended. Some one who loved flowers cared for these and watered them.